Euro metal pioneers Oz were originally formed in Nakilla, a small town in Finland, in 1977. The band consisted of Mark Ruffneck (real name Pekka Mark) on drums, lead vocalist Ape De Martini (Eero Hamalainen by real name), bassist Tauno Vajavaara and Kario Elo on guitar. It took the four Fins five years to come up with the material for their legendary debut album "Heavy Metal Heroes - Hey You". With the success of the album not only in Finland (but all over continental Europe), Oz decided to permanently move to Stockholm, a much larger city than their original hometown, in order to follow a professional recording career. The follow-up album to "Heavy Metal Heroes - Hey You" was issued in 1983 under the name of "Fire In The Brain". With high-energy heavy metal anthems such as "Fortune", "Megalomaniac" or "Gambler" it was an even more striking effort than the band's debut record. In his "Collector's Guide To Heavy Metal" Canadian metal journalist Martin Popoff awarded the album 9 out of 10 points and remarked: ""Fire In The Brain" is a dark, depressing freight train of a record, a richly European work, which pounds relentlessly from the opening heaves of the brilliantly apocalyptic 'Search Lights', through the slow death trudge of 'Black Candles', to the violent concluding wails of the title track." "Fire In The Brain" received fantastic reviews in the underground metal press (for example in England's Metal Forces). In a big special on "Heavy Metal in Finland" by Germany's Rock Hard magazine drummer Pekka Mark concluded: "It's possibly our most popular album. All of us were living in Stockholm at the time, so we could fully concentrate on making music. "Fire In The Brain" was licensed to various countries all over the world, in Germany it was available through RCA. Some of the magazines listed the album as one of the best in 1983 - and this year a lot of great records saw the light of day." -- MATTHIAS MADER
