The Batlord

You are of course joking. If my spamming the forum with Warlord worship hasn't converted anybody then it's certainly not due to lack of trying.

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Trollheart

99 and counting....
I think he featured them in his "Batlord listens to random ****" journal. He tried to get me into them, said they would be right up my (and your) street. At least he was on the mark with one of us. I was very meh about them after all the buildup he gave to them. Thought they were ok but no Special K...

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

Unknown Soldier

Thrash Metal

If glam metal was the new messiah of the metal world, which had effectively turned sunny Los Angeles into a modern day Babylon full of debauchery and sleaze, thrash metal would take the metal yardstick into a much meaner direction. Thrash metal effectively sprung up in San Francisco, pretty amazing really given the city’s long standing history with the hippy and psychedelic movements of the 1960s, but the city had displayed for a number of years now what could be termed as ‘hardcore metal’. This scene was centred around the city’s ‘Bay Area’ where two bands proved to vital in the genre’s development and they were Exodus who were formed in 1980 but waited almost five years before their debut was issued and of course the mighty Metallica who quickly became the genre’s most important and innovative band. The scene had taken off commercially in 1983 with Metallica’s Kill ‘Em All and Slayer’s Show No Mercy (see 1983 reviews) two thrash albums that were actually quite distinctive from each other. The Metallica album demonstrated the core sound of thrash and the technical direction that it would soon move into, whilst Slayer used their blitzkrieg attack to plunge even further into the darkest depths of the human mind and they were of course the wicked successors to Venom, and the style of Slayer attributed at this stage exactly where thrash metal would meet black metal. Over the next couple of years genre formation band Exodus would issue for many ‘the thrash album’ in Bonded in Blood and Megadeth would take things even faster with their debut. The west coast scene would also be boosted up by the east coast thrash movement headed up by the likes of Overkill and with the arrival of Anthrax would present thrash in a somewhat different light. As a musical style the genre deomstrated some unique musical traits and these included super fast guitar solos, complex guitar riffs and the genre’s trademark double bass drumming. Lycrically the band’s focused on social issues and attacks against the establishment (all shared with punk) and some delved into extreme acts of violence, war, death and also satanic subject issues carrying on the Black Sabbath legacy. A huge amount were influenced by the NWOBHM and hardcore punk and so the aggressive attitude and image of these bands was usually a far cry from the glam metal scene.

Thrash metal could be seen as taking off for a number of reasons circa 1983-1985 1) With the demise of the NWOBHM as a driving force for metal, a new and even meaner kid was needed on the block for prestige purposes. 2) It was obvious that the more aggressive metal sound out there, would at one stage merge with the aggression of hardcore punk. 3) A number of metal artists pretty much despised the ‘hair metal brigade’ as betraying the true spirit of metal, I even remember watching a dvd many years ago where some of the members of Megadeth stated how much they hated these hair metal bands. 4) If the previous statement is true, then it’s obvious that a rebellion like thrash would take off to restore order as such in the metal world. 5) There was no way that truly brutal sounding albums full of technical attitude like Judas Priest’s Stained Class wouldn’t have their successor albums coming up sometime soon. Now early thash I would split into two categories, there were those bands like Metallica, Slayer, Megadeth and Exodus who lived and breathed this kind of music and played nothing else. Then there were bands who treated thrash metal as an almost transitory style before moving onto something else, or indeed going back to what they were doing before and this includes bands like Savatage, Metal Church, Exciter and Raven, all bands that put out one or two thrash dominant albums around this time.

Now interestingly two forum members have made two important comments about thrash metal that should be noted here. Firstly The Batlord has dismissed thrash metal as not being truly extreme metal, stating that it qualifies only in part. This is something that I now mostly agree with, given the boundaries that extreme sub-metal genres like death metal and black metal would soon cross into, but The Batlord’s statement is really only correct in hindsight, because circa 1983 to 1984 the bands that made up thrash were as extreme as it got and set the stall out for being extreme. Slayer sounded evil but to find something truly despicable sounding you really had to look at something like Norway’s Bathory. Venom of course also sounded evil, but to be fair weren’t really taken that seriously by many of their peers at the time, despite their future massive influence on extreme metal. Also most notably Janszoon has stated that before thrash metal, he felt that metal never truly felt like it was its own genre and states that it felt and sounded like a sub-genre of rock in general. Again I agree with this, as most 1970s metal bands could just be called bands that inhabited the heavier end of the rock spectrum, in fact when I was writing the 1970s reviews, I often referred to most of the scene as ‘heavy rock’ to encompass everything. Even heavily identifiable bands like Black Sabbath and Judas Priest, could all be attained as having a load of rock influences into their music, but did themselves favours by adopting a truly metal image. Both these bands of course are two of the most important on the influence of metal anyway including thrash here, even though Black Sabbath were more influential on other extreme metal genres. Finally it wasn’t really until the NWOBHM that metal truly created an identity as a movement, but even then this movement encompassed a whole load of bands that were still playing 1970s heavy rock anyway and it was only when they started to forge their sound to a metal image that metal was moving in the right direction. The NWOBHM may have finally opened the door for metal, but I personally think that thrash metal would prove to be the single most important movement in the history of metal, because it truly created the genre, opened the door to extreme metal and introduced to metal a complete generation of new listeners, who still find some of the core thrash bands just as relevant to today as they were back in the mid 1980s.

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Metal Wars

Power Metal

Pounding Decibels- A Hard and Heavy History

Unknown Soldier

The Lowdown
This is the first of numerous glam metal albums on this year’s list and to be fair this album could equally be at number 16 instead of 26, given the small amount of difference in terms of quality between the albums situated in these positions. Black ‘N Blue were effectively formed by ex-drummer come vocalist Jaime St.James and they soon created a buzz when they moved from their hometown of Portland to Los Angeles and appeared on the first Metal Massacre compilation. It wasn’t long though before they attracted the attention of new label Geffen (who would go onto become one of the biggest labels of the 1980s) and at this time were riding the crest with high profile bands like Asia. The label brought in German producer Dieter Dierks who had produced all those great albums with the Scorpions and sent the band to Germany to record their debut there. I’ve recently read that the band hated being dictated to by their label, as they had planned their own debut album! Given Geffen’s commercial ambitions its probably no surprise that Dieter Dierks was chosen, as he had helped guide the Scorpions into commercial territory and after this Black ‘N Blue’s second album would be recorded by Bruce Fairbairn another producer that knew a thing or two about producing albums that sold by the million, as his albums with Loverboy had proved. The story of Black ‘N Blue is a story that could be attributed to any number of glam metal bands at this time, as American labels saw glam metal as an extremely viable package in order to sell lighter-on-the-ear metal to the masses. Also these bands with both their sound and image were able to embrace MTV, surely the biggest and best advertisement for any band around this time. The album opens up in great style with “The Strong Will Rock” an archetypal song from this time for a metal band, firstly it’s heavy a la Twisted Sister style song, secondly the vocals of Jamie St.James are both powerful and clean, thirdly the song has a great chorus and finally there is enough here to keep everything firmly in a metal camp. Second track “School of Hard Knocks” works the same formula again, but operates the formula in a much lighter manner. The track “Hold on to 18” was the band’s big single and a great track, and the type of track that any glam metal band would’ve been proud to have put out, in fact it might be one of my all time favourite glam metal tracks! The second side throws up strong tracks like the driving “Show Me the Night” and “One for the Money” which I could easily imagine Ratt singing, but then again “I’m the King” sounds like a Ratt song as well. The album closer "Chains Around Heaven" closes up one of the most solid glam metal releases of the year in powerful fashion. The weakest track is probably “Wicked Bitch” and the only song to really drift from the album formula is the faster “Autoblast”. Finally there is a cover of Sweet’s “Action” kind of expected really that one of these bands would cover Sweet sooner rather than later. So how good is this album as far as glam metal went at this time, given the fact that market was now being flooded with similar style bands? The first thing you notice is how clean sounding the band sound in comparison to Motley Crue, Twisted Sister or Ratt (the last two further up on this year’s list) and they were certainly heavier than both Motley Crue and Ratt as well, but on a par with Twisted Sister. So taking all this into consideration, the band’s debut is a clean but heavy sounding metal album and very contemporary for its time. As far as record labels went this sound gave metal a viable way to compete with the polished and clean sound of AOR, which in America was the biggest seller at this time on the rock spectrum. Also the band’s image was glam but almost in a clean and repectable way and nothing like the sleazier looking Motley Crue style or the more gharish Twisted Sister one, and in my opinion Black ‘N Blue at this time looked damn great as a band. Also Geffen at this time were probably looking for a formula to sell their albums and as far as glam metal went, they certainly hit a formula with Black ‘N Blue. Despite all this the album performed a modest 129 on the US album charts but did spark a hit single for the band with “Hold on to 18”. The album is a perfect example of a radio friendly glam metal album, a style that so many other glam metal bands would adopt. Despite all this Black ‘N Blue always complained that Geffen failed to capture their raw sound in the studio, but then again countless bands have often complained of the same thing.

Jaime St.James- Vocals
Tommy Thayer- Guitar
Jeff ‘Woop’ Warner- Guitar
Patrick Young- Bass
Pete Holmes- Drums

Production- Dieter Dierks

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Metal Wars

Power Metal

Pounding Decibels- A Hard and Heavy History

Unknown Soldier

The Lowdown
Wikipedia describes Danish band the Pretty Maids as hard rock/heavy metal which is no surprise as they started out as a covers band doing mostly Thin Lizzy material, in fact the final track here is a Thin Lizzy song. But on listening to Red, Hot and Heavy the album is not as straightforward as one would think and the album in many ways mixes speed metal and AOR with European power metal, the latter the soon-to-be-bastion sound of European metal anyway. Overall there is also plenty of variety in the metal being dished out here, ranging from the style of screaming metal to slower fist-shaking material. Overall the album is a hodgepodge of styles that is done surprisingly well and the album takes a few listens for this to become apparent and imo it’s mostly going to appeal to somebody into that speed metal meets power metal sound of this time. As mentioned in my 1984 introduction, continental Europe was absolutely flourishing with quality metal bands at this time especially from both Germany and Sweden, but with bands like the Pretty Maids and Mercyful Fate much smaller Denmark was making its mark as well and the two bands mentioned here are very different as well (Mercyful Fate appear much higher on this year’s list) Despite never making a big commercial breakthrough, the Pretty Maids have over the years supported some of the biggest names in heavy metal and they have only really penetrated the Japanese market in terms of record sales (the Japanese were often into bands that didn’t break elsewhere…… shows they had taste really) The Pretty Maids were a six-member outfit with two guitarists and most notably a keyboardist, so it’s no surprise on listening to the album, that a number of tracks have a very fleshed out feel to them. They also decided to use anglicized names instead of their own nordic names, but imo their own names sounded much better than the bland names chosen, even though Ken Hammer is easily the best of the bunch, no surprise really as hammer=metal. The band had put out a six track EP the previous year, which had a woman on the cover fondling a guitar with her legs, for their debut album the album cover went in for something more gothic in that late 70s early 80s style, just think Elvira Mistress of the Night here. The album opens with Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana “Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi” often used in movies and imo is used here to great effect (even though I think the band didn’t spell the name correctly) The first track proper is the driving “Back to Back” one of those fusions of speed metal meets power metal, something that so many bands were doing around this time and the song is highlighted by a great guitar solo. The title track “Red, Hot and Heavy” is a slower but heavier track and is blood and guts sounding all the way. Third track is completely different again “Waiting For the Time” this is quite simply a basic AOR track with a euro-metal tinge to it, I like it but I don’t imagine a lot of metalheads being too impressed with it. “Cold Killer” is right back into heavier territory and about a serial killer, it opens up with an American news report and is highlighted by Ken Hammer’s nifty guitar solo late in the song. The next two songs “Battle of Pride” and “Night Danger” are galloping songs and I really dig the heavier and slower chorus section of the first song here. Now this album keeps some of its best until the end with “A Place in the Night” a pretty stalwart AOR track for the time, but it has just enough meat to get by on a metal album. “Queen of Dreams” is more keyboard driven and is probably the most ambitious track on the whole album, before the album finishes with a cover of Thin Lizzy’s “Little Darling”. Two of the songs on the album “Back to Back” was later covered by HammerFall and “Night Danger” appeared on Lamberto Bava’s Italian horror film Demons, which instantly makes the band cool as far as I’m concerned. Overall singer Ronnie Atkins (Paul Christiansen) is an impressive vocalist that could easily bring his voice to the various sounds being put out by the band and Ken Hammer is an impressive axe-slinger. Overall a number of the tracks have elements lifted from other artists, but even if that’s the case the Pretty Maids have done the operation well. The album also managed a place in Rock Hard’s ‘The 500 Greatest Rock & Metal Albums of All Time’ list.

Ronnie Atkins- Vocals
Ken Hammer- Guitar
Rick Hansen- Guitar
John Darrow- Bass
Alan Owen- Keyboards
Phil Moorhead- Drums

Production- Billy Cross/Tommy Hansen

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Metal Wars

Power Metal

Pounding Decibels- A Hard and Heavy History

William_the_Bloody

Love the choppy palm muting going on in Red Hot & Heavy, 80's hard rock to the core! Someone should make a devil horns icon for music banter that we can post.

The Batlord

I just use this headbanging emoticon from my other forum, but I have to copy the picture url and post it with img tags.

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Isbjørn

Nice avatar.

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The Batlord

Quit stalking me, you miscreant. My atheism is supposed to be a secret.

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Unknown Soldier

I had no idea what 'choppy palm muting' was, even after looking it up and reading about it, I'm still none the wiser.

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Metal Wars

Power Metal

Pounding Decibels- A Hard and Heavy History