William_the_Bloody

Lol there is actually know term choppy palm muting, its just a word I used to describe the sound. You can hear the guitarist palm muting some of the strings to create this cool choppy sound.

When you palm mute you get more of a rugged sound, its great for making anything that sounds like a machine gun. Anyways, I added the track to my metal collection, and I have a similar one I'll add at the end of your 1984 list , as I'm almost certain it won't be on it.

Unknown Soldier

I'm interested to know what that track is, it might be on this year's list as I think there are a number of albums included here that certain people might not even expect or know.

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Metal Wars

Power Metal

Pounding Decibels- A Hard and Heavy History

Unknown Soldier

The Lowdown
The Warning is without doubt one of those albums that benefited from my album expansion choice this year, as it’s an album that has a number of serious flaws and an album that usually receives a less than gracious rating on most metal sites out there. But what the album does have in abundance, is the core sound that Queensryche would soon corner in a few years time. Also featured and the stronger recording here, is the four track EP that was put out by the band the previous year (I’ve added a review of the EP below this album) As an album The Warning even without the EP is still good enough to appear on this list and it’s an album that I have to admit grows on me with each listen. I first listened to it many years ago but am far more impressed with it now, as it was the album that I was least familiar with from the band. Queensryche came together just two years earlier in Seattle under the dull name of The Mob and follow on from a line of talented bands from that city, several years later of course Seattle and the sub-genre grunge would be forced down everybody’s throats and everybody in the world knew about Seattle! The band were essentially fronted by Geoff Tate-vocals, Chris DeGarmo-guitar and Michael Wilton-guitar, all three dominated the direction and writing of the band, and it’s also pretty interesting how they changed the band’s direction from the EP to that of their debut album. The former discussed below covers classic metal in the band’s pompous style, whereas on The Warning their music enters into progressive metal territory which for many could be a dodgy affair. The Warning therefore sees the band drifting away from their early Judas Priest influences, as their classic metal sound is now tinged with mystical and occult style progressive elements and the album has a concept theme in George Orwell’s 1984 but in execution it shouldn't be considered a concept album. But the main drifting away from that Judas Priest sound, is the band’s avoidance at this stage to either tread into a commercial metal camp or embrace a more technical and darker Stained Class style of metal, both the former and latter would’ve been extremely contemporary here for 1984. Instead Queensryche have gone in for a more medium paced epic metal sound, with more complex structures, all resulting in a progressive style. At times this style works well and is memorable, but at other times it certainly doesn’t, resulting in a number of pedestrian sounding tracks that feel overly long to the listener. The band though kept faith with this sound and in their ability, and very soon of course the band would reap the dividends of this style and give us a sound that was distinctly Queensryche. The pick of the tracks where the band’s new approach work really well can be found on “En Force” which is a track where the band’s emotional drive comes to the forefront and is written by Chris DeGarmo. "No Sanctuary" is a beautifully written effort and a style that the band always did well and "Take Hold of the Flame" is the band at their most addictive and became a hit single in Japan (I did say previously that those Japanese had taste) Final track is the 9 minute epic "Roads to Madness" the most accomplished effort on the album and demonstrates Geoff Tate's incredible vocal range. Whilst on the flip side of the coin, tracks like the album opener “Warning” the songs fall somewhere between a rock and a hard place. A track like “Deliverance” has a glorious opening section thanks to Michael Wilton the song writer, but its then odd fusion of Iron Maiden meets Marillion proves that the band were getting a bit too clever for their own good on this complex effort. "N M 156" is one of the most complex tracks on the album covering the subject of technological nightmare and whenever I listen to it, it sounds like a juxtaposed effort of metal meets Marillion and I half expect Geoff Tate to be singing 'Punch and Judy' half the time. "Before the Storm" is definitely treading water and "Child of Fire" is pretty meh despite becoming more engaging as the song progresses. Overall the album has a running time of 48 mins and despite its epic trappings it feels waaaaaaay to long. For example, taking a metal album of similar time from this era like Kill ‘Em All, that album just seems to fly by and feels like it fills out every rivet of time, sadly the same can’t be said for The Warning which does lag, but despite all this it’s an intriguing listen. Finally every new generation of rock tends to throw up around half a dozen exceptional vocalists, as in singers that are blessed with an exceptional set of pipes, some of these vocalists excel in one particular vocal style whilst others can lend their voice to a variety of styles. With the birth of Queensryche in 1982 the band would soon boast of having without doubt one of the most gifted vocalists of his generation in Geoff Tate, whose incredible range would soon embark the band on an impressive run of albums and a vocal capacity that would be the envy of many a singer out there.

Geoff Tate- Vocals
Chris DeGarmo- Guitar
Michael Wilton- Guitar
Eddie Jackson- Bass
Scott Rockenfield- Drums

Production- James Guthrie

The Lowdown
In the space of two years Queensryche put out two recordings that could easily be described as chalk and cheese in terms of execution. Their debut album as explained above was a difficult sounding progressive metal affair, that certainly entered choppier waters than it should’ve done, whereas the previous EP by the band was a far more straightforward classic metal affair, where the band’s love for the likes of Dio, Judas Priest and Iron Maiden were certainly very obvious. That’s not to say that the four tracks on this EP were basic metal tracks in any way, as the band’s members had a bit too much in their locker to dish out something basic, instead the four tracks here display a real richness that the band had in abundance. The four tracks start with “Queen of the Reich” a track that has that trademark Iron Maiden style gallop, but Queensryche end up doing this style in an even choppier manner that feels very unique to them. The song is basically a glorious 4 plus minutes and midway through the track, there is some great work by the band especially from guitarists Chris DeGarmo and Michael Winton who are in full cry here and basically not even Iron Maiden themselves could’ve done better here. Second track the “Nightrider” kind of reminds me of Ozzy era Black Sabbath in the way it starts, as I could easily imagine evil Ozzy laughing in place of Goeff Tate here at the beginning of the song. The song though ends up as being an interesting mix between mid-paced metal and speedier metal, as things speed up considerably later on in the song. Third track “Blinded” is seen by some as the weaker track here, but the song is still carried by the voice of Geoff Tate and the song still remains powerful. The best though is saved till last in the glorious power ballad “The Lady Wore Black” a song that perfectly showcases the voice of Geoff Tate and was written solely by Chris DeGarmo, who imo was the most talented of the trio that wrote most of the band’s material, he writes both tracks one and four here, the two strongest efforts on the EP. All four songs have musical references to classic metal artists and Queensryche proved that they could hold their own even at this stage with these artists over these tracks. But instead of building with this style, the band were aiming for something even higher in both progressive and concept metal instead and this would become obvious over the next couple of years. Finally my only regret about this EP, is that the band didn’t use all four tracks on the above album, because if they had The Warning would’ve been chasing a top 10 position on this year’s list instead of dicing it up around the top 20 slot.

Geoff Tate- Vocals
Chris DeGarmo- Guitar
Michael Wilton- Guitar
Eddie Jackson- Bass
Scott Rockenfield- Drums

Production- Queensryche

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Metal Wars

Power Metal

Pounding Decibels- A Hard and Heavy History

Anteater

Nice spotlight. The Warning, at least for me, is one of metal's big watershed moments in the 80's: it was the point where some of the jazzier, "artsy" tendencies touched upon in the late 70's and very early 80's by Judas Priest, Iron Maiden and Black Sabbath were fleshed out and dialed up to 11 with a healthy dose of Genesis and Pink Floyd to boot. And while not perfect ('Before The Storm' is a tad weak as you said), I'd say its the definitive start of progressive metal as a genre. Was any other metal band doing songs like NM 156 in '84?

James Guthrie was a interesting choice of producer too: his ethereal touch elevates 'No Sanctuary' and 'Roads To Madness' to another level, aided in part via orchestration by the legendary Michael Kamen.

I'm going to assume Operation: Mindcrime will probably make your list in '88, but I'd recommend checking out Rage For Order again at some point too. For a lot of folks, that's where QR really came into their own.

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Unknown Soldier

As I know they're your favourite band, so your knowledge of the band is going to be spot on. Thinking about it the watershed moment that you're referring to, I think seemed to happen without many people being aware of it and doing some more reading on the album, it's certainly a prime candidate to be recognized as the first true 'prog metal' from end to end. Sure nobody in metal was doing tracks like "N M 156" at this time.

Nearly every review touches on this and in a negative way (I didn't because of my own word count) but for me James Guthrie as producer seems quite logical, I mean he'd worked extensively with Pink Floyd and if a band wanted to record a prog metal album, it made more sense at this time to go with a prog familiar producer than a metal one.

Operation Mindcrime of course and super high, and I'm already a fan of Rage For Order so no need to convince me on that one.

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Metal Wars

Power Metal

Pounding Decibels- A Hard and Heavy History

Unknown Soldier

The Lowdown
Out of the Cellar was one of the very first metal albums that I ever purchased and it was long before I was even into heavy metal music as a fan. In fact I remember buying it at the same time as I bought the Bon Jovi debut which came out more or less at the same time and both were classified as hard rock/glam metal a fairly accurate label for both albums. I quickly tired though of both albums as they they both failed to ignite any big interest in me to pursue metal much further at that time. I already had at this time anyway albums by the Scorpions, Def Leppard and Van Halen and far preferred those three to new boys Ratt and Bon Jovi. So around the mid 1980s metal for me was just one of the music genres that I was listening to from time to time and was somewhere down my list of favourite musical genres. Many years later as I was getting into metal proper I realized that the Bon Jovi debut was a blandish album, even though I dig a couple of its track like openers “Runaway” and ”Roulette” but overall all the tracks sound like that they’ve been recorded better by somebody else previously. The Ratt album though whilst not being a classic, at least had an engaging if somewhat simplistic sound to it, that always made it decent listening glam metal material. I think it might surprise a number of people that the members of Ratt had been in various bands since the early 1970s and on top of that once Ratt had formed, they had gone through numerous line-up changes with artists like Jake.E Lee spending time in the band. In 1983 they recorded their 6-track EP which upon the success of Out of the Cellar was re-recorded in a polished manner in 1984. As for the album Out of the Cellar as far as I’m concerned is not a particularly good album, for the simple reason that nearly all its tracks sound like variations of its stellar song “Round and Round” and nearly all the album’s tracks seem to feed off the engaging and energetic sound of that track, which make no mistake about it is one of the most memorable tracks of the 1980s metal music scene anyway. In fact if this journal were concerned with the best individual metal tracks each year then Ratt would surely be in the top 3 this year, instead of dicing it up around the top 20. The song and the band of course, were another metal band that certainly touched gold when it came to radio and MTV as “Round and Round” was played constantly and become one of the most recognizable tracks of its time. When I drew up this year’s list I was kind of determined to squeeze in the Ratt debut despite its shortcomings, for the simple reason that the album is such an energetic highlight of the early glam metal scene and also one of its biggest sellers along with Quiet Riot’s Metal Health. Out of the Cellar is currently certified as a triple platinum album, so that speaks volumes of its impact around this time and on glam metal in general. Out of the Cellar as said is really about just one track “Round and Round” but there are certainly a few others that are worthy of being let out of the ‘Ratt Cage’ and these include album opener “Wanted Man” whose lyrics would go nicely on an Alice Cooper album and "Lack of Communication" which is an addictive melodic-muscle bound track and a favourite of mine. Then there is the single sounding "Back for More" which is not great but its chorus and opening guitar riff are top drawer stuff and finally "Scene of the Crime" which flows well, despite having some more of the band's silly lyrics....which though can still be fun. Overall the album has three saving graces that ultimately grant its inclusion here 1) A musical energy that approaches Motley Crue. 2) Stephen Pearcy’s addictive voice is just so distinctive. 3) Round and Round…… need I say more. Finally Ratt kind of remind me of fellow American west coast band the Knack, who several years earlier had been one of the highlights of the American new wave scene but ended up being just a one trick pony, as they had nothing that could match “My Sharona” in terms of quality and in many ways Ratt suffered the same fate, as they had nothing that could really match “Round and Round” in their glamster locker.

Stephen Pearcy- Vocals
Warren DeMartini- Guitar
Robbin Crosby- Guitar
Juan Croucier- Bass
Bobby Blotzer- Drums

Production- Beau Hill

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Metal Wars

Power Metal

Pounding Decibels- A Hard and Heavy History

Unknown Soldier

The Lowdown
I’ve constantly mentioned how glam metal had its different elements in some of my previous reviews and up until this moment only Twisted Sister had represented both the garish and heavier element of this metal sub-genre to the maximum. Twisted Sister would now be joined by the shock rock themed W.A.S.P (an Acronym btw) from Los Angeles. Initially the W.A.S.P debut had missed my cut for the year, but a friend of mine who often reads this journal despite not being a member here, wanted to know what the hell I was playing at passing over this album when I said it would be off the list and stated that if W.A.S.P weren’t on it he would be boycotting, so guess what I picked up the album and gave it another twirl and I’m glad I did in a way. First of all any album that’s on this list needs to be good, but those nearer the ‘20 mark’ usually have some distinct flaws that knocks them back and W.A.S.P in this respect are no exception as I will soon explain. The band emerged out of an outfit called Circus Circus which contained frontman Blackie Lawless (who sounds like a bad guy in a western) and guitarist Randy Piper. Photos of Circus Circus at this time basically have the band looking like Kiss but without the make-up and even the band’s poses are literally a double for Kiss at times, so it’s no secret that they were the biggest influence on the future W.A.S.P. Soon both Blackie and Randy formed W.A.S.P and after various line-up changes, Tony Richards on drums and party-animal guitarist Chris Holmes were added to form the definitive line-up of the band and a deal with Capitol saw them ready for their debut album. The album was a high profile affair given the band’s infamous theatrical stage show which included lobbing raw meat at the audience and having exploding codpieces amongst other delights. The W.A.S.P debut truly has some great cuts where they combine their heaviness with a surprising amount of melody and this combination reverberates throughout most of the album, as does the band’s love of the 1970s British glam scene, and of course the album’s biggest feature is the powerful energy of the band. The opening tracks start with the infamous “Animal (Fuck Like a Beast)” which was actually deleted from the original album due to it’s language content and didn’t appear until the 1998 re-issue of the album, but as it’s such a great track and an obvious album opener I’ve mentioned it here (the way it was meant to be) and it’s a pure muscle track that ignites the whole album. This is followed by the raging “I Wanna Be Somebody” (which became the original album opener) and it’s another definitive muscle song by the band and its powerful anthem overload blows a lot of the competition out there away. The band are still not finished because up steps track killer number three “L.O.V.E Machine” and this is followed by the angsty “The Flame” both these tracks imo are as good as the opening two classics. “B.A.D” takes the foot slightly off the power button but the energy is still there on the song. Now based on these songs this album would be in the top 6 for the year and when I listen to these tracks I’m usually blown away by the energy and power of them, but about 50% of the way through the album I tend to switch-off and this happens on every listen, and happens on “School Daze” and all the following songs, its not that these are bad songs or anything, but it feels like ‘my W.A.S.P fix’ has run its course! Meaning that the one-dimensional sound of the band and the similarity of the songs all end up blending together and start to feel watered down in the second half of the album. Overall I think the glam metal albums further up this list, despite not having the same shock value do offer much more musically than W.A.S.P do. As of yet I haven’t mentioned the PMRC (Parents Music Resource Center) which was an influential American committee at this time, that was charged with censuring offensive material in music and included the usual topics of sex, drug and alcohol abuse, strong language and the usual so-called satanic goings-on in music. Needless to say the shock rock tactics of W.A.S.P were soon brought under their microscope, which was no surprise considering the band’s risqué stage show and songs like “Animal (Fuck Like a Beast)” were of course perfect examples of songs being pulled up for language....hell even Def Leppard were pulled up as well at one stage! In fact in the case of W.A.S.P that song was actually pulled from the album, but luckily for us listeners it got back on the re-issue. Overall the album belongs in any metal collection for its impact, but as for how often it will come out depends a great deal on whether the listener is into the one-dimensional metal being put out by the band or not. Comparing them to say Kiss an obvious comparison, sure for a metalhead W.A.S.P are heavier and probably rank as being better musicians, but the real charm of Kiss is the fact that their classic line-up had three/four vocalists to add a different dimension to their sound which was something that W.A.S.P didn’t have as they only had Blackie Lawless.

Blackie Lawless- Bass/Vocals
Chris Holmes- Guitar
Randy Piper- Guitar
Tony Richards- Drums

Production- Blackie Lawless/Mike Varney

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Metal Wars

Power Metal

Pounding Decibels- A Hard and Heavy History

William_the_Bloody

Sigh only 22 on your list, this is regarded as one of the biggest metal releases of 84!

Oh well, its already been established that we have different tastes in metal, so I hope you give The Last Command its just due, I know I won't be happy with a lot of the albums you put before this, and the song School Dazed is great for anyone who didn't like the bs of high school!

Unknown Soldier

I know it was one of the biggest metal releases of the year, but I more or less hinted in the intro for the year that there are quite a number of lower key metal releases that are quite high on the list and might actually surprise some people. Strange how you put "School Daze" up as that is the exact point where I start to switch off on this W.A.S.P album.

Even now the album I had at 21 I realise is better than I thought so that has moved right up, dropping everybody else down and this is happening a lot for 1984, the problem is that metal was flooded with so many great metal releases that year.

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Metal Wars

Power Metal

Pounding Decibels- A Hard and Heavy History

The Batlord

Dude, he was gonna leave off Bathory's debut until I shamed him.

And you know Blackie got kicked out of military school back in the day. I spent some time in one myself, so I imagine we have some similar feelings on the matter.

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