Grave Digger Pray

With a long discography in over 35 years of career, Grave Digger are one of the most longeval and appreciated band devoted to classic and true HM. The beginnings of Grave Digger date back to 1980. In 1983 they released their debut album “Heavy Metal Breakdown”, second album “Witch Hunter” in 1985. Festival appearances, a tour as the supporting act for Helloween, and a triple headlining tour with Celtic Frost and Helloween followed before the release of the third album “War Games” in January 1986, all on Noise Records. Then Uwe Lulis on guitar joined in 1987 and the band's name was changed to Digger, under which they released the album “Stronger Than Ever”. This album had anything in common with the earlier music of Grave Digger and it was not accepted by fans. As a result, Chris Boltendahl declared the break-up of the band at the end of 1987. However, the band partially reformed in 1991. Chris Boltendahl and Uwe Lulis, along with two newcomers, Tomi Göttlich and Jörg Michael (Rage, later in Running Wild, Stratovarius), released a comeback record, “The Reaper”, returning to the true Heavy Metal roots of Grave Digger. “Symphony Of Death” is released in 1994, with the same line-up of “The Reaper”. Then other great albums follow such as "Heart of Darkness" (1995), "Tunes of War" (1996), "Knights of the Cross" (1998), "Excalibur" (1999), all with the same powerful lineup except for the drummers, Frank Ullrich first (on "Heart of Darkness") and Stefan Arnold (Capricorn) then, while from "Knights of the Cross" on Jens Becker (Running Wild, X Wild) joins on bass replacing Tomi Göttlich. In 2001 also Uwe Lulis left the band and was replaced by Manni Schmidt (Rage), closing a band's chapter; with this line up they recorded the obscure “Grave Digger” (2001), the epic “Rheingold” (2003), then “Last Supper” (2005) and “Liberty or Death” (2006) both albums not completely appreciated by fans. "Pray" Ep is released in 2008 as starter for new album "Ballads of a Hangman" (2009) featuring the title-track (extended version) taken from the forthcoming album and three non-albums tracks (2 unreleased and 1 Motorhead cover) ; on both releases Thilo Herrmann (Running Wild) joins as second guitar; these are the last recordings with Manni, then he is replaced by Axel Ritt. Available on Lp for the first time, kindly licensed by Napalm. 1. PRAY (Extended Version)2. OVERKILL (Non-Album Track)3. MY BLOOD WILL LIVE OFREVER (Non-Album Track)4. WHEN THE SUN GOES DOWN (Non-Album Track)