Fire In The Brain

Description

Euro metal pioneers Oz formed in Nakilla, a small Finnish town, in 1977. The band consisted of Mark Ruffneck (real name Pekka Mark) on drums, singer Ape De Martini (Eero Hämäläinen), bassist Tauno Vajavaara, and guitarist Kario Elo. It took the four Finns five years to compose the tracks for their legendary debut album, "Heavy Metal Heroes - Hey You". Bolstered by the success of this album, not only in Finland but throughout continental Europe, Oz decided to permanently move to Stockholm, a city much larger than Nakilla, to pursue a professional musical career. Their second album, "Fire In The Brain", was released in 1983. With energetic heavy metal anthems such as "Fortune", "Megalomaniac", and "Gambler", this album was even more remarkable than the band's first effort. In his "Collector's Guide to Heavy Metal", Canadian journalist Martin Popoff gave it a 9/10 rating and declared: "'Fire In The Brain' is a dark and oppressive album, a deeply European work that relentlessly hammers out sounds, from the first apocalyptic tremors of 'Search Lights' to the slow and ominous progression of 'Black Candles', and up to the violent screams of the eponymous track." "Fire In The Brain" received excellent reviews in the underground metal press (notably in the English magazine Metal Forces). In a special feature on heavy metal in Finland, published by the German magazine Rock Hard, drummer Pekka Mark concluded: "It is undoubtedly our most popular album. We were all living in Stockholm at the time, which allowed us to fully concentrate on the music." "Fire In The Brain" was distributed in many countries around the world; in Germany, it was available via RCA. Some magazines ranked it among the best albums of 1983 - a year that saw the release of many excellent records.