Pounding Decibels- A Hard and Heavy History

Unknown Soldier · 06-14-2015, 09:31 AM

Found All the Parts

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.

Helix No Rest for the Wicked 1983 (Capitol)

Another album that got left off my 1983 list and it has kind of been lingering in my mind ever since (I strongly regret leaving it off the list now) and this is an accomplished and lively effort from veteran Canadian band Helix and their No Rest for the Wicked album. Throughout the 1970s in this journal, I’ve featured some pretty impressive Canadian artists, whose fame of course with the exception of Rush, was largely limited to their own country and Helix formed way back in 1974 were one such band. Their third album No Rest for the Wicked was their most impressive to date and it also happened to be their first on a major label in Capitol. The album starts off with the somewhat generic sounding “Does a Fool Ever Learn” before embarking on a solid display of feel good metal which typifies the rest of the album, where they cover similar ground to that of Quiet Riot with their Metal Health album, which of course was one of the biggest selling albums of that year. The impressive album run though really starts with second track “Let’s All Do It Tonight” and its feel good factor easily could’ve found it on Metal Health, where it would’ve been one of that album’s stronger tracks. Third track here is the album’s main single in “Heavy Metal Love” and this is followed by the catchy “Check Out the Love” before the first side of the album closes with the super fast title track “No Rest for the Wicked” whose chorus sounds like it could’ve featured on a Rocky Horror soundtrack. The weakest track on this album is “Don’t Get Mad Get Even” which happened to be the album’s second single, but then come a couple of great tracks and the reason why this album has been remembered by me. These start with “Ain’t No High like Rock ‘n’ Roll” one of the catchiest metal songs of the year and this is followed by what is surely the band’s homage to Led Zeppelin with “Dirty Dog” and comes with a video that would’ve done ZZ Top proud. “Never Want to Lose You” is the nearest we get to a power ballad here (with its Scorpions type intro) and if Heart had written this, it would’ve probably been a monster hit but it’s surely one of the long lost great tracks from this era. Album closer with its Alice Cooper title “White Lace and Black Leather” turns out to be one of the strongest on the album and reminds me of a Gene Simmons Kiss track. What’s really impressive about all the songs on this album, is that nearly all it’s cuts run between 2.50-3.50 mins and the band really knew how to fill out nearly every second here with quality. Despite treading similar ground to Quiet Riot, No Rest for the Wicked reached a highly unimpressive 186th position on the US album chart, which was kind of unfair as the band were writing originals here instead of regurgitating already well known 1970s covers and on top of that they were capable of writing material that far better known bands like Quiet Riot and Ratt could only dream of. This alll resulted in a missed opportunity by Capitol, to market a product that was superior to that of many of its rivals. The album cover also denotes the somewhat playful nature of the band, but despite their lighthearted approach to the genre, the band certainly underpinned their sound with a forceful approach.

Helix Walkin’ the Razor’s Edge 1984 (Capitol)

The band’s fourth album which despite not being as strong Walkin’ the Razor’s Edge, would do a lot better commercially and crack the US 100 album chart and also contained the band’s best known single “Rock On” penned by Bob Halligan, Jr who of course had written for Judas Priest. Originals like “Young & Wreckless” “Feel the Fire” “My Kind of Rock” and "When the Hammer Falls" despite having a solid and heavy approach to them, do feel a bit by the numbers. The band though unfortunately fall into the ‘lets-do-some-covers’ mentality here (probably suggested by the label) with covers of songs from Crazy Elephant and A Foot in Coldwater and both are nothing special, but the album does finish on a high with the urgent sounding “You Keep Me Rockin”.

Unknown Soldier · 06-18-2015, 01:34 PM

1985

1984 had been one of the great years in metal, a year that had been chocca with both classic and defining metal albums, but sadly though 1985 would pale in comparison. Since starting this journal most of the years have been consistently strong, but obviously one or two in the mid 1970s had seen the overall quality drop a notch or two despite having some quality albums. 1985 though probably ranks as the weakest so far for a number of reasons 1) None of the established ‘big’ bands like Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Def Leppard, Black Sabbath, Van Halen and the Scorpions to name just a few released any studio albums. 2) All the other metal bands that released quality albums in 1983 and 1984 seemed to release inferior or watered down versions in 1985, step forward Motley Crue, Twisted Sister, Ratt, Dokken and Kiss who were all bands that fitted this description perfectly. Sadly though many of these bands would end up selling even more than they had done so before, showing how most of these bands were now pandering towards the masses in terms softer sound and slick videos. 3) One of metal’s most exciting and driving forces over the last few years had been glam metal, sadly most of these bands were now content to tow the commercial line with inferior releases as well. There are some bands of course that I’ve placed in points 2 and 3 that did put out some good albums and those have made the top 20. 1985 though as a year, was quite simply saved by the new ‘extreme metal’ genres of thrash, speed and death, all these bands didn’t give a **** about pandering to the masses and were still contented at this stage to continue putting out the type of metal that they believed in. In fact the only compromise that most of these bands would entertain over the coming years, would be improved production which for me was a big bonus anyway. Extreme metal bands (mostly thrash) were without doubt the saviours and flagbearers of what was still ‘new metal’ in 1985 and they achieved this without the genre’s biggest band Metallica even releasing a studio album in 1985. But the genre did welcome back the likes of Slayer and introduced us to classic debuts from both Megadeth and Exodus, and therefore it’s no surprise that at least 12 albums in this year’s top 20 have either a thrash, speed or death label attached to them. This is also the very first year where there was no obvious no.1 album either, because most years I always knew which two or three albums would be the ones fighting for top spot, but this year the best albums of which there were about six, all seemed to be about the same level which was top 10 standard rather than a top 3 level, but in the end these albums all kind of just fell into place anyway. Finally here’s a rundown of albums that didn’t make the top 20 and most of these were guilty of issuing out watered down versions of what they had released in 1983 and 1984: Kiss, Ratt, Yngwie Malmsteen, Venom, Armoured Saint, Twisted Sister, Motley Crue, Dokken, 220 Volt, Trance, Trouble, Gravestone, a number of NWOBHM acts here and Black ‘n’ Blue. Other bands though did put out something better than they had done over previous years like Saxon, AC/DC and a rekindled Aerosmith but still couldn’t make the cut this year.