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Friday Morning Metal – 3 Inches of Blood No More

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Well this week has a bit of a bummer to it. 3 Inches of Blood announced they are disbanding after a farewell show November 7th in Vancouver. So today we get to celebrate the 10-ish years of deadly sinners destroying orcs while storming Juno beach on the lookout for the execution tank.

Advance and Vanquish

Advance And Vanquish was the first 3 Inches of Blood album I heard, upon the insistence of my garage-rock scenester friends. I’ve already posted about it previously so I won’t get into the nitty gritty. But back in 2004, most of the metal you could find in the states either had some guy rapping in it, or was downtuned to hell & back and sounded like butt. So Advance and Vanquish was a breath of fresh air, a startling reminder that metal can still be big and bold and feature a singer who could probably shatter glass with his voice.

Oh they also integrated a 3-song epic about greed & pirates called “Upon the Boiling Sea.” Pirate metal!

Deadly Sinners:

Destroy the Orcs:

Wykydtron:

Fear on the Bridge:

Fire up the Blades

3 Inches of Blood know how to start an album. Through the Horned Gates is a slow burner instrumental intro, waiting to kick you in the teeth with Night Marauders. And Goatriders’ Hoard continues the speed, with fantastic drum & guitar work. And the singing! So awesome. I’ve written about this album previously, too, but it’s just so great. This was the last album featuring Jamie Hooper, who provided the growly screaminess to Cam Pipes’, well, pipes.

Goatriders’ Hoard:

Assassins of the Light:

Great Feasting Hall:

Night Marauders:

Here Waits Thy Doom

Here Waits Thy Doom is a solid album, but it’s not really my favorite 3 Inches of Blood album. The sound is a bit stripped down, and gives an early 80s Judas Priest vibe. Battles & Brotherhood leads the charge, with some great dueling guitarmonies and fantastic vocals from Mr. Pipes. This is the first album with Justin Hagberg providing backing vocals, giving it a different growl than what Hooper had done on the previous two albums.

Battles & Brotherhood:

Call of the Hammer: (best curling/shuffleboard song ever)

Snakefighter:

Execution Tank:

Long Live Heavy Metal

Just hearing the dueling guitar riffs starting off Metal Woman is enough to get me stoked. Then there’s a kickass bass groove, then drums, then a badass scream! Long Live Heavy Metal is the standard other bands should strive for: bombastic, powerful, driving songs with vocals that keep the momentum going. This album even features a song about hockey players beating each other up. Which is the most Canadian Metal thing ever.
Their homage to Dio, Look Out, is such a tremendous song, with a killer riff and great links to all of his great work. And the organ work toward the end is just icing on the cake.

Metal Woman:

Lookout:

Leave it on the Ice:

Storming Juno:

It was amazing to see these guys perform live. Bellingham’s not necessarily known as a heavy metal town, usually shows in town are hip-hop, nostalgia acts, or local jam bands. And even still, 3 Inches of Blood sold out the shows they played here. I’m sure proximity to Vancouver helped a bit, but there was still a strong contingent of local metal heads at their shows.

Favorite Metal Albums – 3 Inches of Blood – Advance and Vanquish

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The first time I heard 3 Inches of Blood, I was hanging out with some friends in college. We called these kids scenesters at the time, but I guess they were a modern equivalent to hipsters. They liked girljeans and were fellas. Anyway, they listened to a lot of hardcore punk and screamo and stuff like Gorilla Biscuits & the lesser known Gayrilla Biscuits. So when they told me they found a band I might like, I was a little hesitant. Then I heard the opening to Deadly Sinners and I realized they were actually being good friends.

Hailing from the frozen tundra of Vancouver, BC, 3 Inches of Blood bring some of the biggest, fastest, and loudest power metal/heavy metal/priest-era metal you can find. Cam Pipes has one of the best names for a metal vocalist, and he delivers high octane and high octave chops that hearken back to the days when metal gods roamed the earth.
And Advance and Vanquish is probably my favorite album out there. Its opening track, Fear on the Bridge, is part of a multi-song epic, Upon the Boiling Sea, and the sound of a cannon being lit and fired is a solid way to drop you into imagery of pirates sinking Spanish brigs and looting their booty. Haha booty lootin.

As great as Fear on the Bridge is, I feel like the true intro track/single is Deadly Sinners. The intro is huge, dropping you into driving drums, dueling guitars and a great growl of “C’mooooooooooon” by original secondary singer Jamie Hooper. Also enemies of metal, your death is our reward. Pipes’ falsetto just ties everything together, setting the tone for an album full of face-melting metal.

The album does merge a bit of hardcore punk with the metal themes that will take hold in future albums. Dominion of Deceit seems to walk the line between the two genres with a deft skill. Though really the guitar harmony and double kick helps reinforce the metal awesomeness of 3 Inches of Blood.

I often refer to how quickly a song can get me going the speed limit on a bicycle. Usually it involves trying to pace the snare hits, since if I go for the bass drum I’ll have a heart attack within a block. Advance and Vanquish regularly gets me pacing and/or passing traffic, like some sort of heavy metal bicycling dbag.

Key tracks: Deadly Sinners, Destroy the Orcs, Wykydtron, Revenge is Vulture