Liege Lord

One of many quite competent yet largely unheralded American heavy metal bands of the 1980s, Camden, CT's Liege Lord were formed in 1982 and released three commercially unsuccessful but critically well-regarded albums, before quietly breaking up at the end of the decade. Sadly, this was actually a very common state of affairs for most American "classic" metal bands of the 1980s (e.g., Metal Church, Omen, Virgin Steele, etc., etc.), whose music was inspired by the New Wave of British Heavy Metal (as well as antecedents Judas Priest -- ergo Liege Lord's original name, Deceiver), instead of flashier homegrown hard rock groups like Aerosmith or Van Halen. As a result, Liege Lord members Andy Michaud (vocals), Tony Truglio (guitar), Pete McCarthy (guitar), Matt Vinci (bass), and Frank Cortese (drums) quickly realized that their demo tapes were gaining more traction among metal fans in Europe than in their own country, and so they didn't think twice about accepting an offer from French label Black Dragon to release of their first album, Freedom's Rise, in 1985. Naturally, this situation virtually ensured that the band's career remained stillborn in the U.S.A., even while their crunchy and adept fantasy metal collected accolades across the pond.