Unknown Soldier

The Lowdown
As with the band Trouble, Armored Saint were another one of those bands that seemed oblivious to the current metal landscape in 1984, as the band were just content with their traditional approach to metal. Like Trouble they had got their break on Brian Slagel’s Metal Blade label and had appeared on the Metal Blade compilation albums and in 1983 had put out a three-track EP Armored Saint, before signing a bigger deal with Chrysalis Records for their debut album. The band was formed just a few years earlier by the Sandoval brothers and they were soon joined by Dave Prichard, Joey Vera and the talented vocalist John Bush. With the band being from LA they would’ve been surrounded by plenty of glam metal influences, which apparently had no effect on the band and all credit to them for doing their own thing which was traditional metal. The band had taken their inspiration from the film Excalibur which they had watched whilst stoned (probably the best way to watch it) and chose their band name, their musical direction and also the inspiration for March of the Saint album cover. Like Trouble the band had little interest in either thrash or glam metal at this time and were far more interested in updating what they saw as the sagging fortunes of traditional metal, which had been on the slide since the fall of the NWOBHM just a year earlier. Whilst Trouble were busy trying to update the doom elements of Black Sabbath’s work, Armored Saint were occupying themselves with carrying traditional metal forward in the most contemporary way possible. March of the Saint is one of my personal favourite metal albums of the year and could equally have appeared much higher on this year’s list, given the small differences in terms of quality between the albums placed 10 to 20, but as the album has some basic tracks, I've decided to slot it here. The album starts in the most anti-thrash/hair metal way prossible with an orchestrated guitar intro for the title track “March of the Saint” before John Bush’s vocals give us a fairly typical NWOBHM style track and overall a fairly standard cut. But things go up a notch or two on the seriously cool sounding “Can U Deliver” which is exactly the kind of swaggering metal that I really love and a track that John Bush was born to sing. The band show their speed metal credentials on “Madhouse” where they’re particularly adept at playing faster material. Now by the time they get to "Take a Turn" I'm seriously having an orgasm as this song is just so amazingly cool and mature sounding for such a new band. Following track "Seducer" sounds like something that Judas Priest could've put out and is saved by some seriously cool vocals and playing, and the following "Mutiny on the World" follows the same line. Track seven "Glory Hunter" with its chorus does true justice to the album cover and that track is followed by the edgy "Stricken By Fate". "Envy" and "False Alarm" close out the album and the former is the stronger track of the two, despite the greater diversity on the latter track. Highlights of the album are guitarists Dave Prichard and Phil Sandoval who provide some serious sounding driving riffs across the album, along with vocalist John Bush who would later go onto feature in Anthrax and he provides the band with a cool swaggering vocal style, not too dissimilar to Steven Tyler who he kind of sounds similar to. Also of note here, is that this is the eighth album that I’ve reviewed on this year’s list and seven of those albums have all been debut sets, which certainly shows that the genre was going from strength to strength and great bands were constantly popping up and offering real diversity at the same time. Finally Armored Saint were a true gem of American metal that never quite got the credit that they deserved and they're sure to appear again on these lists.

John Bush- Vocals
Dave Prichard- Guitar
Phil Sandoval- Guitar
Joe Vera- Bass
Gonzo Sandoval- Drums

Production- Michael James Jackson

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