Voltz

Hampshire, England's Voltz first came into existence toward the end of 1979, undergoing repeated lineup changes even as they got busy playing local pubs and working on a few demos. Progress was slow, however, and by 1981, the band had actually split up, and it was only through the dogged persistence of brothers Glen (vocals, guitar) and Gary Leinster that Voltz hung around long enough to recruit new members Mark Fisher (guitar) and Paul Hancock (bass) and to give this rock star thing another go. Inspired by the New Wave of British Heavy Metal's D.I.Y. ethic, the quartet eventually decided to say "bollocks" to the unappreciative music industry at large, and followed in the footsteps of other scene luminaries such as <a href="spotify:artist:3z3KnhKZObj216IgfHYGVf">Diamond Head</a> and <a href="spotify:artist:6qb6fL6FjCjyN7kLbXrXEE">Legend</a> in simply financing and producing their own LP, Knight's Fall, themselves, thank you very much. As expected given its title, this contained fantasy-laced hard rock and metal mixed in with surprisingly ambitious, and shockingly mellow, progressive rock tendencies. Interestingly, the end results were distinctive enough to get the album panned by all-important Kerrang! magazine, yet launched a small cult behind Voltz, who soon founded themselves playing gigs in London and negotiating a deal with French label Amidisque. But when the company inexplicably got cold feet (despite having already invested in a batch of new demos and even brought the band to Paris for some shows), a demoralized Voltz suddenly found themselves back in England, close to square one, and entering "Battle of the Bands" competitions to try to keep their profile up. The final nail in their coffin was hammered home soon after, when frontman Glen Leinster was admitted to hospital for a long-delayed operation on his over-abused vocal chords, initiating an enforced hiatus from which the luckless Voltz never returned. ~ Eduardo Rivadavia, Rovi