Urban Hat€monger ?

You should start a blogger page and repost this stuff on it.
It'll make each entry much easier to find and read and it'll be a shame to see all your hard work disappear if anything ever happened to the site.

I did that with mine...
MyDoctorWhoThing

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Unknown Soldier

Keep reading as your comments are always welcome.

I'll have a good look at your blog later, but everything I've written on here is saved on my computer through various sources.

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Metal Wars

Power Metal

Pounding Decibels- A Hard and Heavy History

Unknown Soldier

The Lowdown
This Means War ranks as one of the plushest sounding productions on this year’s list, as Tank put out their third studio album in just two short years. 1982 had been a busy year for the band, as they had put out their stinging debut Filth Hounds of Hades (see 1982 review) without doubt one of the quintessential speed metal albums of its time. The band then disappointed on their sophomore set Power of the Hunter, which was a largely mixed and muddled affair despite having a couple of strong salvos for Tank fans! For 1983 frontman Algy Ward and the Brabbs brothers Peter and Mark (much like Raven’s set-up here) decided to augment their trio into a quartet, with the arrival of another guitarist in Mick Tucker ex-White Spirit, who in turn brought to the band a much bigger guitar sound. The overall result would see the band evolve, into a much plusher melodic sounding outfit compared to the Filth Hounds of Hades days just a year earlier. This Means War would be highlighted by a number of characteristics that would put it as being both quite unique and influential for its time and these points can be highlighted like so. 1) The songs and feel of the album would be dramatically slowed down to slower-tempos, something that certain thrash bands would soon adopt after their first few albums. 2) The said production moves away from what characterized a lot of NWOBHM bands of this time and instead gives us a bright sound without losing too much of the band’s venom (no pun intended) again something that certain thrash bands would adopt and this is largely down to the production values of John Verity ex-Argent on the album. 3) The album starts with a slick and atmospheric keyboard intro and this would be something that would be used by certain metal bands in the 1980s on certain tracks, just think Van Halen here 1984, but it’s the next point that is probably the most worthy of note. 4) The album only has seven songs fitted into less than 40 minutes of playing time, meaning that the average song time on nearly all the songs is around five minutes, which is surprising as band’s of this ilk were used to working with three minute tracks. In fact the opening cut “Just Like Something from Hell” far exceeds this and clocks in at around eight and a half minutes. I’m guessing that guitarist Mick Tucker was brought in largely for this, in order to really flesh out the band’s sound over these extra minutes. This results with an album that a number of future metal bands would soon adopt style-wise as well, as metal bands would greatly increase their song lengths over the ensuing years. Through all this though, the band maintain their yardstick with a collection of strong riffs that don’t for one moment trade-in their characteristic blood and guts approach to their sound and the album remains a heavy and loud example of where polished metal was heading around this time. As an album This Means War doesn’t give us anything complex with its lengthy songs, so it can’t be compared to say something like Metallica’s …. And Justice for All which had even longer songs anyway, but it can be compared to other future albums for its song length and scope. The album is often criticized as being pretentious, due to the fact that its overly long songs, don’t really give us too much in the way of complexity, with its detractors then saying what is the point of extended songs that don’t really challenge the listener from a technical perspective....... I guess they have a point here. Overall the album certainly isn’t as strong or as biting as their debut Filth Hounds of Hades, but it’s still an achievement that demonstrates how the band were able to go from crude on their debut, to mixed on their second and then onto fleshed out by their third album in just over a year.

Algy Ward- Bass/Vocals
Peter Brabbs- Guitar
Mick Tucker- Guitar
Mark Brabbs- Bass

Production- John Verity

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Metal Wars

Power Metal

Pounding Decibels- A Hard and Heavy History

Unknown Soldier

The Lowdown
Saxon’s fifth studio album the Power & the Glory should’ve delivered Saxon as superstars stateside as it did with Def Leppard and their Pyromania album, but fate it seems had other plans in store for Saxon. The band went into the studio in 1983 on the back of three killer NWOBHM album classics Wheels of Steel, Strong Arm of the Law and Denim & Leather, as well as the live The Eagle Has Landed (see all these hot reviews) a period which had seen a stunning creative output by the band in just a few short years, a quality few of their rivals could match. Headed up by Biff Byford possibly the most important vocalist of the NWOBHM, where his vocals and the band’s sound had always veered to an epic metal approach with its steady stream of melody, even though the band did speed metal as good as anybody else when they wanted to. This meant that a combination of the band’s trademark sound and the tacking on of the beloved American AOR sound as demonstrated on a song like “Nightmare” should have come up trumps for the band in the USA. But in many ways compared to a band like Def Leppard, Saxon had their fate already sealed before they even went into the recording studio when it came to conquering the American market. Both they and Def Leppard hadn’t released a studio album in 1982, both bands had also toured vigorously BUT they had toured in two different spheres and this was the vital point here. Whilst Saxon were continuing to dominate in the UK and Europe, Def Leppard had taken the USA by storm (due to their excess of shows there) and were set to become the biggest British heavy thing there since the days of Led Zeppelin, and the band had also done themselves an even bigger favour by embracing the ultimate marketing tool back then in MTV! Therefore Saxon had missed the opportunites that Def Leppard had been afforded there, but the Power & the Glory was still an album that was recorded with the American market mostly in mind, rather than being a straight up metal album of choice by the band. This meant the album was recorded in the USA, Atlanta to be exact and for the album’s polished production (even though All Music states the album sounds like it was recorded in a large tin can) the band used the services of Jeff Glixman, who produced all those early classic Kansas albums. He had now cut his teeth with something harder with Gary Moore, so on the face of it Jeff Glixman fitted the type of album that Saxon wanted to record here. As an album Power & the Glory sounds from its first track the title cut “Power and the Glory” like a band that have that veteran and more mature feel to them, as the song plays like a defined metal cut that revolves around a balanced display of vocal prowess and heavy metal riffing, in many ways an archetypal metal track of excellence. They follow a similar vein on a song like “Warrior” which is highlighted by its impressive mid-song guitar solo. The band do the whole dark ballad thing well on “Nightmare” and again Biff Byford’s vocals propel the whole thing along. The showpiece track on the album is the album closer “The Eagle Has Landed” named after the previous live album and also the band’s usual logo on their previous albums. The song harks back to the epic days of Led Zeppelin in the mid-1970s largely because it has that aura about it. The band stay true to their beloved biker themed tracks with “Redline” and cover speed metal on the intro to “This Town Rocks” and then splash it around the rest of the song. Not everything though comes across as well as it should, as the ET based “Watching the Sky” could’ve been better and its following track “Midas Touch” falls into the same category here, despite being more uplifting and with better riffing than the previous song. Despite the album’s criticism from various quarters, it was included in Rock Hard’s The 500 Greatest Rock & Metal Albums of All Time, a fact I certainly won’t disagree with as this is always the kind of epic metal that I really dig and because this album is a true heavy beast of burden for those in the know.

Biff Byford- Vocals
Graham Oliver- Guitar
Paul Quinn- Guitar
Steve Dawson- Bass
Nigel Glockler- Drums

Production- Jeff Glixman

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Metal Wars

Power Metal

Pounding Decibels- A Hard and Heavy History