In the early eighties we were bombarded with new bands from all over the globe. These were the days before Internet and streaming, so whether you got to hear all of it was very much in the hands of how big and knowledgable your group of friends was. In the case of BROCAS HELM, they were one of those bands from the NWOBHM era that have been overlooked by a lot of people. They started in 1982, after the band they originally had, PRISONER, had run it's course. And as they are from LA, California, USA, they would have been part the New Wave of Californian Heavy Metal. They did use a lot of influences from bands like IRON MAIDEN, JUDAS PRIEST, but also ANVIL and RIOT. Gthey mixed it all up and made that into a sound very much their own. In all these years they only managed to release three full length studio album (“Into Battle” in 1984, “Black Death” in 1988 and “Defender Of The Crown” in 2004), a live album (“Black Death In Athens” in 2004) a compilation album (“Demonstration Of Might” in 2012) and a boxed set (“Medieval Metal” in 2022).

They must have figured that it was time to put all the demo tapes together on one album. The result is currently being played on my laptop. It contains 22 songs, lasting just over 78 minurtes, and it is called “Helm's Deep (The Demo Anthology)”. I have to admit, going through all the tunes in one go is quite the task. Not because the songs are bad, on the contrary, but it has more to do to try and seperate the songs from each other. What I do find remarkable is that only one song makes it's appearance twice. That does give you enough scope to find out the wide range of BROCAS HELM.

The biggest plus of “Helm's Deep (The Demo Anthology)” is the fact that for a demo album is sounds bloody good. Every song is very distinguishable in sound, and not one of the instruments is being overshadowed by the others. This goes to show the level of professionalism BROCAS HELM has always been capable of bringing to the table. As for the songs themselves, there are no really bad songs there, but neither are there any that jump out at me in an overly positive way. To me “Helm's Deep (The Demo Anthology)” shows that BROCAS HELM had a certain level of quailty that they were thriving to reach, and they stuck to it religiously. This is a very commendable treat that other bands should and could use to their advantage.