Unknown Soldier

I said it has a soppy start BUT yes the rest is epic.

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Metal Wars

Power Metal

Pounding Decibels- A Hard and Heavy History

The Batlord

And I say **** you. The beginning is beautiful... in a cheesy metal way.

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Unknown Soldier

The Lowdown
If the band’s insidious debut album Welcome to Hell would end up as being one of the most influential metal albums of all time, then their second album Black Metal would actually go one better, by giving birth to a completely new metal sub-genre in black metal and now we go onto their third effort At War with Satan. At this time the Frankenstein monster that was Venom was still lurching around in the basement and the band’s limelight as a force of evil had certainly been supplanted by the aggressive thrash explosion that was taking place in California, with bands like Metallica and the even harder edged Slayer leading the way. If the first two Venom albums had been their proto-thrash and black metal statements, the band clearly felt that they now needed to write some proper songs (those that adhere to what most people view as songs) rather than their basic inclination to simply just express their satanic meanderings in the loudest and meanest way possible, which could be viewed as an almost sonic ordeal for some listeners. At War with Satan which of course is a glorious title, is probably my favourite album by the band (bear in mind that I’m not much of a fan) for the simple reason that the band have attempted to not only improve the structure of their songwriting, but have also gone in for an improved musical playing style and a better production (even though there were complaints about the production) which of course makes the album more enjoyable for my ears. BUT most Venom fans and even some critics would disagree with this, for the simple reason that the Venom they love, is the Venom from their first two albums, which of course had a band totally dedicated to playing in the realm of Hades, with all the applicable gloomy trappings! Now At War with Satan keeps within the confines of the band’s satanic agenda, but just does so with a more melodic and commercial approach (the album was seen as a potential breakthrough release by the band) the end result though could well be seen by some listeners, as a product that probably delivers the same amount of cheese as say a Manowar album! On the previous Black Metal album the band had finished up with the “At War with Satan (Preview)” track which of course was just a prelude for this album and this album now opens up with the same track. “At War with Satan” this time around is a very different kettle of fish and instead of being a 2 minute track, the band have gone in for a monstrous 20 minute metal epic that takes up the complete first side of the album and they were clearly inspired here by what Rush did with their 20 minute “2112” progressive rock opus several years earlier. The track fully encompasses all the facets of the band and can be seen as the true creative highlight of the band and imo their best ever track. By the time we get to the second track “Rip Ride” the speed is at full momentum and this track along with “Genocide” are two tracks that easily could’ve done Slayer proud. By the time the band get to tracks like "Cry Wolf" and "Stand Up (And Be Counted)" there is certainly clear evidence of how they had matured as songwriters and both these track give over to repeated listens. Overall and bear in mind that I’m not a musician but for me on this album Mantas and Abaddon and Cronos sound pretty mean with their instruments and Cronos never sounded better vocally either. "Women, Leather and Hell" has them entering into Motorhead territory and album closer "Aaaaaarrghh" is a bit of fun to close the album. At War with Satan results in being an almost cartoonish example of early extreme metal with an epic title track as its crowning achievement and it was around this time that some critics were calling them the greatest heavy metal band in the world, many of the the same critics were calling Manowar the loudest.

Cronos- Bass/Vocals
Mantas- Guitar
Abaddon- Drums

Production- Venom

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Metal Wars

Power Metal

Pounding Decibels- A Hard and Heavy History

Unknown Soldier

The Lowdown
The kings of celebration metal and all its established clichés really hit the big time on their third studio album Hail to England, for the simple reason this was their first album to actually chart anywhere (based on the info that I have) where it reached a modest 83 spot on the UK album charts (probably helped by its title and glorious album cover) the album title was surely inspired as a nod to their metal heroes across the Atlantic. As a band Manowar were so influential on 1980s metal, where they can probably be seen as the principal motivators of the power metal genre, a fact that was already evident on their previous two studio albums Battle Hymns and Into Glory Ride. The former Battle Hymns can be seen as a kind of basic ‘roots power metal album’ largely due to its meandering “Dark Avenger” and “Battle Hymn” tracks, which was the direction that the band would take on Into Glory Ride. Into Glory Ride was very much an album of epic proportions that can best be described as a ‘celebration of norse mythology’ and at the same time it helped to evolve the ‘power metal’ genre. By the time of Hail to England the band were more focused on combining the elements of the previous two albums into a more receptive metal dish and the album can be viewed as a fusion of success in that respect. The tracks again are mostly penned by bassist Joey DeMaio and the album opens up with “Blood of My Enemies” which carries straight over from the previous album Into Glory Ride style wise. The album though takes on its own character by its second track the bass heavy “Each Dawn I Die” which is truly one barbarian badass track and one of the definitive Manowar tracks out there. “Kill with Power” is meat and drink Manowar and this is the type of metal track that easily inspires a bout of metal listening gluttony in me. The title track “Hail to England” is a celebration track and lyrically sounds like the usual American fantastical view of England. “Army of the Immortals" is my favourite track on the whole album where Eric Adams sounds very akin to Rob Halford and the track is the kind of great driving melodic metal that I love and as Eric Adams sings ‘metal makes us stronger“ the song just bows out on epic proportions. The inevitable instrumental in “Black Arrows” was always due to arrive and evokes memories in places of Eddie Van Halen’s “Eruption”. The album closes with the 8 minute epic “Bridge of Death” and like the opening track easily could’ve have been on Into Glory Ride. Overall Hail to England might well be a better known album than Into Glory Ride but it doesn’t come across as as innovative or as epic as that release (that album cracked the top 10 of my 1983 list) but what it does achieve, is to shorten down the band’s lengthy tracks from the previous album to a more palatable length, making the compositions sound tighter and at the same time issue out what could be coined as the first true ‘quintessential power metal album’ certainly in a European context anyway, because despite being an American band these New York barbarians sound quite European on a lot of this album. Needless to say vocalist Eric Adams with his multi-octave voice shines across all the tracks and it’s clearly evident that he’s influenced by iconic vocalists like Ian Gillan and Rob Halford, and he certainly has the power and talent to live with those two. On top of all this, the band's lyrics must be some of the most brilliantly penned cheesy lyrics to ever grace metal and that alone makes Manowar always a great listen. The breakthrough of Hail to England quickly ushered the band to record their fourth album Sign of the Hammer which also came out the same year as this album, but ended up being as poor as this was great and most reviews agree with that as well. Hail to England was produced by Canadian Jack Richardson who had some interesting works already in his CV by the way of Alice Cooper, Max Webster, Badfinger and Moxy amongst others. As far as Manowar go though, this again is another salute to glorious metal and yet again Manowar do that kind of thing better than most.

Eric Adams- Vocals
Ross the Boss- Guitar
Joey DeMaio- Bass
Scott Columbus- Drums

Production- Jack Richardson

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Metal Wars

Power Metal

Pounding Decibels- A Hard and Heavy History

Unknown Soldier

The Lowdown
Like the Manowar album before it this is another album that has a measly 33 minutes of playing time to its credit, but then again short albums were something that Van Halen seemed to specialise in, as their longest to date had actually been their debut which clocked in just around the 35 minute mark. Up until their fourth album Fair Warning every Van Halen album has been featured on these ‘best of lists’ which was fitting considering that they were the premier metal act in the USA. The only album to have not featured was their previous Diver Down which had consisted of ludricous covers and a couple of dour sounding original tracks, even though I really dig the sinister sounding instrumental “Intruder” from that album, something that easily could've been on 1984. 1984 released in January 1984 would go onto become not only the band’s biggest selling album ever, but would also turn the band into a household name around the world largely thanks to the single “Jump” and its colourful accompanying video, both a song and video which seemed to appeal to everybody out there regardless of their musical tastes and for that reason alone, the “Jump” video can really be seen as a crowning achievement of what MTV style videos were all about. The album though of course, is just as famous as also being the final album with dynamic frontman David Lee Roth until 2012’s A Different Kind of Truth, as ‘Diamond Dave’ clearly felt that he was now bigger than the band and could do even better by himself (for anybody interested dig out his solo career which begins on the mind-numbing EP Crazy from the Heat, even though “California Girls” has a groovy video) Other facts of note at this time state that Van Halen were actually the highest paid metal band in the world and Eddie Van Halen was certainly the highest profile metal guitarist around, which was surely helped by his guitar solo on Michael Jackson’s “Beat It” the previous year. The nine tracks on 1984 can more or less be split between their premier sounding synth driven efforts and the more traditional hard rocking tracks. The former of course is what qualifies the album for its placing on this year’s list, as these tracks are the ones that are indebted to the band’s use of synths which have now been moved to the forefront of proceedings, whereas before the band had largely used synths in a texturing fashion. The album opens in the most synthy way possible with the atmospheric instrumental “1984” and its striking circular sounding synths then dominate the already mentioned uplifting “Jump” the showcase track from the album. Next track “Panama” in my mind is actually closer to the spirit of the band than "Jump" with its darkish and sleazy vibe, just check out that video and David Lee Roth’s trademark drawl and then of course there's “Hot for Teacher” which could easily be its sister track and the whole song actually feels like some crazy instrumental with a few singing sections inserted, and in many ways both “Panama” and “Hot for Teacher” are the perfect summary of Van Halen at this time. My personal favourite here though has to be the synthy “I’ll Wait” the type of chilly sounding synth driven track that I really love and something uniquely of its time and the song would prove to be the strongest pointer of where the band would go on their next album. The heavier tracks on the album, which I refer to as the ‘hard rocking tracks’ are actually the tracks that I feel the band spent less time working on and these include “Top Jimmy” “Drop Dead Legs” “House of Pain” and “Girl Gone Bad” the first three I can take or leave, but “Girl Gone Band” is a pretty damned great hard rock track. The biggest characteristic of 1984 is probably the band’s ever growing use of poppy synthesizers, which was something that was a growing trend in metal/rock around this time and ZZ Top' s Eliminator album is the perfect example of this. Bands at this time would employ an outside synth player to do the business on a song or two like with “Mystery” from Dio’s The Last in Line album and in some cases like with Van Halen it was an inside job where Eddie Van Halen took over the responsibility. Synths in metal were now seen as a way of really enhancing a metal band’s sound in an easy way and a band could opt to use them or not, rather than going the whole hog and being an integral part the band’s identity as with Deep Purple for example. This would be the direction that Van Halen would take on their next album and other premier metal bands like Iron Maiden would also move into this direction as well. Finally 1984 is a timeless and very much an iconic metal album of its time and perfectly displays the cohesive ability that the band had in dishing out sexy sounding metal with poppy hooks, but always with enough macho metal in mind to keep metalheads interested.

David Lee Roth- Vocals
Eddie Van Halen- Guitar/keyboards
Michael Anthony- Bass
Alex Van Halen- Drums

Production- Ted Templeman

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Metal Wars

Power Metal

Pounding Decibels- A Hard and Heavy History