There was the odd occasion when my brother would cotton on to an album I knew nothing about but grew to love. Sometimes said album would mysteriously disappear from his collection; speculation still rages today as to what exactly happened on those occasions. All I know is that I fell in love with a band from Canada, who had the bad luck to have chosen a name already used by a band in the NWOBHM, had to change it, did so, to something totally ridiculous, and who now end up as being one of the hardest bands to Google or find anywhere since I went looking for
The Ghost You Gave Me by 3.
Thunder in Rock --- Myofist --- 1981 (A&M)
Thing is, there seems to be a lot of confusion about this album. It was called, as you can see above,
Thunder in Rock, and yet when you go looking for Myofist (found, thankfully, on Metal Archives but nowhere else) you see that there was an album so named, but it's a double compilation album. Now I know the one my brother had was a single album with about eight tracks, so that's not it. Scroll back up a bit and you'll see one labelled
FLeet Street/Thunder in Rock. This is very weird, because the album had a track on it called “Fleet Street”, but two covers are shown with just the one tracklisting. So, was it called two different names on each side of the Atlantic? I don't know, and information on Myofist (where did they come up with that name, really?) is notoriously sketchy.
Anyway, I assume this to be the one, as it has the correct tracklisting, however once again the curse of the obscure album rears its head, and neither Google Play Music nor Spotify have it, so it's back to YouTube, where I find again, single tracks, and not all of them either, so far as I can see. Let's have a look at what we can piece together though. The album began, and begins, on “Double or nothing”, with a snarly guitar leading us in, then heavy percussion as vocalist Ron Chenier demonstrates the kind of pipes that were born to sing metal, kind of a cross between Danny Joe Brown and James Hetfield. There are also keys, just sort of hovering out there on the edges, played by Ivan Tessier, but things are really run by Chenier on the guitar. The song is a pumping metal anthem, which slows to some almost progressive or at least AOR keys flourishes near the end. The title track is up next, with a slower, grindier, stomping sort of feel, again driven by Chenier's growling guitar, a real fist-pumper as the melody swaggers along.
Some great vocal harmonies coming in now, which I must assume are courtesy of bass player Jeff Nystrom, who is the only other one credited with vocals. He has a higher, almost feminine voice, so it's obvious why he doesn't sing lead, but the contrast really works, and the addition from somewhere of sax really takes you by surprise but again works to the band's advantage. It's a real anthem, and should have gone down really well on stage. Buzzy keyboard and thick bass leads in “Leather and lace” which has a real biker groove and sways along really nicely, Tessier's keys coming into their own here, while Chenier sets up a kind of reel with his guitar, growling the refrain that should really have been ringing out all over the world:
”Black leather! Black leather and lace!” His guitar playing comes close to Moore and Robertson at times, leading me to wonder if he plays more than one, multitracked? I don't know, but it certainly is a full sound and you wonder if one guy could make that on his own?
“On the radio” actually has a weird almost pop vibe to it, the synth very new wave. Whether they were trying to target airplay or not is something I don't know, but given the title of the song you would be forgiven for thinking this was the intention. It's certainly catchy if simple (aren't most of the catchiest tunes the simplest?) Sampled keyboards by Tessier don't help to dispel the feeling that they're trying to appeal to “the kids” here and actually write a single that might play, as they say themselves, on the radio; it's certainly the least rocky song on this album and the one that closest approaches what might be considered pop/rock. The metal aspect is quickly re-established with “It's late”, marching along with a confident stride, Chenier gritting out the vocal while Tessier sets up a really nice soundscape he can sing against. The song is as catchy as “On the radio”, but in a different way. You would not, though, have been too surprised to have heard this played over the airwaves.
Great solo from Chenier as we head into the last minute, a chanting sort of vocal that again would have really worked well onstage, with backing vocals from Nystrom, then “Better way to go” almost reminds me of “Spirit in the sky” for a few seconds, then rides along on Tessier's piping keyboard lines and Chenier's growling guitar. Again, it's a really really catchy song, and it's hard to believe these guys did not do better, though they do seem to have kept going in their native Canada, with their last recorded album in 2006, so maybe they just failed to get that big international break, but it is a pity, as a simple glance at YouTube will show you that there is very little of their material available, and while that's not of course a barometer of a band's popularity, it does say something when you can only find a few videos of them.
“Evil cold” is another stomping, swaggering anthem on which Ivan Tessier really gets to flex his keyboard muscles, as Chenier's guitar punches through the melody and it marches along on steel legs. My favourite on the album is the hilarious “Fleet Street” wherein, before the song gets going, two actors portraying Sherlock Holmes and Watson discuss the nature of Sweeney Todd, the demon barber of Fleet Street (from which of course the song's title comes), or someone very closely based on him. It's quite odd, because they play the parts so well and the sound effects are such that I assumed this was a clip from an old Sherlock Holmes movie, of which tons were made in the sixties and seventies. But as the actor, one David Gardner, explain about the pie shop in which apparently this barber --- who must have had two jobs, as he apparently ran a pie shop too --- would cut up and sell the bodies of his victims in what he says were called “people pies”, the absurdity of it seems to get to him and he starts to fumble his lines and laugh, just regaining enough composure to finish his part before the music fades in.
No film actor would have been so unprofessional, so we can assume that these two guys were either friends of the band or were hired specifically to act those roles, and though I see Gardner's name on IMDB, it's a common enough name and I couldn't be sure if I was looking at the resume of the same man. Anyway, enough about the actors, though to be honest it was the thing that made this my favourite track on the album, we head into the song with a punchy guitar line and hilariously tongue-in-cheek lyrics ---
”Making people pies/ Evil in his eyes” --- to say nothing of a crazy organ solo from Tessier which really makes the song. It ends suddenly and it's a thicker, spacier keyboard line that runs it into the closer, “Open the gates”, with a very progressive feel to it, almost Genesisesque really. This is the longest song on the album at six and a half minutes and it really allows Tessier to play around with his soundscapes. It's a great closer to a great album that deserves far better treatment than it ended up receiving.
TRACKLISTING AND RATINGS
1. Double or nothing
2. Thunder in rock
3. Leather and lace
4. On the radio
5. It's late
6. Better way to go
7. Evil cold
8. Fleet Street
9. Open the gates