The Batlord

Just out of curiosity, are you gonna do Motorhead's Out On Parole? Their debut debut album was Motorhead in 1977, but On Parole was actually recorded earlier and supposed to be released in 1976. Obviously it's not the best album by any means, but it sounds like it would at least be worth a mention in your "albums that didn't make the cut" part at the end of the year. If for no other reason than historical signifigance.

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Unknown Soldier

I wasn't but now that you've mentioned it, it would seem worth the mention for historical reasons at least. It was actually recorded from what I can see in 1975 and planned for a 1976 release, but was dropped because yet again here was another label that didn't know how to market this type of band. It then got forgotten when the next album labelled the Motorhead debut got released in 1977. On Parole I think got released around 1979/1980 when the band were popular.

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Metal Wars

Power Metal

Pounding Decibels- A Hard and Heavy History

Unknown Soldier

Overview
Truth and Janey had one of the great and unexpected debut albums of the year, despite the fact that nobody noticed them apart from their faithful local followers! The band hailed from Cedar Rapids Iowa and had formed as a band as far back as 1969, which probably explains why the band still had a great fondness of blues rock a la Cream and Jeff Beck amongst others, in fact the band had partially taken their name from the Jeff Beck album Truth and from the surname of their frontman Billy Janey. The band had gradually built up a reputation for themselves, after touring earlier on in the decade with the likes of bands like Mountain and then they came to greater prominence whilst touring with the Blue Oyster Cult. Success though never came their way and their debut album No Rest for the Wicked was actually recorded on a local independent label called Rockadrome and mostly sold in and around Iowa. Sadly a big label would never come in for this bluesy Iowa band and Just the following year in 1977 the band would finally split, with frontman Billy Janey adding ‘Lee’ to his name (not very original there) and going onto release several blues albums (surprise surprise) in the 1980s and 1990s (which I’ve never heard of) The band and album itself were certainly something of a culture shock in first instance and on the face of it, were at least half a decade out of date by the time of the debut release No Rest for the Wicked. Firstly the concept of the power trio which the band were, had more or less died out as the cool thing to do and the band’s heavy blues influences and bluesy covers were certainly a thing of the past as well, so adding these two things together would probably have the band as no more than a novelty act circa 1976 but the band were anything but that! Without doubt this was one of the heaviest and most startling releases of the year and a born cult classic in every sense, I’d say anybody reading this journal and looking for two relatively unknown or forgotten American cult classics of the decade, that can still do the business and also blow your speakers, then look no further than this album and the Sir Lord Baltimore debut released several years earlier (which is fully reviewed on my 1970 list) Also I think of that album cover above as having a real bleakness about it that would have done a future grunge rock band proud.

Billy Janey- Guitar/Vocals
Steven Bock- Bass/Vocals
Denis Bunce-Drums

Production- Steve Bock

Album
Down the Road I Go- A heavy opener that has a Led Zeppelin’s “Whole Lotta Love” feel about it, the song then emerges into a blustery powerhouse of a song and it’s a stunner without a shadow of a doubt, before then speeding up again at the end. The Light- A melodic style shuffle of a song, before it crunches and beefs itself up and then goes on to sound like a staple track from the band. I’m Ready- A revved up Willie Dixon cover and sounds exactly like so, in fact the band sound exactly like Wishbone Ash here…………..which means they sound pretty tasty! Remember: a Child/Burning Walls- A multi-part almost progressive rock track, that had the likes of Yes and Rush to name a few of not doing it any better! The band amazingly keeps this whole powerhouse of an song going for its allotted time, full of contrasting passages and jazzy breaks, and then fuck me the band pick it up with the guitars again! No Rest for the Wicked- The dynamic title track amazingly sounds like early Rush here….. on second thoughts it actually sounds better than early Rush ever did! All Above Us- A song deep rooted in west coast American psychedelia of the late 1960s and again the band get this half electric/acoustic number spot on and it’s one of the best on the album. Ain’t No Telling- The second blues cover here and it’s a speeded up cover of the Mississippi John Hurt track and again they don’t put a guitar-string wrong. My Mind- With a slightly drawn out intro, the song emerges into an almost Rush sounding “By-Tor and the Snow Dog” style before beefing the track out with some stellar guitar work later on in the song. Midnight Horseman- A heavy bluesy intro here and another stalwart album track in full motion. Around and Around- Not a cover but the band’s attempt to do straight-up rock ‘n’ roll, not bad but not to the height of what we’ve already heard earlier. Under My Thumb- A cover of the Rolling Stone’s classic and I’ve read on a few sites where the cover is not overly liked, personally I like it. Straight Eight Pontiac- Another one of the band’s bluesy sounding covers, that is actually not a cover but one of their own renditions.

Verdict
From the word go Truth and Janey lay down the gauntlet, in that this is a heavy band with a strong bluesy feel about them. The volume and epicness of the album’s opening song “Down the Road I Go” is enough to blow the socks-off most other bands out there and its quality powers through to “The Light” where the band show us their grasping of melody and the song turns out to be a near on six minutes epic. Then there is the near on nine minute magnum opus “Remember: a Child/Burning Walls” which when I first heard shocked me, as I wasn’t expecting a blues rock band as such, to have such mastery of putting out a nine minute progressive rock track that didn’t rely on extensive jamming……hell this is a song to make your hair curl, in fact I’d call this one of the finest tracks by a heavy band from the whole decade! In fact Budgie would’ve been one of the few bands around at this time to do justice to this song. Then the band tackle heavy psychedelia, or better said they then take the essence of psychedelia and dress it up in a heavy style on “All Above Us” where they basically sound like they’ve been doing this type of sound for years on end! Then there is the title track “No Rest for the Wicked” which is another stellar track that combines great all-round dynamics and a melody worthy of being a title track. The band though show their age in their choice of covers, using songs originally composed by bluesmen Willie Dixon and Mississippi John Hurt, but luckily instantly make them their own. It has to be said that when a band does covers as well as Truth and Janey, who the hell cares whether these choices are several years out of date and the band also include an estimable cover of the “Under My Thumb”. In fact the only area where the band does lose some brownie points, is in its own two overtly blues tracks, that actually sound very much like covers rather than originals but both are buried deeply away on the b-side of the album. The power of this album largely comes from Billy Janey’s guitar, the powerhouse bass of Steven Bock and intense drumming of Dennis Bunce! The album clocks itself in at over fifty minutes, making it a long album for its time considering that it’s not a double album. In fact I’ve heard a number of so-called classic albums from this era, that hold less quality over their thirty to forty minutes than Truth and Janey put out over fifty! Listening to this album makes you realize, that had the band made the breakthrough that they should’ve done, half the other acts putting out similar music may as well had given up and gone home!

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Metal Wars

Power Metal

Pounding Decibels- A Hard and Heavy History

Unknown Soldier

A rainbow in the shadow of the wizard.

Overview
After the firing of the ex-Elf members from the first album (minus Dio of course) both Dio and Ritchie Blackmore went onto produce what would be seen as the definitive Rainbow album in both sound and style. The album was simply released as just Rising in the UK, but for the US market it was titled Blackmore’s Rising (surely feeding Ritchie’s ego here) and the two frontmen of the band, brought in two relatively unknown musicians in Jimmy Bain on bass and Tony Carey on keyboards and the somewhat rather well-known Cozy Powell on drums, who throughout his career would just about work with everybody in the business! Prior to 1976 though, he had worked fairly extensively with the likes of Jeff Beck, Bedlam and on his own solo material and would probably be the best drummer ever to sit on the drum stool for Rainbow! As mentioned on the review of their debut set, Rainbow would effectively be the band that ushered in the long forgotten term ‘Dragon Rock’ which as the name suggests, was music steeped in fantasy and sword & sorcery settings, along with medieval themes, and Rainbow would certainly perfect this sound on Rising. The band had already given us great examples of this sound on songs such as “Man on the Silver Mountain” “Catch the Rainbow” and “The Temple of the King” all from the debut set, which despite being a largely uneven affair did contain those gems! Rising would be a tight and focused album in every aspect, as the band purged all filler from the proceedings, and the album sits at a surprisingly short thirty three minutes, and the 'big things in small packages' quote comes to mind here! One of the vital aspects of the Rising album though, surely must be in the production of Martin Birch, who had co-produced the debut and would be a producer and engineer largely responsible for the development of both hard rock and heavy metal throughout the 1970s and 1980s. He had of course worked prior with all the Deep Purple line-ups, along with bluesy based outfits such as Fleetwood Mac and Wishbone Ash and would later go onto to work with Whitesnake and even then more famously with Iron Maiden on several of their albums. Rising would certainly be one of the most important albums from the 1970s in terms of grandiose metal designs and all of the musicians on show here are largely responsible for this. Also the album cover really does denote the power of the band and that fist smashing through let’s know that metal is here to stay!

Dio- Vocals
Ritchie Blackmore- Guitar
Jimmy Bain- Bass
Tony Carey- Keyboards
Cozy Powell- Drums

Production- Martin Birch

Album
Tarot Woman- With its distinctive spiralling keyboard introduction and then its pacey rock-out feel, which all then blends in seamlessly with Dio’s powerful lead vocals, “Tarot Woman” would be the type of song that would become synonymous with the classic Rainbow sound. Run with the Wolf- Sounds like it’s been ripped from the Deep Purple discography, but after about a minute the song sounds like the perfect second track to follow the stunning opening track, again it’s the vocals of Dio and the guitar of Ritchie Blackmore that shine through. Starstruck- One of the best tracks on the album, which rambles along with its catchy lines and strutting sound, and that now makes three great tracks on the trot! Do You Close Your Eyes- One of the heaviest tracks on the album without a shadow of a doubt and does an amiable job of finishing the first side of the album, especially with its hooky chorus! Stargazer- A stunning 8 minute band classic that apparently all just fell into place when the band were putting the song together and features some great work by Ritchie Blackmore on guitar and Tony Carey on keyboards, and this song would be a band staple for many years. A Light in the Black- The best song on the whole album and is in stark contrast to the previous song, this is a fast kicking outro-track that shoots along for a stunning 8 minutes and the song is basically a guitar lesson from Ritchie Blackmore. When this song finishes, you know that you’ve just heard a classic album of 6 classic tracks and no filler.

Verdict
From the moment you hear the spiralling keyboard intro on “Tarot Woman” the feeling that this is going to be grandiose hits you, as does the pacey guitar and rhythm section on the song, but it’s the vocals of Dio and the plucking guitar sound of Ritchie Blackmore that really set the song alight and sets the tone for the rest of the album. On the second track we have the thumping rhythm section of the band on “Run with the Wolf” where Ritchie Blackmore’s guitar runs from being dominant to subtle with equal aplomb and then the band put out their very best on “Starstruck” and then get even heavier on “Do You Close Your Eyes”. But surely the song that best defines the album, is certainly its showpiece track “”Stargazer” an 8 minute plodding brontosaurus of a track, wrapped up in medieval vibes and lyrics and is probably the song that best typifies the ‘Dragon Rock’ sound of the band. That song is then followed by the butt kicking almost neo-classical metal majesty of “A Light in the Black” the crown on top of the throne as far as the album's concerned. Most reviews of this album constantly heap praise on both Dio and Ritchie Blackmore (for good reason of course) but one of the real strengths of Rising is quite simply it stellar rhythm section, where Jimmy Bain and the illustrious Cozy Powell really do standout. Strangely enough though, despite Jimmy Bain’s great work on the album, this album would also see Ritchie Blackmore take on even greater dictatorial powers than ever with his bandmates, which of course had previously knocked the Purple ship off even-keel a few years back! He now started his long purge of bass players, who would be constantly sacked over the years for not being able to hack it according to him……Jimmy Bain was one of those that certainly could and should’ve never been ousted from the band in the first place! Then there are the keyboards of Tony Carey which really enhance the album on tracks such as “Tarot Woman” and “A Light in the Black”” where it was seen that keyboards had a large part to play in the development of the heavy metal sound and Tony Carey probably doesn’t get enough credit in this respect. Rising as an album quite simply combines fantastic guitar playing by Ritchie Blackmore (one of his best ever) a great rhythm section, a muscular vocal display by Dio second to none, with the whole thing then wrapped up in a blanket of powerful and grandiose tracks, that yet still allow the whole album to be propelled along by a host of melodic muscle songs and neo-classical metal guitar lines. In many ways this album shows the transition from melodic hard rock into a true heavy metal listen, with all the trappings that would go on to characterize the metal genre over the next several years. Without doubt Rising is one of the most important albums ever recorded within the genre.

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Metal Wars

Power Metal

Pounding Decibels- A Hard and Heavy History

Unknown Soldier

Overview
By the time of the release of their fourth album Aerosmith aka ‘The Bad Boys from Boston’ were not only one of the biggest acts in America, they were also one of the most steetwise acts around. They were cool, druggy, smart, walked around like they owned the place and most of all hit you right between the eyes (or in this case between the ears) The band had hit mega-status with Toys in the Attic, but then assured themselves of immortality with the release of Rocks, which actually did the impossible and turned out to be an even better album than Toys in the Attic….just! Well that depends of course on which best Aerosmith review list you’ve been looking at! Now going back some time and long before I’d ever fallen in love with Rocks myself, I’d already heard a lot about it and knew that it was considered the band’s very best album from varying sources. I’d also heard how artists like James Hetfield and Slash who upon hearing the album had decided to take up guitar playing, as the album had helped change their lives! Rocks as an album therefore had everything that was totally essential to any truly classic album and was certainly the product of a band at the supreme height of their creative powers. Steven Tyler on the album continued with the witty jokes and double entendres in the lyrics department, all along with the power and sleaze that his vocals provided. The dirty stripped-down heavy blues-based riffs were there yet again and drove on relentlessly throughout the album, all aided by the pounding rhythm section, quite simply Aersosmith were the raunchiest band around! Rocks was recorded by the now in-house producer Jack Douglas, who was to Aerosmith what Bob Ezrin was to Alice Cooper and the album was recorded at both the Wherehouse and the Record Plant early 1976, and would be released around the May period of that year. The album in many ways, would be the last album that would be recorded by a very young, raw and hungry band that still hadn’t gone full tilt yet on their own excesses! Like Toys in the Attic, Rocks would also assail the somewhat well-known Rolling Stone’s ‘Greatest 500 Albums’ list. The album cover is also very astute, with its studio knobs and its clever use of red and white on a black base for the cover.

Steven Tyler-Vocals
Joe Perry-Guitar
Brad Whitford-Rhythm
Tom Hamilton-Bass
Joey Kramer- Drums

Production- Jack Douglas

Album
Back in the Saddle- With its stomping intro, the song is regarded as one of the archetypal heavy songs by the band and was always one of the main concert openers of the band as well and the song has been covered by countless artists over the years. Last Child- Starts off with a haunting intro which soon gives over to a plodding funky groove and the song is full chocca of Steven Tyler’s double entendre lyrics. Co-writer Brad Whitford plays lead guitar here instead of the more usual Joe Perry. Rats in the Cellar- With a stellar start, this is Aerosmith at their pacey best and was written as a sequel to the previous album track “Toys in the Attic” and matches that track in quality all the way. I’m sure the future Ratt played around with the name of this song for their debut album several years later. Combination- A song about drugs and co-sung between Steven Tyler and Joe Perry, and often described as one of the band’s most Rolling Stones like efforts. Sick as a Dog- I once read that this song was about Steven Tyler’s attempts to talk to Mick Jagger and when the time came he fluffed his lines, whether that’s true or not, it’s still a great song that’s really highlighted by some great playing as well. Nobody’s Fault- With its apocalyptic start, the song then bludgeons us…before it spirals around the place and is in stark contrast to the previous song on the album. Without doubt one of the most influential songs ever put out by the band and one of their very best. Get the Lead Out- One of the humour focused songs on the album and the songs is accompanied by a seriously heavy riff. Lick and Promise- With its speeded up rock ‘n’ roll feel, this song seriously kicks and hell it always sounds so good and shows just how strong the b-side of this album is and the ‘no no no’ of the song sounds like a future Cheap Trick! Home Tonight- The perfect album closer is a powerfully performed ballad and certainly one of the best of its type.

Verdict
Rocks as an album quite simply follows on from Toys in the Attic and the two albums serve as the perfect pair in every way. Both are similar but yet different….. Toys in the Attic had tracks more focused to be used as singles, whereas Rocks goes in for being a more album based recording overall. The album’s tracks are yet again dominated by Steven Tyler, but as is often the case they are usually written with the rest of the band. The proceedings are opened straight-away with the pounding “Back in the Saddle” which says it all from the word go, as the band show no hiccups from Toys in the Attic and remind us that this effort is going to be a heavier effort overall. Rocks from the word go maintains its heaviness, with the bands very own type of hard rock and the diversity is also there from the second song onwards. There is the heavy funk of “Last Child” the pacey blues of “Rats in the Cellar” and then the speeded up rock ‘n’ roll feel of “Lick and Promise” and then we kind of wind down the album’s strengths with the swagger of “Combination” and then we have “Sick as a Dog” which is just one of those classic songs written about tales of the road. The album throughout serves as the most complete Aerosmith album around with its combination of heaviness, funk, blues and rock ‘n’ roll along with plenty of time for Steven Tyler’s humour honoured lyrics. The band also give us the stunning ballad “Home Tonight” which finishes off the album, but the killer track on the album is surely its heaviest and that’s “Nobody’s Fault” one of the legendary tracks from 1970s hard rock and one of the very best in the band’s discography, with its apocalyptic style intro….. before we are then bludgeoned by the sheer power of the band, all full of blazing drums and bass and then those soaring guitars…… this song packs one hell of a punch! Rocks has a total nine songs and every one of them is something unique and there isn’t a filler in sight anywhere, and without doubt this is one of the tightest albums of its type. Not only is this possibly the greatest hard rock album ever recorded, but it’s also Aerosmith at both their raunchiest and heaviest. One review I saw, stated that Rocks fucking rocks and that statement says it all really.

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Metal Wars

Power Metal

Pounding Decibels- A Hard and Heavy History