11. Gravestone Victim of Chains 1984 (Scratch)
Heavy Metal
Hey man…… we really are the real deal.
The Lowdown
European mainland bands have been well represented on this year’s list, which is no surpise considering that’s where the European metal secene was shifting after the commercial fall of the the NWOBHM as far as Europe went with metal. Germany was the logical location for the huge rise (technically West Germany as the Wall still hadn’t come down) for a whole host of metal bands at this time. They of course already had the highly acclaimed Scorpions a worldwide metal draw and Accept were on the verge of becoming a world known metal band. That left the multitude of other German bands to concentrate on their native Germany and the already veteran Gravestone were easily of the best bands on this whole Teutonic metal scene and they along with the already reviewed Trance (see 1983 list) were perfect examples of where German metal was at this time. German metal bands for all their talent were unfortunately like a lot of mainland European metal bands, in that their recordings easily fell into the ‘cliched metal style’ that would be associated with a lot of these bands, who by and large were just copies of their English speaking counterparts. Gravestone though were something very different in that respect and steered away from the anthemy style that could be expected from them and instead went in for one of the most ‘all-encompassing’ metal albums of the year in
Victim of Chains their third studio album.
Victim of Chains besides drawing influences from bands like AC/DC, Judas Priest and fellow Euros Krokus, threw up hard rock, speed metal, power metal, melodic metal and ballad sections across the album and they did all of this to a top-notch level. The band had been formed way back in Bavaria in 1977 as a progressive rock band, which explains their attraction to a multitude of musical styles, before they steered into a pure metal direction and
Victim of Chains is without doubt a real metal delight in respect to this. All of the musical styles that I’ve mentioned above are demonstrated on this album, but like with any great album they have been diluted in a way, where each of these styles just seems at times to seamlessly flow from one style to the other and this is done with a great combination of both melody and disjointedness on the majority of the songs. In fact the disjointedness sound of the album is one of its key attractions, making the album a perfect example of needing several listens to really appreciate what it has to offer. The opening song “Fly Like an Eagle” sounds like a speed metal version of the Scorpions but Berti Majdan’s shriek is a world away from Klaus Meine here. The band show that they’re real deal on tracks like “Death and Reality” and “Son of the Freeway” both great metal fare. The band display great beauty for a metal band on the opening of “So Sad” which really harks back to epic 1970s rock. The song then proves what a showpiece track it really is when the track introduces it's staggered sounding melodic section and Berti Majdan even sounds like Jon Anderson of Yes here. “The Hour” is one of my favourites on the album thanks to the vocals and guitar shredding on the song. “For a Girl” sounds vocally like a sloppy effort but the song has a certain amount of charm to it. "Rock 'n' Roll is Easy" is classic almost anthemy type hard rock material before embarking on a great 'radio commentary' section which neatly blends into the song. The instrumental "The Bells of Notre Dame" starts with a motorbike revving before going onto become an obvious homage to Van Halen's "Eruption" and album closer "Blind Rage" is probably not the strongest album closer. Certain listeners may have an issue with the production and others may have an issue with Berti Majdan’s banshee scream vocals, even though he does come down to a canter on “The Hour” but he certainly comes from the Burke Shelley of Budgie school of vocals. The album though does steer clear from what is known as the bane of a lot of these bands, with their clichéd metal anthems and crunchy power chords, which was an easy trap for German bands to fall into at this time. Instead the listener should appreciate the depth on a lot of the songs, from a period that is probably the golden age of German metal. This is a period just before the likes of bands such as Blind Guardian and Kreator, two examples of the German power metal and thrash metal movements that would soon dominate the German metal scene. Finally the album cover is your somewhat typical metal cover that I would easily associate with a European mainland metal band around this time and the album name is surely a nod to the Judas Priest song “Victim of Changes”.
Berti Majdan- Vocals
Klaus Reinelt- Guitar
Thomas Sabisch- Bass
Thomas Imbacher- Drums
Production- ?