Unknown Soldier

Metal Massacre III 1983

Another twelve songs featured on the third incarnation of the compilation and this one really seemed to have a Slayer type vibe on a lot of the songs featured. It was either a case of Slayer influencing a whole load of other local metal bands here or possibly other metal bands influencing Slayer which could equally be the case, just check out the songs by Tyrant and Medusa here for that early Slayer feel. For their part “Aggressive Perfector” was the song that won them their recording contract with Metal Blade in 1983 and launched the career of Slayer. The female fronted Bitch also appeared on this comp as did Warlord again with “Mrs. Victoria” and Virgin Steele also made an appearance.

1. "Aggressive Perfector" – Slayer
2. "Riding in Thunder" – Bitch
3. "Armageddon" – Tyrant
4. "Piranahs" – Medusa
5. "Bite the Knife" – Test Pattern
6. "Blitzkrieg" – Black Widow
7. "Mrs. Victoria" – Warlord
8. "Let's Go All the Way" – Virgin Steele
9. "Fire and Wind" – Sexist
10. "Hell Bent" – Znowhite
11. "The Kid" – Marauder
12. "Fist and Chain" – La Mort

Metal Massacre IV 1983

The fourth compilation for me had more unknown bands on it and this started with west coast Canadian band Sacred Blade who had a touch of Raven about them, but would go into a progressive metal direction. Third track on the comp is by Trouble with their “The Last Judgement” track and the doom metal sound of the band is a real anomaly on the comp, as would be their debut album Psalm 9 which came out the following year and it will be on my 1984 album list. Saying that though, another cut on this comp by War Cry is a similar doom metal sounding track, from a band whose career never really got off the ground. Lizzy Borden also appear and Medieval close down the comp with the impressive “Medieval” track.

1. "The Alien" – Sacred Blade
2. "Cross My Way" – Death Dealer
3. "The Last Judgement" – Trouble
4. "Taken by Force" – Sceptre
5. "Speed Zone" – Zoetrope
6. "Forbidden Evil" – War Cry
7. "Screams from the Grave" – Abattoir
8. "I Don't Want to Die" – Witchslayer
9. "Rod of Iron" – Lizzy Borden
10. "Fear No Evil" – August Redmoon
11. "Destructer" – Thrust
12. "Medieval" – Medieval

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Metal Wars

Power Metal

Pounding Decibels- A Hard and Heavy History

Trollheart

I only did the second volume (as it's the one I have) here
http://www.musicbanter.com/members-j...ml#post1500853
and then "Brute Force" here
http://www.musicbanter.com/members-j...ml#post1501122 (Right under my trashing of your Night sun album, sorry... )

And if you're interested, they were part of a triple review of compilations, both of the above compared to "Killer Watts" here
http://www.musicbanter.com/members-j...ml#post1501441
(Oddly enough, you posted right after one of the reviews; maybe it wasn't there when you made your original post. Anyway I'd be interested in what you have to say.)

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

The Batlord

Translation = Cute little journal you got going on here, US. Too bad mine's better.

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Trollheart

Uh-huh. That's why I'm going through it in its entireity in the update thread. Have another bottle Batty.

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

Unknown Soldier

The Verdict
Los Angeles based Warlord were without doubt one of the shining lights not just of Metal Blade but of their current American generation. In many ways the band reminded me talent wise of both Diamond Head and Angel Witch, two other bands that were well beyond many of their contemporaries, but never had the direction or luck to captalise on that talent. Warlord stylistically reminded me of Dream Theater long before that band ever put out an album, in that here was essentially a melodic style band that set their music against a metal backdrop. For the sake of metal these metal ingredients were strong in Warlord and for that reason they got onto Metal Blade. For anybody putting on this debut album (it has been referred to as a EP as well and I see it as that due to it length and the reason why it’s here and not on the main album list) will probably notice a strong Rush influence across a number of the tracks and this becomes evident on the opening title track “Deliver Us” a swirling introductory track and you soon realize that they have a more metal bite than Rush of course. The jewels of this album are surely tracks like “Winter Tears” an almost European sounding power metal epic before most bands knew what that even was and it happens to be one of my favourite songs given the amount of times that I play it. “Penny for a Poor Man” is a virtual lesson on how to write a melodic, addictive and powerful album track and “Mrs.Victoria” is an epic closer, even though it didn’t appear on the original EP/album. There is also the galloping power metal of “Child of the Damned” and quality tracks like “Lucifer’s Hammer” and band members like Bill Tsamis and Mike Zonder who would go onto join Fate’s Warning not only had a great musical and writing ability, but also knew how to use atmospherics subtly at the start and end of some of the songs. Warlord were a band capable or writing epic metal and were a classic example of a band that missed their moment and it must’ve been frustrating for them, that the California audiences that they played for were only really interested in glam or thrash at this time. But the band probably know that a whole load of diverse metal bands from the 80s and later would’ve got hot and excited listening to some of their material, as it wasn't everyday that you got to run across such an accomplished sounding band. The following year the band would release what many people saw as their first full-length album And the Cannons of Destruction Have Begun, which contained one or two tracks from Deliver Us, but the album lacked that special fele that Deliver Us had.

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Metal Wars

Power Metal

Pounding Decibels- A Hard and Heavy History

Unknown Soldier

They're pretty in-depth reviews far more so than mine, but then again mine are a quick fill in before 1984. As you know its a problem trying to find stuff on your main journal as it's like 265 pages! which is why I've never noticed them before.

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Metal Wars

Power Metal

Pounding Decibels- A Hard and Heavy History

Trollheart

Yeah, I've been thinking of doing some sort of index, but I handed the job on to Clone #44, and I've been having troubles with him the last few weeks...

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

The Batlord

I'm sure more than a few people have had to endure me waxing worshipful about Warlord in recent months, but I just can't get over just how amazing that EP is. Definitely one of my fav trad/power metal releases of all time.

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Unknown Soldier

You'll need a 100 clones for that job.

Where have you mentioned it, never noticed any comments from you about it?

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Metal Wars

Power Metal

Pounding Decibels- A Hard and Heavy History

Unknown Soldier

One of my all time favourite years in rock music as a whole, as the music scene was just so vibrant for bands ranging from AOR to metal circa 1984, especially since so many of them embraced the importance of MTV when orchestrating their music. Slick album production and even slicker videos were the order of the day for a lot of these bands, who were also some of the biggest in the world. Metal at this stage was of course very much part of a growing legacy that was here to stay and huge selling albums by bands like Van Halen, Judas Priest, Accept, Iron Maiden and the Scorpions were right there at the forefront and were all bands capable of selling out arenas and it’s therefore no surpise that all these bands feature in the top 12 on this year’s list. The rest of the list is made up by a huge amount of glam metal albums that may have lacked a certain musical finesse at times, but the tunes they laid down throughout 1984 were just so good and there are probably more glam metal and glam metal related albums on this year’s list than any other metal sub-genre, and some occupy very high positions also. Metallica would of course continue with the new metal revelation that was known as thrash, which threw up a number of good thrash related albums throughout the year, largely thanks to Brian Slagel and Metal Blade Records. With the NWOBHM effectively no more, the balance of power certainly shifted as far as European metal went to the non-English speaking countries, as there are an impressive amount of German and Swedish mentions on this year’s list, and this is impressive since most of these bands pre-dated both the German thrash and power metal scene of the late 1980s, as well as pre-dating the Swedish death metal scene as well. Now I’ve hinted what’s on this year’s list, but now to tell what’s not going to be on it and some are even good albums as well. There were good albums by artists like Hanoi Rocks, Exciter, TNT, Overdrive and Whitesnake that all missed a place. There were other albums that weren’t great like Ian Gillan’s return to Deep Purple with Perfect Strangers, which despite having some good cuts just seemed so out synch with what was happening on the metal scene in 1984. Other sloppy albums saw Anthrax finding their feet, Kiss hitting the wall, Bon Jovi being just so bland, Fate’s Warning not as good as what people thought and Voivod getting things too tangled. The two crummiest albums of the year surely went to Saxon and Quiet Riot. Saxon tried to do an Iron Maiden with Crusader and clearly forgot that they weren’t Iron Maiden and Quiet Riot who instead of putting out another fun metal album like they did with the pivotal Metal Health, surely put out one of the goofiest metal albums ever recorded in Condition Critical, the album title should’ve warned them about its quality but sadly it didn’t. Also not on here are Bathory for the simple reason I really don’t have a ****ing clue what I really think of this album, other than it sounds like it’s been recorded in a dingy basement that I would never have any desire to step into. The album feels like a collection of bleak low-fi satanic ideas and noises built around eerie atmospherics. Yes this is the birth of black metal and for many it’s a masterpiece and despite not being much of a black metal fan I do like Bathory’s later work. As for the actual album I’ve no idea whether it belongs in a top 10, top 20 or top 30. so to ease the issue I've just left it out.

Special Note
Now most importantly my old trick of carrying albums over years to fit others into a top 20 list has finally backfired as loads of 1983 have ended up in 1984 for one reason or another. Now instead of trying to carry some 1984 over to 1985, I’ve said **** it and will have a whopping top 26 this year (couldn’t decrease it any less without eliminating something that I think is really good) So there will be 26 albums this year and that will hopefully eliminate all backlogging and allow me to return to a top 20 next year.

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Metal Wars

Power Metal

Pounding Decibels- A Hard and Heavy History