Also Check This Out........
This is an extra album from the same year that I've chosen, that either just missed the final cut, I think could be of interest, or even from a different genre that could be of interest or influence on the hard rock/heavy metal genre.
Angel Angel 1975 (Casablanca)
Heavy Metal
Angel were an east coast American band that were quickly branded as a kind of divine and angelic answer to Kiss, in fact they were actually discovered by Gene Simmons of Kiss of all people! Kiss of course dressed mostly in black, so Angel would therefore dress in white as a contrast to their more daring east coast neighbours. But that was where the similarities between the two bands ended, as Angel went well beyond the basic confines of the good time rock & roll of the Kiss sound and their theatrics, and in turn gave us an interesting and sometimes deep-feeling amalgamation of AOR, progressive rock and melodic metal all with dominant keyboards. Their debut album was literally head and shoulders above the rest of their discography and serves to show just how close metal and AOR could actually be, along with how the two styles were made for each other! They were fronted by vocalist Frank DiMino and the talented Geoff Giuffria on keyboards and mellotron, along with the Queen-ish guitar of Punky Meadows. The album is littered with some great early melodic metal with songs like “Tower” “Long Time” and “Broken Dreams” all with their proggy twists and heavy keyboards and these are really standout tracks. The epic sounding “Mariner” smacks of being an classic sounding track and the Kiss comparison is most likely heard on “Rock & Rollers” which is really one of the odd tracks out on the album. It’s a great collection of songs for anybody that likes re-visiting or discovering melodic gems from the 1970s. After their debut album and undoubtedly from considerable record label pressure, the band embarked down a far more commercial road, but with the exception of their third album
White Hot, Angel failed to scale any great heights and along with a diminishing quality in their output they finally called it quits around the 1980 period.