William_the_Bloody

Now that 1983 is done I thought I'd post the one album left off that I think should have been added for the hard rockin metal fans out there.

Krokus - Headhunter

Unknown Soldier

This is a very good album, but around 6 or 7 great albums were left off the final top 20 and this was one of them.

It looks when I finally get around to starting 1984 there is going to be a top 25 instead of a top 20, because my bad habit of carrying albums over years like with Van Halen 1984 and Accept Balls to the Wall just to name two has caught up with me. Both were released in 1983 but have been conveniently held back to 1984 by me to fit more albums in 1983 and guess what the album selection for 1984 is even stronger, so instead of carrying over albums again to 1985, I've decided to lump it at 25 to level it all out.

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Down on the Slab

This is the section where I discuss what I think is a contentious album that came out in the year and will fall under one of the following highlighted. 1) An album that a large section of musical followers (critics and fans) rate highly and despite not seeing the album as bad, I still don’t really get the attraction. 2) A hugely significant album that was highly commercial but not really good enough for the main list, but still worth a mention. 3) Basically an album that’s a pile of crap and the artist really shouldn’t have released it.



Verdict
Born Again is often seen as one of the genuine metal lowlights of the 1980s metal scene, so the question here is it really as bad as it’s made out to be? Just over a year earlier Black Sabbath fronted by Dio had been on top of the pile with the classic Mob Rules album, but disagreements on the Live Evil album had seen both Dio and drummer Vinnie Appice leaving Sabbath and quickly going onto form the seminal Dio (see review) This had now left Tony Iommi and Geezer Butler in need of two essential band members in order to continue. Luckily original drummer Bill Ward had dried out and came back to the band, and new band manager Don Arden suggested that a big name replacement for Dio was needed, after an unknown Michael Bolton had been passed over. Three of the biggest vocalists of 1970s hard rock were considered in Robert Plant, Ian Gillan and David Coverdale, despite the fact that the latter here was making big commercial in-roads with Whitesnake. Firstly Robert Plant would’ve been a disaster, his sexy bluesy mumbling was a world away from either the evil sounding humour of Ozzy or the vocal power and clarity of Dio. Secondly Ian Gillan and his trademark shriek may have sounded impressive on paper, but in reality his laid-back bluesy style may have fitted Deep Purple, but seemed totally out of place in a Sabbath environment. In fact only David Coverdale of the three had the necessary credentials here and could’ve at least followed on from the Dio approach to the band, as he had a voice that had now been clearly shaped for commercial success, after having lost much of his bluesy accent. Finally the band met with Ian Gillan and after a heavy drinking session the ill-fated pact was sealed for all those involved. As for the album cover, Black Sabbath entered into the realms of disaster with Born Again as the drawing known as the ‘baby photo’ may well have been drawn by an artist, but it sure as hell looks like it has been finished by a school kid, who has just scribbled in the colours which in themselves are a shocking contrast, a red Satanic baby on a blue background and with yellow as the third colour, but I guess some might like it! So once getting past the album cover and taking out the old inner sleeve of the vinyl record (normally was white if no album lyrics were included and just protected the record) the listener would’ve put the record onto his/her turntable and after the usual scratchy intro (depending on the quality of your needle) the listener would’ve been greeted with what is probably one of the album’s few decent tracks in “Trashed” which is followed by the keyboard driven instrumental “Stonehenge” which is not bad and with a space rock vibe, even though some reviewers describe it as being pointless, as they do with the other instrumental “The Dark”. But it’s from here that the album really gets its bad rep on tracks like the embarrassing “Zero the Hero” which lasts an astonishing 7.35 minutes (btw it goes much better with its video as it's a great video for the time and actually sounds like a different song when watching the vid) and the sub-standard “Digital Bitch” and both come across an immature workings for artists of this standing and experience. The title track “Born Again” is a pointless effort, as it drags and it's messy and belongs being sung live in a smokey club and not on a Black Sabbath album. “Hot Line” brings us back to simple fare and “Keep it Warm” is just boring album closer. Overall the album’s main failing is not really in its overly simplistic and bland material, but it has more to do with Ian Gillan sounding like he never wants to be in Black Sabbath, as he’s made no concessions in his vocal approach to fit with his new colleagues and Black Sabbath for their part, seem to know deep down that this is never going to work, so let’s just get the album out of way. Even with this in mind, there were a number of critics back in the day that actually liked this album, both for its heaviness and its unifying of some of the biggest legends in just one band, almost like a supergroup I guess. Now despite slagging the album, there are some things I really like such as the glorious “Disturbing the Priest” track which I think showcases Ian Gillan in all his glory and the track oozes something special and I also really dig how heavy the album is, even though its muddy sounding production might put a lot of people off, but I like sounding muddy production. Finally the supporting tour was such a disaster that I’d recently read that the Stonehenge stage set ended up being an inspiration for the Spinal Tap film. After this Ian Gillan would feature on the Deep Purple comeback album, which is another that never did much for me, albeit for very different reasons to this album.

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Urban Hat€monger ?

The guy who designed the cover was Steve Joule who later on worked at Kerrang as a staff writer, they did a piece on the album once and he explained why the cover was so awful.
Apparently he was asked to submit ideas for the cover of Ozzy's Bark At The Moon album. While he was working on this he was also approached by Sabbath to submit ideas for Born Again. Knowing the bad blood between the two camps and yet not wanting to lose any work he decided that he would submit a design for Born Again that was so bad there would be no way that they would choose to use it, therefore not jeopardising his chances of getting the Ozzy cover which he had been working on for longer.

Anyway the whole thing backfired on him because Iommi loved it and went with it anyway. I don't believe he got the Ozzy cover either.

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Unknown Soldier

Thanks for sharing the story as I didn't know any of this, but I do now.

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Pounding Decibels- A Hard and Heavy History

Unknown Soldier

As the start of my 1984 list is almost two weeks off, I'm going to fill in with a couple of compilation albums featuring the NWOBHM and the influential American metal label Metal Blade and one or two other mini-reviews as well.
In 1983 the NWOBHM was at an end commercially as most of its biggest bands had moved beyond the confines of the movement and the arrival of both glam metal and extreme metal were also its death knoll. So here is a comp I'll be featuring as a reminder of the movement’s glory years.

New Wave of British Heavy Metal '79 Revisited:This is an extensive comp put together by Lars Ulrich and journalist Geoff Burton in 1990 and it was originally released on Caroline Records. Some of this stuff has already been reviewed on album lists, so look at it like a flash revision course.


Disc One
1."It's Electric" - Diamond Head The perfect introduction song and it would appear on their seminal debut album Lightning to the Nations.
2."Eye of the Storm" - Sweet Savage Northern Ireland metal band that initially never got beyond a couple of singles and this is a fast and gruff track worthy of checking out.
3."Motorcycle Man" – Saxon One of the signature tunes of Saxon, who instantly became one of the leaders and highlights of the NWOBHM.
4."Cheetah" - White Spirit A track that didn’t appear on their solitary studio album White Spirit released in 1980 and here the band show they were beyond a lot of their rivals
5."Don't Need Your Money" – Raven Athletic rock offering from the movement’s sloppy speedsters and it appeared on their debut set Rock Until You Drop.
6."White Lightning" – Paralex Nottingham band that never got beyond an EP, this is not bad despite being a bit lightweight, and it’s heavily indebted stylistically to the 1970s.
7."Getcha Rocks Off" - Def Leppard Early Def Leppard were extremely interesting due to their rawness and diversity of ideas and this appears on their first EP.
8."Set the Stage Alight" – Weapon Little known band who I know nothing about and based on this they sound no better or worse than most of their rivals.
9."Vice Versa" – Samson The album where Bruce Dickinson took over on vocal duties for the band and this also happens to be one of the best tracks on the Head On album.
10."Fight with the Devil" - Hollow Ground Coming from one of the NWOBHM hotbeds in the north east, the band never really got beyond their popular local following.
11."Demolition Boys" – Girlschool The first track on their debut album which shows what happens when punk meets metal circa 1980.
12."Leaving Nadir" – Witchfynde This band were a different kettle of fish from most here despite the satanic imagery on their album cover and this is a great track by them.

Disc Two
1."Sanctuary" - Iron Maiden Initially a non-album single but it would later appear on the North American version of Iron Maiden.
2."Back Street Woman" – Jaguar Their debut album Power Games was one of the later NWOBHM debut to come out.
3."Killers" - Tygers of Pan Tang With Jess Cox on vocals and it appeared on their Wild Cats album.
4."I'm No Fool" – Gaskin Melodic NWOBHM band and of the few songs I’ve heard by them, I’ve always managed to enjoy them.
5."Sledgehammer" – Sledgehammer A great example of a NWOBHM band that suffered from line-up changes and also failed to capitalize on their popularity.
6."Angel Dust" – Venom Basically sounds more claustrophobic and brutal than anything else on this compilation and appears on their Welcome to Hell album.
7."Extermination Day" - Angel Witch A early demo by the band and head and shoulders above their rivals in terms of quality.
8."One of These Days" – Trespass A group that based their music around songcraft first and this was probably their best known song from back then.
9."Death or Glory" – Holocaust A song that has one of the biggest kick-ass riffs from the whole of the NWOBHM and I can see why this was included on this comp.
10."If I Were King" – Vardis A band I always felt were better live than they were in the studio.
11."Blitzkrieg" – Blitzkrieg A band that were much liked by Metallica, so it’s no surprise to find Blitzkrieg on here.
12."Helpless" - Diamond Head Second entry by the seminal Diamond Head and the song is highlighted by its stunning second part.
13."Ambitions" – Dragster One of the lesser lights of the NWOBHM but this song is far from that.
14."Treason" - A II Z One of the many NWOBHM bands that were fronted by brothers, but this band were short lived and disbanded in 1982.
15."Witchfinder General" - Witchfinder General Doom focused NWOBHM band and this is one of the principal tracks from their debut album.
16."Red Lights" - Black Axe A band who managed to get a major record deal, but their luck fell flat the moment that they did.
17."S.S. Giro" – Fist Highly rated in some quarters but I was never really a fan of this song or band.
18."Captured City" - Praying Mantis One of the great talents of the movement and here their track is one of the most accomplished on the comp.

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Unknown Soldier

This is one of two albums that will be featured here that didn’t make the top 20 list and are worth a mention.


The Verdict
Court in the Act was the debut album of Newcastle based band Satan and the album is often seen as one of the later classics to come out of the back end of the NWOBHM in the 1983/1984 period. Satan were formed from the ashes of fellow NWOBHM band Blitzkrieg who happen to have a track on the previous compilation featured here. Satan were certainly one of the better and more talented bands to appear on the influential Neat Records label at this time and the band displayed a then very contemporary speed/thrash metal inspired sound, that was extremely relevant to the metal scene of 1983 and 1984. The album starts with the atmospheric "Into the Fire" before mving into quality meaty cuts like “Trial By Fire"” and the truly kick-ass sounding “Blades of Steel” surely one of the tastiest cuts to be put out by a NWOBHM band ever. The rest of the tracks are good album material especially tracks like “Broken Treaties” and “Hunt You Down” which all demonstrate the band’s musical dexterity combined with their great melodies and choruses. The band even go in for an instrumental on “The Ritual” which is well placed later on the album and sits well with the songs either side of it. So how good were Satan at this time? Well the band had the songs along with that speed/thrash tempo that a lot of contemporary metal bands were putting out at this time and musically they had the chops to play it. But on the downside vocalist Brian Ross was distinctly lightweight for this type of music, especially considering that anybody at this time may well have been listening to either James Hetfield or Tom Araya on both the Metallica and Slayer debuts, and as history tells this is where this type of music was ultimately going and fans expected beef to go with beef as far as these bands were concerned. Also despite their great name, they were never able to display the truly sardonic sound of feel of a band like Venom and they certainly struggled with the extreme metal coming out of Europe at that time as well. For some unknown reason possibly at the request of the record label, Satan would undergo a name change in a few year and would become known as Blind Fury, almost immediately on this name change the band sunk without a trace.

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Pounding Decibels- A Hard and Heavy History

Unknown Soldier

Metal Blade Records
The Metal Blade label was surely one of the most important record labels of the 1980s when it came to promoting metal music and its geographic location was certainly its vital ingredient for its success as well. I’ve often stated in this journal how American metal had suffered throughout the 1970s, this was largely due to their own record labels having no idea or desire to promote them, but this would all change thanks to the vision of Metal Blade founder Brian Slagel who knew that California was a hotbed of metal in the early 1980s. Metal Blade was formed in Los Angeles in 1982 and would largely be associated with thrash and thrash related metal acts, but in reality it would promote any kind of speed metal, power, metal hair metal or traditional metal act out there etc that was California based as demonstrated on its pivotal Metal Massacre compilations which ran between 1982 and 2006.

Metal Massacre 1982 (3rd Pressing)

The nine songs on here start off in great fashion with Black ‘n Blue whose track “Chains Around Heaven” would appear on their great glam metal debut just a few years later. Old Favourite of mine Cirith Ungol popped on this comp as well along with a great track by Pandemonium, but the most notable recording was surely that by Metallica with “Hit the Lights”.

1. "Chains Around Heaven" – Black 'n Blue
2. “Live for the Whip" – Bitch
3. “Captive of Light" – Malice
4. "Octave" (instrumental) – Avatar
5. "Death of the Sun" – Cirith Ungol
6. "Dead of the Night" – Demon Flight
7. "Fighting Backwards" – Pandemonium
8. "Kick You Down" – Malice
9. "Hit the Lights" (version 2) Metallica

Metal Massacre II 1982

There were twelve songs on the second compilation of 1982 and imo it was a better selection, as this one is highlighted by the excellent Armored Saint with "Lesson Well Learned" another favourite of mine from this period and it's one of the real highlights of the comp. There is also some great riffing from bands like Surgical Steel a band that never got beyond a demo and future power metal band Obsession. About halfway through the comp is a song by the much lauded Warlord who may well have been the most talented band at this time on the Metal Blade label, even though a number of aficionados tend to go with Fate’s Warning in this respect. Other tracks include a band that Cliff Burton was in prior to Metallica in Trauma, in fact most of the final tracks tend to be fairly offbeat.

1. "Lesson Well Learned" – Armored Saint
2. "Mind Invader" – 3rd Stage Alert
3. "Rivit Head" – Surgical Steel
4. "Shadows of Steel" – Obsession
5. "Scepters of Deceit" – Savage Grace
6. "No Holds Barred" – Overkill
7. "Lucifer's Hammer" – Warlord
8. "Such a Shame" – Trauma
9. "It's Alright" – Dietrich
10. "Inversion" – Molten Leather
11. "Kings" – Hyksos
12. "Heavy Metal Virgin" Aloha

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Pounding Decibels- A Hard and Heavy History

Trollheart

Just wondering if you will be featuring "Metal for Muthas" or "Brute force", two NWOBHM comps I focussed on during Metal Month II?

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

Unknown Soldier

Unfortunately no, as I'm looking to wrap up these comps asap and one more review before getting onto 1984 next week.

When did you review these, as I'd like to check them out?

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Metal Wars

Power Metal

Pounding Decibels- A Hard and Heavy History