18. Praying Mantis Time Tells No Lies 1981 (Arista)
Heavy Metal
The NWOBHM at its catchiest and most harmonic.
Album
Praying Mantis were one of a multitude of NWOBHM bands that never quite made the jump into the big league, despite having spent a lot of time supporting Iron Maiden. Their quasi-pomp rock leanings had them almost with one foot in the AOR camp, whilst the other of course was firmly in the metal one (well almost) even though the band seemed to sound more like Foreigner than Iron Maiden at times! The band were led by brothers Tino Troy on guitar and Chris Troy on bass, with Bernie Shaw on vocals but the line-up was never that stable. Praying Mantis were Highlighted as one of the better metal bands when it came to combining harmony between their vocal and the guitar set-up and the band were truly capable of putting out some catchy hooks a la Def Leppard. But the real highlight of the band certainly came in the twin guitar attack of Tino Troy and Steve Carroll, two musicians who were certainly influenced by the twin guitar attack of Thin Lizzy’s Scott Gorham and Brian Robertson, in fact that is probably just one of the numerous Thin Lizzy influences that can be found on the album. Praying Mantis as a band can be completely summed up on their opening track “Cheated” which is a clever song that is a kind of fusion between a Thin Lizzy song and a classic AOR cut. The band quickly lay their melodic stall out as well on songs like “Running for Tomorrow” “Beads of Ebony” “Flirting With Suicide” and album closer “Children of the Earth”. The cream of the album surely comes on “Rich Kids” which sees the Thin Lizzy influences now being replaced by those of Iron Maiden, as they chuck out an AOR track that sounds like it has been recorded by Iron Maiden and Tino Troy almost doubles for Paul Di’Anno. This track is then followed by the melodic and heavy “Lovers to the Grave” another essential before the band then retreat to the Iron Maiden and Paul Di’Anno stance on “Panic in the Streets”. The big miss on the album is surely the disappointing cover of the Kinks’ classic “All the Day and All of the Night” and the band really should’ve left Kinks’ covers for Van Halen! and overall this album wouldn’t be out of place on an AOR playlist. This album has only reached position 18 on the list, for the simple reason that despite having a set of solid songs, I always felt that the album lacked a true soul and the reason for that is because Praying Mantis were very good at displaying their influences, rather than deftly infusing them like Diamond Head could. Praying Mantis never made the jump to the big league which was largely due to the band’s line-up instability that plagued them from early on, but they always remained popular on the Japanese scene. Singer Bernie Shaw would later go on to front Uriah Heep and Praying Mantis in 1990 had a certain Paul Di’Anno fronting them briefly as well.