Unknown Soldier

These two stories really indicate the true impact of music and show how certain songs or albums really do form those historical memory banks of a person and how they can take a person right back to a certain moment or situation in their lives.

Thanks for sharing

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Metal Wars

Power Metal

Pounding Decibels- A Hard and Heavy History

Unknown Soldier

Journal Note

For anybody the regularly reads this journal I won't be starting 1985 for at least two weeks or even more, as I've haven't had time to listen and order all the albums for the year yet, have just started doing it but this takes time.

In the meantime I've a couple of extra albums to add onto 1984 to fill out the time until 1985 arrives, so there will be entries.

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Metal Wars

Power Metal

Pounding Decibels- A Hard and Heavy History

Unknown Soldier

Verdict
The Bathory debut album certainly belongs in this journal for its historical importance and is largely regarded as the first ‘black metal’ album and would form part of the fledgling ‘first wave of black metal’. The NWOBHM had firmly given the heavy metal genre its own unique identity, thrash metal had then pushed that envelope even further and had thrown metal into unknown waters. This had in turn opened the door to the more extreme metal sub-genres of both black metal and death metal which would shape metal considerably over the coming decades. Black metal would certainly be a phenomenom as far as metal was concerned, as it quickly nominated itself as a European concept rather than a British or American one, but that’s not to say that its roots weren’t in bands such as Venom and Slayer! The European angle though came in the form of bands like Mercyful Fate and even more significantly from Hellhammer who quickly evolved into the better known Celtic Frost (reviews for all these bands) Bathory though fronted by Quorthon would firmly establish the genre in its purest form so far, as in the space of just 26 minutes Bathory would deliver an inspiration for a whole sub-genre. The band formed in Vallingby Sweden were named after the infamous Hungarian countess Elizabeth Bathory (check your history) and were fronted by multi-instrumentalist Quorthon who besides writing all the music and lyrics for the album, covered the vocals and the guitars here too as well as most of the production duties. The album starts off with an almost Black Sabbath style of morbid church bells tolling away in “Storm of Damantion” before the thrashy low-fi “Hades” sets the scene for the rest of the album, of which I find “Necromansy” and “Raise the Dead” the pick of the tracks. The album is also blessed with fantastic lyrics even though a lyric sheet is essential here and it has some great sounding titles like "In Conspiracy with Satan" and the whole thing is a unique bleak ambient experience. Swedish death metal author Daniel Ekeroth descirbes this album as "basically a mix of the satanic party rock of Venom and the energy of San Francisco thrash metal” an analogy that I think pretty much sums up the black tasting recipe here. Another interesting description I also came across stated that this album sounded like Motorhead had actually been to hell and had just ridden back. What’s most significant about this album and early black metal in general (from what I know) that instead of delving into a general satanic past as a lot of other metal bands would do here, is that bands like Bathory instead looked into their own Nordic heritage and its pagan past for their inspiration, Quorthon of course would provide the inspiration for Viking metal as well. This heritage creates a bleak environment combined with a claustrophobic low-fi sound and the album's heavy black based cover presents a forbidden realm of disturbing doom, that does an excellent job of infiltrating the listeners mind more so than any other sub-genre of metal.

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Metal Wars

Power Metal

Pounding Decibels- A Hard and Heavy History

William_the_Bloody

My 1985 request list, though I know you will piss me off by slighting them for your wussy NWOHM bands

W.A.S.P. The Last Command (Should be number 1)

AC/DC - Fly on the Wall - it is a worthy album

S.O.D. - I imagine that you will start throwing crossover thrash bands up? The bet thrash album released that year in my opinion. Better than Slayer's Hell Awaits, Megadeth's and Exodus's debut albums.

There are other notable releases Helloween ect, but I care not, only the above matters.

Unknown Soldier

Hardly any bands by 1985 with the NWOBHM label were good enough for a top 20 listing.

Sure to make the list but no.1 is highly unlikely

I hadn't considered any AC/DC but will add that to the listening list now.

All the best albums in 1985 were either thrash or other extreme metal styles and all the above are defs for a top 10 placing. SoD is such an acclaimed album anyway.

I'm a big power metal fan, so any band under that style is more likely to make the list than some other sub-genres.

Btw the first 1985 listing should be up in about 10 days time and in the meantime I'll stick another album up like I did with Bathory.

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Metal Wars

Power Metal

Pounding Decibels- A Hard and Heavy History

Unknown Soldier

This is where I try to include albums that I may have forgotten about or didn't already know as is the case with the two below, as I've recently discovered them and how good they really are. As I can’t insert these albums into the previous lists I’ll slot them in at the end of each year as of when and if the need arises.

Most people’s knowledge of Europe largely comes from the much maligned The Final Countdown song and album, which of course was not only the breakout combination from the band, but was also a worldwide commercial sensation in the mid 1980s. Based on this, the band would be largely grouped in that somewhat generic central-northern European metal sound and dismissed as pop metal for the masses, thus sealing the fate of the band in many people’s eyes and ears. The simple truth of the matter is, that before The Final Countdown album the band released two terrific albums especially the debut, which are highlighted by the band’s driving melodic hard rock/metal sound with tinges of neo-classical metal and these two albums are very much shining lights from the Swedish 1980s metal scene. Both albums largely went unnoticed outside of Sweden until the band as said above broke big. Now to be honest I’ve only recently discovered how great these albums are, largely thanks to one of my favourite metal listing sites on the internet, where the reviewer there is a huge fan of this kind of metal and actually placed the Europe debut as his best metal album of 1983 wow! Whilst not agreeing with that lofty position the album is still stellar and had I known the album for my 1983 list it would’ve made the top 10 as it’s that good.


The debut album here from these Swedish rockers starts with the raw sounding “In the Future to Come” where we’re introduced to the axe work of John Norum and the smooth but strong vocals of Joey Tempest. “Farewell” is 1980s AOR material and shows that the quality of the album tracks are simply going to be top notch. Europe were often frenetic sounding without ever quite getting into speed metal territory and a track like “Seven Doors Hotel” is a good example of this especially with its neo-classical touches, as John Norum thrusts his guitar through the whole song in pretty dynamic fashion. “The King Will Return” is a fairly epic reflective sounding track that touches on that classic 1970s vibe that easily could’ve appeared on a Ritchie Blackmore album and the name suggests that the band may have been into Wishbone Ash too. “Boyazont” is an instrumental and this leads back into the frenetic pace of the band with “Children of This Time”. “Words of Wisdom” starts of as a slowish track then moves into a delightful poppy section and shows that every song on this album is kind of special and real care was taken by the band on these compositions. “Paradize Bay” chugs the album along till the final track “Memories” which again captures the melodic essence of the band.


Wings of Tomorrow the sophomore set which despite not being as solid as the debut, is probably the more diverse album though and starts off with the galloping euro-metal standard sound of the band with “Stormwind” and the album soon hints at a stronger power metal direction than the debut did. “Open Your Heart” is the first power ballad from the band an was an obvious choice for a single and “Treated Bad Again” one of the heavier tracks by the band also vocally enters into Dio territory. “Dreamer” would be the second single from the album and is certainly a slower track that seems to be treading water a bit. The crunchy sounding “Dance the Night Away” finishes an album that does tend to be heavier than the debut and again is a nod to Dio in certain sections. Two of the songs on this album “Scream of Angel” and “Wings of Tomorrow” the latter here a great track would both later be covered by melodic death metal band Arch Enemy.

 

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Metal Wars

Power Metal

Pounding Decibels- A Hard and Heavy History

Trollheart

For a long time now I've been planning to do a full discog of Europe, but I've yet to get to it. Have you heard their latest, Bag of bones? Really a superb album.

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

The Batlord

So what you're saying, US, is that you neglected to add Europe into... the final countdown?

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Trollheart

Welcome to the world of Dad Jokes!

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

The Batlord

I'll be here all week. Seriously, I don't do much.

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