Are you calling me a slut?

That'll cost extra.

i like hearing how music got started. i seen a doco on the bona vista club. Ry cooder traveled around south America finding all the old Latin American musos that played in the 40s and 50s. they were great yet relatively unknown and probably around at the same time as the early Jamaican musos . i can hear that similar beat and style in both. i also like that movie Cadillac records about Lenard chess and all the blues musos from the 40s to 60s and how they got started. chess records recorded muddy waters and chuck berry as well as many lesser known artists like little Walter and howling wolf. i enjoy listening to the old black blues singers from the south like lead belly and Robert Johnson. i like the history of music very interesting.

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Metalhead?
Brought To You By Metal Month II

When I was little, back in the early eighties, heavy metal was the awesome Iron Maiden, Scorpions and Judas Priest posters that were plastered all over the walls of the bedroom that my older cousins shared in my grandmother's basement. I was so intrigued by the artwork—that creepy skinless monster with the Devil on puppet strings, the guy in the straightjacket with the forks tearing his eyeballs out, that gleaming robot eagle swooping in for the kill—and I just knew that all these bands must scary and cool and like nothing I had ever heard before. But once I heard them, I was disappointed. They just seemed like regular music, nothing at all like what their artwork suggested, and I think I decided at that early age that I just would never be a metalhead.

When I was a little older, in the late eighties, heavy metal was the Anthrax, S.O.D. and Metallica played on a boombox at the back of the school bus by the older juvenile delinquents who lived around the corner from me. These were the kids who rode around on dirt bikes, shot small animals with BB guns and harassed younger kids like me. Now this music sounded tougher and edgier. I liked it and I liked the atmosphere it gave the bus ride, but I didn't really listen to it outside of that environment. Somehow I didn't want the music of those jerky kids sharing space in my tape deck with my Pink Floyd and REM tapes.

Within the next two years I had made some new friends, friends who decidedly were metalheads. We used to hang out at my buddy Jon's wasteland home—a house with no furniture, with plywood floors where the carpets had been torn up, with peeling paint and an overgrown lawn full of trash, with a sink piled high with dirty dishes, with his psychotic mother perpetually locked in her bedroom, and with a group of us sitting on the floor in the basement blasting the likes of Sacred Reich, Slayer, Death and Obituary on a surprisingly nice stereo. I loved this music like I loved my friends, but somehow it stayed in that dysfunctional place. The only thing I really had in common with my friends musically was Faith No More. Otherwise, they teased me because I listened to stuff like Bob Mould, Siouxsie & the Banshees, They Might Be Giants and Love & Rockets, but hey, that worked for me. I was a misfit among misfits, but not a metalhead.

By the time I got to high school, I had started to get into more loud music, but by and large it wasn't metal. I liked hardcore and punk and especially industrial—I had become a rabid fan of Wax Trax! Records. A lot of the stuff that got lumped in with industrial—bands like Godflesh, Ministry and KMFDM—overlapped substantially with metal territory, but at this point I had started to look down on metal a bit, thinking that it was all a little cheesy and dated. The funny thing is, toward the end of high school, I found myself recruited by some guys I knew to be the singer for their metal band. This was the first band I was ever in and we were all kind of pulling in different directions, but it was a great experience that I think somewhat renewed my appreciation for metal, though, despite actually being in a metal band, I would never have called myself a metalhead.

In college, I got into a lot of different things: bebop, swing, acid jazz, trip hop, post rock, post punk, rock en español, bluegrass, zydeco, surf rock, IDM, African pop… you name it really. The biggest change and influence on me was definitely the jazz though. It was a kind of music I really didn't listen to at all growing up but a sliver of exposure to it on a school retreat to a rocky Maine island hooked me forever. Meanwhile, I had these two roommates in a row, Eric and Zach, who I shared a variety of music tastes with as well as a sort of humorous appreciation for all things "satanic". Hanging out with these two inspired me to go back and revisit some of that thrash and death metal that my friends had been into in junior high. This is when I started buying albums by Motörhead, Metallica, Sacred Reich, Slayer and Death in larger quantities, as well as more recent metal like Sepultura and Korn. I loved to dabble in all of this stuff, but nevertheless, I was still no metalhead.

Throughout my twenties my taste kept expanding in all kinds of directions. I got into more metal, but then I got into more of a lot of things—hip hop, krautrock, indie rock, afrobeat, experimental and free jazz, grime, tango, flamenco, samba, vintage electronica, country, and so on and so forth. After all this time I had amassed a pretty huge CD collection and in the spring of 2005 my girlfriend, who is now my wife, bought me my first MP3 player. So suddenly I had a massive amount of music I had to convert. I tried to do this as systematically as possible, but my computer had very little memory and as a result everything had to be ripped then stored on CD. Doing this, it seemed to me that the best way to organize was by genre, and so I did, creating huge stacks of CDs throughout my living room corresponding to different genres. The funny thing was, despite my assumptions to the contrary, the metal stack was by far the biggest, so large in fact that it had to be split up into multiple piles. Suddenly I, the guy who never really considered himself a metalhead, had to face the inescapable truth that not only was I a metalhead, I was a pretty huge metalhead.

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o...iden1980-1.jpg


In Honor of Metal Month II
Our Test Subject Examines NWOBHM

In my ongoing effort to participate in Metal Month II, I've decided I'm going to listen to and review six NWOBHM albums that I've never heard before. I know 666 albums might have been more appropriate, but you know, time constraints and all that.

As I mentioned in my "Metalhead?" post, thrash and death metal were really my entry points into metal. What came before, especially the NWOBHM stuff, is metal that I've always had a hard time getting on board with. I tend to like my metal heavy, aggressive, off-the-rails crazy or at times simply moody and evocative. Mostly I like it sort of abstract too. NWOBHM is none of those things. It's not metal as a monstrous genre unto itself, it's metal as very much a subgenre of rock, complete with overblown vocals, an overabundance of guitar wankery, generally boring and underutilized percussion and an overall cheesy vibe evocative of nothing but a bunch of guys playing their instruments. Or at least that's how I've always felt about it.

So why have I decided to listen to and review a bunch of it? Obviously, a lot of it has to do with trying to broaden my musical horizons, and a large part is simply curiosity. These are the bands, after all, who were the biggest influence on a lot of music that I like so I figure there must things to be unearthed here that I might actually enjoy. Plus, it's music that a lot of people I like and respect are fans of—members here, my aforementioned cousins, quite a few of my friends—if nothing else I'd like to at least try to understand what it is they enjoy about it.

All of that said, I'll start posting my reviews soon and plan to have a new one up every other day or so. I'd like to thank Trollheart, Unknown Soldier and Batlord, whose journals and general postings were all a huge help in me putting together this list, and I'd like to thank Trollheart in particular for starting Metal Month and for giving me some much needed guidance for this little plan.

Janszoon: Making Music Banter cooler since 2007.

Unlike you I embraced the ways of those kids playing Anthrax, S.O.D., and Metallica on the school bus but I would never shoot BBs at younger kids or harass small animals.

Since a lot of your metal tastes are at the opposite end of mine when it comes to metal (even though mine are very broad) I'll be interested to see what you think of the albums that you're going to review.

How did you choose the six? Are you going to tell us the six or is it going to be a surprise?

Thanks. :)

And thanks for not shooting me with a BB gun.

I chose the six based on childhood memories, reading the journals of you and the other two people I mentioned, other internet research, and some consultation with Trollheart. I was planning on keeping them a secret, though I doubt anything on the list will really be surprising to you.

At a guess I’d say four of the six might be albums by Diamond Head, Angel Witch, Saxon and Tygers of Pan Tang.

Be wary of Trollheart’s recommendations, he has a habit of picking a band’s weakest album as the ones to listen to. :)

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Exhibit #1:
Iron Maiden—The Number of the Beast (1982)

In many ways, the album I've chosen to start this series with is the hardest one of all for me to review and the one that comes with the most baggage. As I implied in my "Metalhead?" journal entry, the poster of this album cover, along with several other Iron Maiden posters, was plastered on the wall of my cousins' bedroom when I was growing up. I can still picture exactly where it was positioned, over the foot of one of the beds, up near the ceiling, above several other posters. I was both intrigued and terrified by the various images of Eddie on that wall and they were instrumental in forming my notion of heavy metal as something crazy and scary. Unfortunately, Iron Maiden were also instrumental in dashing those hopes once I finally heard Bruce Dickinson's ridiculous way of singing and the music's somewhat conventional style. On top of that they're also a band I've heard a lot. I've had numerous friends who were fans. I even gave the band's debut album a full listen a few years back in the hopes that a Dickinson-less Maiden might be something I'd enjoy, but to no avail. So like I said, I come to this review with some baggage.

Nevertheless, I have tried to commit myself to giving this album as open-minded of a listen as possible and have done so several times before writing this review. I have to confess though, Bruce Dickinson still gets on my nerves. Listening to this album is like trying to watch a good movie while a clown keeps jumping in your face tooting a bicycle horn. And that's the really frustrating thing, because the "good movie" part of that metaphor is as true as the clown part—this is a very solid album aside from Dickinson's absurd bombast. The biggest thing I noticed listening to it is that this band is fucking tight as hell, tight as the tightest bebop group, tight as anything. I was pretty much expecting the twin guitar attack of Dave Murray and Adrian Smith to be that way—it's the kind of thing I have always associated with Iron Maiden—but even still I think I underestimated them. Just listen to the closing track on this album, "Hallowed Be Thy Name", and you'll see what I mean. The way the two guitars stop and start and weave around each other, they sound like they're being controlled by one mind. The real discovery for me here, though, is Steve Harris. I'm apparently quite the ignoramus because I've lived my entire life completely unaware of what a phenomenal bass player this guy is. I was duly impressed with the way he effortlessly shifts from playing lockstep harmony with the guitars to flying off on his own almost jazzy tangents. It's great stuff, and if there's one thing that could bring me back for more visits to Maiden territory it's his bass playing. Clive Burr is not too shabby either. He doesn't really flaunt it, but he provides a solid framework for all the instrumental acrobatics going on around him. Truth be told, there are even a few moments where Dickinson works well with the band instead of trying to masturbate all over them. The choruses of both "The Prisoner" and "Run to the Hills" come to mind as moments on the album where he manages to contribute something worthwhile to the musical proceedings.

My overall impression of this album is that it's good, but flawed. Bruce Dickinson is so annoying 90% of the time that I'd actually be curious to hear what it would be like with the vocals simply removed from the mix. I think it could almost work that way. I say "almost" because of Clive Burr. The man is clearly a skilled drummer but I feel like his playing here lacks both passion and creativity. This album is almost Rush-like in its bass and guitar virtuosity and I think the presence of a drummer more of Neil Peart's caliber could have pushed it into classic territory for me. Nevertheless, for the past few days, every morning when I get into my car to head to work, I feel a powerful urge to listen to "Children of the Damned", "The Prisoner", "Run to the Hills" and "Hallowed Be Thy Name" and it's an urge I always succumb to. That has to count for something. And so this album is a win for me.

This is a pretty honest review and I also once remember you stating how unimportant the quality of a vocalist was when the quality of the music is top notch. I'm also quite envious of your musical knowledge when you discuss the playing ability of the band members in some detail, but I'm guessing that you have a pretty sound musical knowledge when it comes to playing ability to do this. I can't play a single instrument and don't really have that great a knowledge when it comes to debating over the merits of certain musicians in any great depth. Which is why my own personal reviews tend to skirt around the technical side of an album, but if I did have any real knowledge then I'd certainly include it in my reviews.

I see this album as a flawed classic but for different reasons than your own, as my critique of this album is largely down to its track selection order more than anything else.

One thing of note that often bugs me, is that Iron Maiden are without doubt one of the biggest infleunces on power metal, but you'll constantly get people going on about how cheesy power metal is and then in the next breath how great Iron Maiden are. I think your review just proves that there is actually very little difference between Iron Maiden and the host of power metal bands out there in terms of style. As you've probably noticed I'm a pretty big power metal fan, so cheese and metal go down nicely with me.;)

I can definitely see where they're a significant influence on power metal.

So, out of curiosity, what are your track order issues with NotB? I definitely think "Hallowed Be Thy Name" is the best choice of a song to close with, but I think "Invaders" is a pretty weak way to start the album.

"Invaders" is a poor choice as an album opener and should be buried away later on the album. "Gangland" was written with with Paul Di'Anno in mind and should've never been included on the album. The classic "Children of the Damned" comes a bit too early on the album for my liking and the spare track "Total Eclipse" should've been included on the album, as it's better than "Invaders" "Gangland" and "The Prisoner". Overall the album feels like a randomizer has been used to select the track order.

I'll have to check out "Total Eclipse". I like "The Prisoner", but definitely would be happy to sacrifice "Invaders" or "Gangland" for a better song.

Can I just say this is one of the most beautifully written journals I've read on here recently. Loving it.

Thanks! That means a lot to me. I'm glad you're enjoying it!

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Exhibit #2:
Judas Priest—Screaming for Vengeance (1982)

This album cover is another poster I remember seeing on my cousins' bedroom wall. Not only that, but it was also a metallic flecked pin I bought—or more likely begged my mother to buy—in a record store as a child and it was something I wore proudly on my jacket for several years after. Not because I knew anything about the band, but because I loved that damn robot eagle. When I did finally hear the band, as with Iron Maiden, I was disappointed. They just seemed so… ordinary. I have to admit I pretty much wrote them off from a young age, and unlike Maiden, I never had any friends who were into them so I never gave them much of a listen until this week.

Now I'm listening, and what this album overwhelmingly makes me think of is a time when I associated clean, scalpel-like heavy metal guitar with the music of the future. It seems weird now, but that's often how it was presented back in the movies of the 80s, and listening to this album it's not hard to see why. There's a certain Devo-ish or Gary Numan-esque aesthetic at work on several of the tracks—most prominently on "Electric Eye"—and there truly is something mechanical and precise about those crystaline guitar leads that accompany it. There are even some surprises here, like "(Take These) Chains", which starts off sounding almost like it could be a Police song before going all metal. It, and the subsequent track "Pain and Pleasure", are also noteworthy for their fantastic, very non-heavy metal, clinical production style—something I think really sets this album apart from its NWOBHM brethren.

Like The Number of the Beast, the musicianship on display here is top-notch, but the approach is incredibly different. Where that album has more of a sprawling, proggy style, the songs on this album are compact and laser focused. The rhythm section of Dave Holland and Ian Hill don't do anything too amazing individually, but instead lock in with each other perfectly to create these galloping, frequently dancy, foundations for the songs. Likewise, Glenn Tipton and K. K. Downing meld their guitars together seamlessly for some seriously enrapturing and precise sonic geometry. Rob Halford attacks each track with such glee that he makes it seem effortless, though he appears to have an endless supply of vocal variations in his arsenal. Yes, his singing is pretty bombastic, but unlike Bruce Dickinson, it tends to actually work with the music—there's a real symbiosis between his voice and those robotic guitars.

If there's one gripe I have with this album, it's that it feels like it kind of peters out as it goes along. It's not that it ever gets bad, but the later tracks don't quite stack up to the first few, especially "Electric Eye" which is by far the best song on the album. Overall, I like this album a lot—though I'm not entirely sure how much staying power it will have for me—and I'm very curious to check out other stuff from them. I know Unknown Soldier has mentioned that Stained Class is a much darker album. So I think that may be my next stop with JP, but before that, I have the rest of these reviews to write.

Seconded. Even though I'm not a metalhead by any means, I don't need to have heard the albums to appreciate your writing, which is the acid test for a review.

Screaming for Vengeance sits in-between British Steel and Stained Class style wise. British Steel of course is their most poppy and commercial sounding release, but Stained Class shows what a dark metal beast they really could be and would be the album you'd most relate to, as it links directly with the 80s extreme metal you're more used to. The album was almost like a blueprint for any technical based extreme metal band of the 80s.

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Exhibit #3:
Diamond Head—Lightning to the Nations (1980)

Unlike my previous two reviews, I'm pretty unfamiliar with this band. I know the name and I know Metallica's cover of "Am I Evil?", but that's really it. After reading up on Diamond Head a bit, it's hard not to want to root for these guys. This album, their debut, was self-released because they couldn't find a label who was interested. Their manager was the singer's mom. They really didn't receive much notoriety until the likes of Metallica started namedropping them. I mean, seriously, they're the quintessential underdogs.

One of the things that's immediately apparent about this album, even if I had known nothing about its background, is that it's a far more low budget affair than either of the last two albums I have reviewed. The production is certainly not horrible but it isn't exactly doing any of these songs any favors either. One thing that's not immediately apparent is that, also unlike the previous two albums I reviewed, there is only one guitarist at work here. I think it's quite a testament to skills of both guitarist Brian Tatler and bassist Colin Kimberley that the album never feels like it's lacking something that most of their NWOBHM peers had. The riffs come fast and furious and the bass seems to do double duty with tough low end burbling and quasi-rhythm guitar underscoring. Duncan Scott's drums fare less well. I'm not sure if it's mostly a case of poor production or if he's just a boring drummer, but I suspect it's a little bit of both. Likewise Sean Harris' vocals. They're a little flat and they have kind of generic 70s hard rock singer vibe, but at the same time I don't feel like they detract too much from the music either.

Overall, this isn't a bad album by any means, and it's interesting to hear the very noticeable influence it had on Metallica, but it's let down a lot by its circumstances. The weak production and what was probably a lack of studio time undermine songs which may very well have been great under different conditions, but here instead they add up to an album that's somewhat hit-or-miss, though a few diamonds in the rough ("Sucking My Love", "Am I Evil?", "Helpless") stand out. Because of this, it's not an album I see myself revisiting much in the future, but I am quite curious to hear what their subsequent albums sound like. I've heard that their second one has more of a progressive influence to it, and considering the fact that this album's most complex moments are also its highlights, I'd love to hear that.

Hey lemme see if I can beat Unknown Soldier to a worthy response:

Well, um, for reference I'm 2-3 years older than you. And I grew up in the USA but whatever

For brevity: I think Judas Priest is pretty much **** compared to Iron Maiden but that's because of my background I think.

For verbosity: I have the Screaming for Metal album on my phone and I do listen to it sometimes when I need to do mindless tasks and feel like listening to that type of thing. It's alright but I think Judas Priest is far more silly than Iron Maiden. I can't say why other than to tell you that Iron Maiden helped me understand metal while Judas Priest is just a footnote in my personal history.

Diamond Head: This is tough for me because, despite how ridiculous the band is, I love the Metallica EP on which they covered that Diamond Head song, HELPLESS, far more than I will ever love Judas Priest or Iron Maiden.

In summary I really don't care about Diamond Head and I don't even really like NWOBHM but DH made Those Songs That Metallica Covered and their original music sounds good to me in an old-timey-rock-n-roll way. Iron Maiden is a band that I will always sometimes love, and Judas Priest are alright I guess. They are definitely third on the list.

I have to agree with you on the album being somewhat hit and miss. They have a great guitarist and sucking my Love is a phenomenal song, but overall I found a lot of the tracks to be unmemorable.

I guess with all the hype surrounding this band, I was expecting more in terms of catchy guitar riffs, but in a lot of ways (and perhaps this isn't a fair analogy) I found them to be a bit of a second rate Zeppelin. Not a slight, good album, but they fall short of legendary for me.

I don't know how worthy my response will be, but given the fact that I think that Lightning to the Nations is one of the greatest metal albums recorded I'll try.

In my review I harped on about how I felt Diamond Head as a band had captured the essence of all the band's that influenced them, rather than just trying to blend these influences in like a lot of other bands were doing at the time, something I felt gave the band a different feel. Btw this is something that I've never actually read but always felt about the band.

Also I often find that when people get into metal from other types of music, their entry point into metal is usually from something not too different from what they already like. For example somebody into punk will probably come in through hardcore and into thrash, somebody from prog rock will look at prog metal etc, whereas somebody like myself who came through AOR would look for melodic metal with a sense of flair, which often means they won't see the finer details of something they might be not be that used to, for me I still struggle to get into heavily influenced punk stuff etc. Now as for DH I got into them quite late as a metal listener (I kind of bypassed them) but when I did get into them it was like discovering a pot of gold that I'd completely missed and had all the aspects that I looked for in a metal band and what made it even better was that the songs took their time to creep into my subconscious and when they did that was it.

Finally not griping at anybody here, but a lot of people make the mistake of comparing the band to Metallica for the simple reason that Metallica namechecked them so much, meaning that they quite often start comparing the two bands. Fact is Diamond Head were deep rooted style wise in the 1970s, but due to their grasp of song dynamics and flair were able to add a number of potent special metal potions to the mix, that just happened to inspire some thrash metal bands.

Well that's the beauty of music I guess, we all have different brainwaves so as the ole saying goes, another man's crap is another man's gold. (Not a reference to DH of course)

You've a hard time getting into heavily influenced punk stuff while I've always had a hard time getting into a lot of NWOHM. I believe a lot of it has to do with culture, as I've always found that people's musical taste are somewhat shaped by what first influenced them in their youth. My first exposure to heavy metal was through bands like Quiet Riot & Twisted Sister when I was in Elementary school. More of a straight up three chord AC/DC sound than the AOR bands, or the galloping riffs of Iron Maiden.

I hear you on the Led Zeppelin comparison. Sean Harris especially sounds like he's trying unsuccessfully to be Robert Plant

I somewhat agree with you about that. I first started liking metal during the crossover time period and probably because of that I've always preferred my metal with a healthy dose of hardcore influence. I never thought if it that way before, but that really explains why I love modern, sludgier doom yet have a hard time getting into trad doom.

I’ve pasted below from my review of the album, why DH made such a great job of ruining all their chances at obtaining stardom, Janz mentioned one of the below points as well (most of these reasons can be found on the net in one shape or another).

1) The band refused initially to play the London scene as they felt they didn’t need to, which was commercial suicide as this was where all the major labels were based 2) Instead of having a savvy manager like say Rod Smallwood who was great at getting things done, they had Sean Harris’ mother and producer Reg Fellows, a duo who seemed very good at turning down potential lucurative offers for the band! 3) As often mentioned album covers were a band’s key to success, just think Iron Maiden for impact and even Saxon for getting noticed when it came to album covers. All Diamond Head could muster was a cheaply produced plain white cardboard cover, the above cover is one of the later editions of the album. 4) Like the punk and new-wave scenes, the NWOBHM scene was extremely fast moving and unless a savvy band kept with the pace they were quickly left behind and when DH finally decided to get their act together it was all too late! Finally in hindsight the metal world owes a debt to both Metallica and Megadeth in keeping the spirit of Diamond Head alive for so long.

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Exhibit #4:
Saxon—Denim and Leather (1981)

Now I'm starting to get into very unfamiliar NWOBHM territory. As far as I can recall there were no Saxon posters to be found on the walls of my cousins' bedroom and no famous covers of their songs by thrash bands. Aside from having heard the name here and there, I have zero familiarity with them.

When I first listened to the opening song of this album, "Princess of the Night", I wasn't sure what to think. It began with a great, fast, almost Motörhead-like riff repeating a few times, then horribly cheesy vocals intruded. But suddenly, just when I thought I was about to endure the kind of album I feared would haunt my NWOBHM experience, the chorus kicked in and the vocals got surprisingly good. This push and pull between cheese and quality continues throughout Denim and Leather. As with the Diamond Head album, I think some of it comes down to the weak production. It's a little shocking that the fourth album by a popular band would be as poorly produced as another band's self-released debut, but that is indeed the case here.

There's no single individual who really stands out on this album. Pete Gill's drumming, when you focus on it, seems frankly flat and uninspired. Biff Byford's vocals are sometimes good, sometimes bad, and on average just pretty okay. Same with the guitar riffage of Graham Oliver and Paul Quinn. It's only really Steve Dawson's bass that's in any way notable but even that is hardly earth-shattering. Nevertheless, when all the pieces are put together, these guys have a certain ineffable quality that makes me keep putting this album on. It doesn't shine through all the time—sometimes they come off like the musical equivalent of a guy in a stiff, brand-new leather jacket and detergent scented jeans posturing himself as a grizzled road warrior—but every so often they do bring the heat. It's certainly not a coincidence that I've found I enjoy this album far more in the car than I do at home: Saxon really have a knack for writing solid driving tunes. "Princess of the Night", "Midnight Rider", "Fire in the Sky" and "Denim and Leather" are the strongest examples, but even the lesser songs on here magically sound pretty damn good when you're behind the wheel blasting them.

Though it's enjoyable under the right set of circumstances, this album feels to me like a band that is sticking too much to the middle ground. I'd love to either hear them embrace the almost Van Halen like ornamentation hinted at on tracks such as "Out of Control" and "Play It Loud" or go with the Motörhead leaning rawness of "Fire in the Sky" and "Denim and Leather". Either one would be an improvement for me.

I love this album! For me its perfect foot stompin bar music in the vein of AC/DC. Nothing fancy, just some killer guitar riffs, & in rock, that's all you really need. All hail Saxon!

I've never liked AC/DC much so maybe that's my issue.

I'd say that Saxon were probably the most representative of all bands of the NWOBHM and as you've said most of their best material revolves around songs designed for driving down a freeway. To get the whole package you need to really listen to Wheels of Steel and Strong Arm of the Law as well, as all three album imo are classic NWOBHM albums, also Bill Byford is in many ways the archetypal metal vocalist of this movement as well.

I don't like AC/DC much either, but I'm still a huge Saxon fan.

Oh no say it ain't so!!! :(

You know what I find interesting though, for a band that's always attracted rednecks, mass fights and riots at their concerts, they are some of the shortest guys in the business, not that it matters, but they look a lot bigger on stage!

Cliff Williams 5 ft 7
Bon Scott 5 ft 6.
Brian Johnson 5 ft 4
Malcolm Young 5 ft 3
Angus Young 5 ft 2

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Exhibit #5:
Tank—Filth Hounds of Hades (1982)

So… the bad news is that, in the past few weeks, my job decided to explode into a terrible maelstrom of chaos, aggravation and long hours, which consequentially derailed my exploration of NWOBH to such an extent that it is now no longer Metal Month. The good news is that this next album on my list turned out to be the perfect antidote to the craziness, and I say fuck the goddamn calendar, it's still Metal Month in this thread.

Until recently, I had absolutely no history with or knowledge of Tank whatsoever. Maybe I had heard of them somewhere along the line. Maybe the name vaguely rings a bell. The only place I know for certain that I encountered them was right here on MB in a post by The Batlord. So I came into this album with no preconceptions whatsoever.

As with every album I've reviewed on here, I did start reading up on the band and the album once I started listening to it. Virtually everything I've read anywhere compares them to Motörhead, and with good reason: they're a raw, rowdy three-piece with punk energy, hard rock riffs and an immediately apparent sense of humor about themselves. Hell, this album was even produced by former Motörhead guitarist "Fast" Eddie Clarke. I won't say I fell in love with Filth Hounds of Hades instantly—it did take a few listens—but once I fell, I fell hard. It's not surprising really. Give me rough-edged, drunken rock and roll and the odds are I will love it.

The formula here is simple—short, stripped down tracks with abundance of attitude—but pulling such a thing off this well is deceptively hard. The key with these guys is that they really know what the hell they're doing. A large part of their appeal lies with guitarist Peter Brabbs. His ability to jump from simple power chord driven Misfit-esque punk rock to compact but sophisticated riffage is truly a thing to behold. The vocals and bass of former Damned bassist Algy Ward are also terrific. His singing style is simple and unadorned—at times even awkward—but it's perfect for this music. And his bass playing backs up the guitar flawlessly, though every once in a while, such as on "Who Needs Love Songs?", he demonstrates musical abilities above and beyond the band's usual format. It's a similar situation with Mark Brabbs drums. It's hard to really judge him because this music demands simple drumming and that's what he delivers, but every once in a while, like on "Turn Your Head Around", he delivers such propulsive percussion that it's notable almost as a precursor to the best of the thrash drummers.

I have to say, this is the first album I've reviewed as part of this little experiment that I've flat out loved rather than merely appreciated. Not only is it a great collection of songs but it's extremely well sequenced. From the opening "oombah oombah oombah" chant of "Shellshock" to the incendiary closing double feature of "Filth Hounds of Hades" and "(He Fell in Love with a) Stormtrooper", this album rocks your ass right the hell off. If you love metal or punk or rock 'n roll or simply like getting drunk and getting crazy, you owe it to yourself to listen to it.

It doesn't suprise me that you like Tank best, but what would be interesting is if you listened to their third album which came out just a year later, to see how much the band had supposedly evolved their sound.

I actually reviewed this Tank album their third about a week ago.

I saw your review and definitely am curious to check it out. I still have one more review to go in this series too.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...S-WILD-CAT.jpg

Exhibit #6:
Tygers of Pan Tang—Wild Cat (1980)

Yes, this thing was supposed to be written almost six months ago, at the end of October. Sue me. Better late than never, right?

I wasn't sure what to think going into this honestly. I had basically zero familiarity with this band. Never heard them before. Never even heard of them before. I did think they had a really ridiculous name and some pretty cheesy artwork and that didn't bode well. But you know what? I was wrong. These guys turned out to be damn good. Their singer, Jess Cox, aside from having an awesome gay pornstar name, is easily my favorite of any of the NWOBHM bands I've reviewed for this. His voice is more punk and raw and also more vintage rock n roll that any other NWOBHM singer I've heard—he sounds a bit like John Ries from Rocket from the Crypt mixed with a dash of Billy Idol—and that really gives this album a fantastic high-energy charge. Also, unlike every other band I've reviewed, their drummer, Brian Dick (giggle), is worth mentioning as well. His style is streamlined and direct but never boring. He's got a much better groove than those other guys and he's quick to change things up with an unexpected move at the drop of a hat. He's a bit bluesy, a bit jazzy, a bit surf rocky and all of it is very good. Richard Laws' bass playing is damn fine as well, rumbling along like the engine driving those drums, and he really rises to the occasion when he takes a more dominant role as on "Fireclown". Robb Weir's guitar playing is probably the least remarkable thing going on here, but it's still quite good and I love the fact that he's not afraid to get a little dissonant sometimes, most notably on "Slave to Freedom".

Along with Filth Hounds of Hades this is one of the punkiest NWOBHM albums I've heard, which is probably a big part of why I like it so much. These guys are skilled musicians and are pretty tight together, but it's never flashy. They don't feel the need to show off and they always make things feel very off the cuff, something that's key to making Wild Cat as fun and full of life as it is.

Woo-hoo! Another fan of Wild cat! Sadly, as mentioned at length in my journal, they watered down their sound towards a more AOR one for the next albums, Cox left and the magic was gone. I love this album, and always will. Delighted it spoke to you, Jansz! Great review too. :thumb:

Incidentally, their name comes from that of an island in Michael Moorcock's "Elric of Melnibone" series, so it's actually quite cool.

From Wiki:

Theleb K'aarna: A human sorcerer of the Pan Tang isles. After being displaced as Queen Yishana's advisor and chief sorcerer by Elric, he seeks revenge and uses sorcery to hinder several of Elric's plans.

Looks like Trollheart has found another sucker for this album too, it can't hold a candle to the classic Spellbound album though. ;)

Like Trollheart said a nice review.

Thanks for the feedback! I was hoping you'd respond to one of my reviews at some point since you were so instrumental in helping me come up with my list. :)

Gracias! I may have to check out Spellbound, though TH's comments make me a little trepidatious.

Meh, Spellbound is not the worst; the rot only really sets in with 1981's Crazy nights. Maybe the strain of putting out two albums in six months was to blame. But Cox is definitely gone as a vocalist and John Deverill, his replacement, is a totally different singer.