At least two German underground metal bands followed a similar path in the second half of the 80s. Grave Digger, as well as Stormwitch released three excellent longplayers that sounded refreshing, heavy and dark. The similarity continues to the point, that both bands wanted to add a more melodic and commercial touch to their sound. Stormwitch released with ’The Beauty and the Beast’ an album that was different than what fans got offered on the previous albums, but still featured some good songs. Grave Digger chose a path of renaming the band into Digger and launched with ‘Stronger Than Ever’ and wasn’t as strong as the title predicts.
Later, the band underwent another renaming process and acted as Hawaii. With ‘Bottles and Four Coconuts’ a demo has been released before Chris Boltendahl reactivated to the Grave Digger. The Hawaii-years are a kind of the forgotten years and fans of the clansmen might not even know about that period.
On December 8th, 29023, Vic Records will release an album called ‘The Forgotten Years’ which lasers in on the Hawaii times and the transformation back to Grave Digger. The album features all the 11 tracks of the ‘Bottles and Four Coconuts’-demo as well as the ‘Return of the Reaper’ demo from 1991 and the following “for promotion only’ from 1992. The songs have been re-mastered & restored by Achilleas Kalantzis (Varathron, Possesed, Sacramentum) and include liner notes by Pim Blankenstein with founding member Chris Boltendahl.
‘The Forgotten Years’ – that’s an album that tells the story of Grave Digger returning to their heavy metal roots and might be an interesting release for collectors and fans with a need to close a gap.
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