STORMWITCH - Walpurgis Night CD

Limited to 500 copies, slipcase, poster.

The question of where heavy metal's triumphant ascent via the NWOBHM and other affiliate scenes at the dawn of the 80s ends and the subsequent rise of power metal begins is, if nothing else, a complex one. Even trickier is tracking how the genre went from its gritty traditional roots to the purportedly smoother and more sanguine in the optimistic sense brand of European power metal, or to address the actual elephant in the room, how does one go from Iron Maiden to Helloween? It naturally follows that there was a substantial intermediary leap thanks to the rise of German speed metal in the mid-80s, but the beginnings of the shift under consideration can be laid at the door of Gerstetten-born metal maniacs Stormwitch, and specifically their 1984 debut studio offering Walpurgis Night.