Customer Reviews

One Foot in Hell

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

While many Ungol fans prefer their older efforts, this CD, their last, dating from 1986 is my favorite. The songs are excellent, the singing unique and the guitar work very reminiscent of Black Sabbaths Tony Iommi.

Yes, it takes some getting used to Tim Bakers screaming vocals. they are not for everyone. His singing (or lack thereof, probably hindered this band from ever getting very popular). But the vocals fit the music so well, kind of like how Udo Dirkschneiders vocals fit Accepts music.

One Foot In Hell is probably Cirith Ungols most "commercial" effort and I say that due to the catchyness of the songs. "100MPH", "War Eternal" and "Doomed Planet" are excellent pieces of music. The rest of the CD's songs are of high quality as well.

It is too bad they are not around anymore. But you can enjoy what they created. "One Foot In Hell" is Cirith Ungol at their best. Buy.

Hard, heavy, fast and raw is the best way to describe 'old' Cirith Ungol. Full of wicked lyrics and driving guitar hits, these songs are definitely for the Chaos-oriented. From Blood & Iron, to Chaos Descends, to Nadsokor (The City of Thieves from Moorcock's Elric Saga?), to 100MPH, and One Foot In Hell this album hits hard, fast and relentlessly with the deep throaty growl of Tim Baker at the lead. IF you can still find it, their follow-up album King of the Dead, with Toccata in dminor, Finger of Scorn, King of the Dead, Atom Smasher, Black Machine, Cirith Ungol, and Master of the Pit is a great compliment to the other CD and the two will make quite a compilation of all their early great stuff.

this album has been remastered and the music heads for your ears at 100 mph!

Cirith Ungol is a band that despite the fact that is never got HALF the recognition and the fame it deserved, never betrayed their heavy metal. In fact,their albums got better and btter all the time...One foot in hell finds them playing total epic metal not for the faint of heart....It Simply Crushes!!!!

This is their third album from 1986. It is not better than their first two underrated classic albums: "Frost and Fire" and "King of the Dead." However, it's still a good album. If you enjoy Mercyful Fate you will like this group. The vocalist and the style of their music is similar to Mercyful Fate, but yet original and not fixated on Satanism. It is classic metal from the 80's and they were ahead of their time. "One Foot In Hell" is a good album from start to finish and none of the songs are horrible. The music is creepy, doom-laden, nightmarish, gloomy, and powerful as their previous albums. It's was long overdue for Metal Blade to release this album and I'm very glad to own it!

yes,they have a "silly" name (if ya arent fimiliar with Tolkien).
yes,certain elements here are dated to the musical time in which it was created
however....
this really,really holds up rather well!perhaps inferior to "king of the dead",this is in no way unworthy of your time.
for those that hunger for true metal,along the lines of Priest,Queensryche,Mercyful Fate,Maiden,Jag Panzer,etc..
i am always amazed at how MANY metal-folk who have no IDEA about this band - take a chance while you still can & thank me later!!

Cirith Ungol, One Foot in Hell (Metal Blade, 1986)

Well, this is it-- the album NME readers called the worst metal album in history. Okay, so it's cheesy, we all know that. It's eighties metal, and the vast majority of eighties metal was cheesy. (Did you ever actually LISTEN to the lyrics on those Venom albums? Cripes!) The production values, to be kind about it, blew goat (but were better than those on the band's first two albums, by maybe five bucks or so). Still, there's a majesty to songs like "Blood and Iron" and "One Foot in Hell" that's impossible to deny, even with Tim Baker's "well, it takes some gittin' usedta" voice. The boys are tighter than ever on this one, the music is straight-up metal, and man, you can't NOT love that cover (Whelan's painting that originally graced the cover of the seventies DAW edition of Michael Moorcock's The Vanishing Tower).

Like the first two albums, if you know you're going to like it via nostalgia, an abiding love of fantasy fiction (especially the Eternal Champion), or you've been a longtime fan of Cirith Ungol who just never got around to picking this up, do so. Quick. The rest of you, well, try some audio clips at Amazon to see how you feel about Tim Baker. *** ½

I discovered this band when I originally bought "The Best of Metal Blade-Volume II". Their track "Blood and Iron" was on that album and I was hooked. It has everything you need in a classic metal album-excellent riffing, good rythym section and doom and science fiction filled lyrics. I always thought that these guys were underappreciated and I was very happy to discover that Metal Blade re-released this on CD, as I never thought that I would ever be able to replace my worn out tape copy. If you like good, straight ahead 80's metal with solid chops, this is a great cd to own.

Cirith Ungol is probably the best cult metal band of all time, this album is like the Lord of the Rings - King of the Dead is like the Silmarillion. King of the Dead is musically the more interesting, but One foot in Hell makes a significant statement of concern for human society, which is more powerful because of Cliff Burtons vocals which are probably the most intense hundred percent natural vocal effects ever. Sadly these great records were obscure even in their own time. The lyrics go right off the bat into metaphors about politics - The tangled web is slowly woven by feeble leaders mankinds chosen - which is a theme of the album - talking about the pressure in life to look the other way and how we always want to struggle to do the right thing. There isnt any filler, except maybe one song. Forging the Fire is probably the high-point of the album, the album would be un-remarkable if reduced to its individual components, what makes it all work is like magic.

Cirith Ungol is one of the best Epic Metal Bands, ever. They managed with only four releases to give new definition to the term "Epic Metal". I rate it with 4 stars, being very strict, as I believe that "Paradise Lost" is their best LP.