Praying Mantis

A very underrated, older band from England drawing mainly from 70's metal (coming out as part of the NWOBHM) and 80's melodic hard rock influences, split and meshed pretty evenly.

Most music threads I start tend to be about bands that are very under the radar on all counts; not a lot of reviews, places to get domestic albums, etc, that people looking for new stuff may like, because I feel that fills a little void, and this is no different.

Their older stuff, the only 80's album they had, 'Time Tells No Lies', and the seperate 7" tracks like 'Captured City' - which is one of their best -, are comparable to classic UFO, Thin Lizzy, etc.

A lot of odd band/management problems sort of led to nothing else being released under the name until the 90's, which has stuff with more of the melodic rock influence showing. 'A Cry for the New World' and 'Forever in Time' are good albums to check out from that period. 'Forever in Time' might just be their best overall. In 2000 they came out with 'Nowhere to Hide' which is their most AOR influenced album yet, fans of that will absolutely eat that album up. And so forth..

They've had a lot of lead vocalists over their career, but the songwriting core stays the same (including Dennis Stratton from Iron Maiden up until their most recent) and the mixture of hard guitar rock with NWOBHM and genuine AOR is infectious. Any fans, or maybe potential fans?

Where you can hear:

Children of the Earth

Captured City

Cheated

MySpace (the other three songs and nothing from the albums are on the MySpace.. but the MySpace has 'Best Years' and 'Only The Children Cry' which are great examples of the more polished era)

I had a praying mantis land right on me once duriong a photo shoot.

'sup OCI? Long time no see.

Based on OCI's recommendation, I checked out Praying Mantis. I really like!

Hey dood.....................................

Migration has occurred.

Hey, I recognize that avatar...

Long time, no see OCI!

Love me some PM. I have a bunch of thier albums, including one called "Live at Last" with Di'anno on Vox. Of cousre, most of the set was old Iron Maiden tunes, so it was cool to hear, basically, a different version of Iron Maiden. It's a great album. Track it down, if ya can. I think it is pretty hard to come by.

Nice to see ya at the HOM OCI. Let's do some trading!

good to see teh TOHOS...........


Thanks.. but I have little to no trade stock these days....I wish I did.

forever in time is their masterpiece followed by nowhere to hide. QUALITY always from my compatriots! their trademark short leads and multi dimensional choirs with the throat of tony o'hora and the troy bros. as for lives i'll take play in the east as their best(i don't care the less for live at last or demorabilia compo with di anno) despite that's a boot. hail to japanese fans(who never gave a sh*t for trends) for keeping this band alive and to george arvanitakis for running their fanclub in the 90's and bringing them for live twice....

How is that recording? What's the lineup?

I've heard the 'Captured Alive in Tokyo' live album, and while it's musically very solid...there's some duds like 'Victory'...and Gary Barden (MSG), who does the lead vocals, seems to be having an, uh, off night...

'Letting Go' from that concert..



Good to see Clive Burr though..

"Live at Last" is not a boot - It's on Grand Slamm, if that is what you were saying Syrus.

Who Let this wanker in?

Good to see ya at the HOM,OCI

I've only heard one song of theirs that I have on a NWOBHM compilation. Good tune and sits well with the other songs on there, but I've never investigated the band any further than that. Perhaps I will when I become independantly wealthy and have nothing but disposible income and all the time in the world to do so. Until then, they'll go in the "pick-up-if-I-happen-to-find-a-disc-at-a-flea-market-for-under-5-bucks" category.

I don't like them at all, but the album cover for Time Tells No Lies is very cool.

Saw them the other night in Germnay and I was going to head off too the beer tent but I got talking to a guy and then PM started playing, great band live I must say and I knew fook all about this band but they played an NWOBHM only set and it was great, lead guitarist is excellent too, their singer is a fruity as a fruit salad though, still don't know any of thier songs though.

Have all their albums and love them. Totaly underrated band. Sad but true.

Praying Mantis are one of those bands that I have always wanted to get into having heard a few tracks and really liked them but they seemed to have gotten away from me due to the sheer volume of bands and CD's out there. Still, after reading this thread and the fact they are playing Bloodstock I decided to try and find a few of their albums. Boy are they a tough band to track down. Managed to get the latest album and forever in time but as for the rest, unless you want to pay way over the top then no chance, still I shall keep an eye out in the future.

New album out in August 21st (Frontiers Records).

They are one of my favorite bands.




Tracklist:



1. Fight For Your Honour
2. The One
3. Believable
4. Tokyo
5. Better Man
6. All I See
7. Eyes Of A Child
8. The Runner
9. Against The World
10. Fallen Angel
11. Second Time Around

Praying Mantis is the fool's gold of the NWOBHM for me. Their track "Captured City" is one of the jewels of the Metal For Muthas compilation, but the rest of their material is usually far too light to even be considered hard rock. I always hope they will sound like they did on "Captured City" but they never do. Ah well, I am glad that they still have fans and their artwork by Rodney Matthews is excellent.

Witchfinder wrote:

Praying Mantis is the fool's gold of the NWOBHM for me.  Their track "Captured City" is one of the jewels of the Metal For Muthas compilation, but the rest of their material is usually far too light to even be considered hard rock.  I always hope they will sound like they did on "Captured City" but they never do.  Ah well, I am glad that they still have fans and their artwork by Rodney Matthews is excellent.  

that is so strange. I thought they were really good early on and have been getting even better with the last couple releases. I guess that is why not everyone likes the same thing!

exact33 wrote:

Witchfinder wrote:

Praying Mantis is the fool's gold of the NWOBHM for me.  Their track "Captured City" is one of the jewels of the Metal For Muthas compilation, but the rest of their material is usually far too light to even be considered hard rock.  I always hope they will sound like they did on "Captured City" but they never do.  Ah well, I am glad that they still have fans and their artwork by Rodney Matthews is excellent.  

that is so strange. I thought they were really good early on and have been getting even better with the last couple releases. I guess that is why not everyone likes the same thing!