Unknown Soldier

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.



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”.

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Metal Wars

Power Metal

Pounding Decibels- A Hard and Heavy History