The Lowdown
Defenders of the Faith is often seen as Judas Priest’s last great album by metal aficionados (even though I haven’t heard all their later releases yet) largely because it’s an the album that is a pure metal thoroughbred within the genre, by demonstrating the band’s total love for their profession and also it’s the last classic album by a band that had been at the forefront of metaldom over the last several years. The band’s previous killer album Screaming for Vengeance had broken the band big in the USA and it was an album that had effectively married the pure menacing metal from the band’s Stained Class era, to the more commercial punch of the British Steel one and it give us one of metal’s premier signature albums from the early to mid 1980s period. On Defenders of the Faith the band would continue the same formula of speed rockers, mid-tempo grinders and metal anthems in another pure fist punching metal exercise, and as they say if it ‘ain’t broke don’t fix it’ and Priest certainly didn't try to here. Album cover art was again provided by Doug Johnson who did the cover art for Screaming for Vengeance, hence the obvious similarity between the two album covers. The album opens with the soaring energy of “Freewheel Burning” and its video with a kid playing a game on an arcade machine, kind of reminds me a bit of the atmosphere of Black Sabbath’s “Zero the Hero” track. The album then enters into the cream of its tracks with “Jawbreaker” the almost archetypal Priest grinder and then onto the anthemy “Rock Hard Ride Free” one of the best metal anthems ever put out by the band and both songs easily rank among the band’s very best. The guitar work by K.K Downing and Glenn Tipton on both these tracks is pretty breathtaking at times making both cuts real metal essentials. “The Sentinel” is a great track as it harks back to the band’s more complex roots and therefore is stellar for just that reason. The obvious single from the album is “Love Bites” which I guess may have been too mechanical sounding for the record label to really believe in it though. The S&M themed “Eat Me Alive” is probably best remembered as one of those songs which upset the PMRC censor, who were red hot against these bands especially at this time. The second obvious single choice from the album is the Robert Halligan Jr. penned “Some Heads are Gonna Roll” which again keeps that mechanical feel that the album now seems to have adopted. Of the final tracks “Night Comes Down” is very AOR orientated and "Heavy Duty" isthe heaviest on the album and enters into the Manowar stratosphere. The title track "Defenders of the Faith" basically just serves as a heavy outro to the album and lasts just over a minute and some versions of the album have the bonus track "Turn on the Light" a pretty neat sounding track. Defenders of the Faith would be another monster album for the band despite the fact that it failed to deliver a strong single like “Breaking the Law” and “Living After Midnight” from British Steel or “You’ve Got Another Thing Comin” from Screaming for Vengeance. The previous mentioned points are often seen by some critics as detractors against the album, personally I think that’s nonsense as this was time anyway, when many a great band seemed to save some of their best material simply for the album and to have it not be served up as singles. Overall Defenders of the Faith is one of Priest’s most solid outings and ranks amongst their best, despite the fact that a number of its tracks can be seen as being obviously basic and accommodating a overly mechanical aura at times.

Rob Halford- Vocals
K.K Downing- Guitar
Glenn Tipton- Guitar
Ian Hill- Bass
Dave Holland- Drums

Production- Tom Allom

Boys dressed in leather and girls dressed in lace.

The Lowdown
Balls to the Wall is the middle album in the trio of Accept’s most celebrated albums with the highly infleuntial Restless and Wild (see review) and the lessser appreciated Metal Heart either side of it, but it’s Balls to the Wall that is the most celebrated of these albums due to its commercial success and it’s the reason why most metal listeners know this German band. At the time of Balls to the Wall, Accept briefly attained the lofty heights of fellow teutonic band the Scorpions stateside and it was at a time when German metal had reached unprecedented heights of popularity around the world, and for this reason alone Accept should be given credit for opening the floodgates as it were for metal listeners around the world, to really appreciate what the non-British and non-American bands had to offer the metal genre. Also Accept were always one of the archetypal metal bands circa the 1983-1984 period, for the simple reason that they incorporated all the aspects that were predominant in metal at this time (blazing twin guitars, thumping bass and ferocious drumming to name just a few) which all resulted in some pretty mean sounding fist-pumping metal from them. Their style saw them issue out centralist metal that could easily appeal to listeners of artists like Judas Priest to Dio, basically good honest metal. According to music reviewer Martin Popoff who happens to be one of my favourite reviwers of anything metal, he views Balls to the Wall as the perfect example of what a metal album should be and that is higlighted by what he terms as ‘clean and restrained riffing’ meaning of course that the album resulted in being a totally focused piece of metal, in fact he puts it as the best metal album of the 1980s, very high praise indeed. It’s best known track is its title “Balls to the Wall” from my point of view this represents one of the most essential metal songs around and is so archetypal of what I view pure metal to be. The song has Udo Dirkschneider the pint-sized powerhouse vocalist of the band almost rambling through the song in his famous gruff style, before finally exploding into clean power for the song’s explosive chorus section, making the song one of the ultimate metal statements of the decade. As well known as the title track is, the album cover also took quite a bit of flack expecially in the USA, where its overtly gay overtones upset the censor there (remember this was a time when the PMRC were hot against anything that was metal and saw devil worshippers and society subversives behind nearly every metal release) In Europe of course the album cover was really just another album cover, but I guess the album cover could easily be seen as being uber-gay and the album’s second track “London Leatherboys” along with the title track add further flames to that fire. Now down to the album proper which of course starts with the aformentioned metal masterpiece “Balls to the Wall” and its accompanying cheesy video within the backdrop of a wasteland (en-vogue at the time) has all three of its guitarists moving in that corny unison typical of metal at this time, video aside this is such a metal statement. “London Leatherboys” as expected is full of highly charged lyrics of a sexual nature and basically could be a Judas Priest track from this period. Third track “Fight Back” is about as close as the band get to anything on the more thrashy Restless and Wild and it’s a very good song, as is the fourth track the more melodic “Head Over Heels”. Middle placed tracks like "Losing More Than You've Ever Had" and "Love Child" are great examples of what I'd coin as euro-metallish (influenced by euro-pop of course) "Turn Me On" is a more intense slow builder and re-visits the style laid down on the title track. By the time of "Losers and Winners" and "Guardians of the Night" its obvious that the band just had so many catchy tracks in their locker. The album closer is the acoustic lead "Winter Dreams" which I guess some listeners might have some reservations over but it does work here. Overall Balls to the Wall is a great slice of traditional 1980s metal and as an metal album it could be described as having a great replay value.

Udo Dirkschneider- Vocals
Wolff Hoffman- Guitar
Hermann Frank- Guitar
Peter Baltes- Bass
Stefan Kaufman- Drums

Production- Accept

The song Balls to the Wall has to be one of the greatest chord progressions in the history of metal.

I love the video to, how they're all in synch like some weird guitar warriors, awesome.

At that time films like The Warriors, Mad Max II and Escape from New York that either featured gangs and/or post-apocalyptic scenarios were very popular, and this type of thing often carried across to films in the way of warriors and wastelands etc.

The Lowdown
The debut release by Celtic Frost is one of those releases that could be deemed either an EP at around 25 mins which it was in Europe, or as a full album at 31 mins which it was on its US release, and the latter release is the one I’m reviewing here. One thing is for sure though, the introduction of Celtic Frost into the ingoted streams of metal, ushered in one of the genres greatest extreme metal exponents and album for album they also rank as one of the best and most consistent bands within the metal genre, Death are another band in my mind that have a discography that matches Celtic Frost in terms of consistent quality. Celtic Frost though were a far more encompassing band than most and a band that I would truly call ‘extreme metal’ which is a label of course that can have two meanings. 1) An umbrella term which covers all the extreme styles like thrash, black and death etc and the one it’s most known for. 2) It also fits bands like Venom who all put out musical styles that either included some or all of the elements that included thrash, black and death metal, and any band under this banner would be a big influence on these genres and Celtic Frost of course were one such band. The band were formed in Zurich out of the elements of Hellhammer (I’ll be covering some of these bands briefly in an extra section) where Thomas Gabriel Fischer aka Warrior was the main link between the two bands and he with bassist Martin Eric Ain would write all the material for the band’s early releases. Part of the Celtic Frost magic are indeed its inspirational roots, which included the likes of Black Sabbath and Venom (expected) but just as important to them were the inspiration from the British gothic/hardcore scene at the time, which included the likes of Siouxsie and the Banshees and Discharge, which of course with the band’s huge talent led to a delicious distillation of all these styles. The first few albums by the band are pure extreme metal releases that can easily lay waste to much of the competition, before they eventually moved with equal venom into a more avant-garde metal style later in the decade. The album cover to Morbid Tales of which there are a couple of variations (not sure which one I put in the end) does nothing to hide what the material would be like underneath and despite witchcraft or satanic themes hardly being anything new at this time in either music or film, few in 1984 would’ve expected the intense fury that would lie underneath this album, unless of course the listener had already dabbled with the likes of Metallica and especially Slayer. The album starts in blistering style with the frenetic speed of “Into the Crypts of Rays” and welcome to the Warrior’s distinctive vocal style before the song goes into that pivotal awkward melodic style that a number of thrash bands would adopt at times. “Visions of Mortality” is a much slower affair and by now you can notice Thomas Gabriel Fischer’s similarity vocally with Tom Araya of Slayer, and of course the song as expected speeds up in places. The next two tracks are the additional tracks for this release “Dethroned Emperor” and title track “Morbid Tales”. The first introduces that death metal grunt and one almighty Diamond Head inspired riff to go with it, the second if not quite as essential is still a credible effort. "Procreation (Of The Wicked)" is without doubt one of the beasts of the album and its primitive grind, surely influenced my beloved Sepultura right here (they even covered in in their Roots period) and following track "Return to the Eve" provides more variety and again has a killer riff, but I admit I don't really like the female voice over here. "Danse Macabre" is an experimental track that just sounds nasty and "Nocturnal Fear" brings back the thrash again but with some interesting experimental touches. So apart from this blistering debut was else was so essential about this Germanic-language band? Firstly they wore black leather with corpse-like face paint which influenced hordes of other bands out there, but secondly and most notably they introduced a central European concept to extreme metal, which was different to anything that could’ve come from either the UK and USA, and along with the likes of Mercyful Fate were largely responsible for setting up an extreme European metal scene that is just as relevant today.

Thomas Gabriel Fischer- Guitar/Vocals
Martin Eric Ain- Bass
Stephen Priestly- Drums

Production- Celtic Frost

The Lowdown
After the huge splash created by their debut thrash classic Kill ‘Em All, Metallica effectively continued moving through the high gears for the equally impressive sophomore Ride the Lightning. Most thrash bands at this time would’ve been contented to try and issue out a Kill ‘Em All mk.2, but Metallica showed that when it came to thrash they were far more ambitious than was possibly expected (even though parts of the previous album showed where they were going anway) on Ride the Lightning and were now ready to push the boundaries of the genre to the max. Kill ‘Em All had demonstrated how Metallica had taken their Diamond Head template and had turned it into something less melodic but far meaner sounding, Ride the Lightning would now take the band into improved compositional expression, greater progression, controlled experimentation and the band’s lyrics now delved into even more personal subject matter, such as death by electrocution on “Ride the Lightning” a man's eventual suicide on "Fade to Black" and being in a cryonic state on “Trapped Under Ice” and overall the band display great maturity for a band that were from such a young sub-genre. The album still has two writing credits that were partly written by the ex-guitarist Dave Mustaine, which all shows that recordings for this album took place not long after Kill ‘Em All. The album name Ride the Lightning despite being suggested by Kirk Hammett, could also be attributed to the fact that the band were riding the lightning streak created by their thrash sound and also how Metallica had possibly stolen Diamond Head’s thunder, but of course that is just supposition on my part. The band also started their tenure with producer Flemming Rasmussen who would stay with the band for their ultimate masterpiece in Master of Puppets and then onto their most contentious album ….. And Justice for All. The album is loaded up with a cascade of metal epics that start with the seminal “Fight Fire with Fire” which has the band starting the song with a pseudo-classical intro that has a slight Led Zep tinge to it. The song then explodes into a speed merchants dream and progresses through several notable stages, it’s also a Metallica track that has been covered multiple artists. The song then practically leads into the title track “Ride the Lightning” which has an awesome groovy intro that permeates throughout the rest of the song and at times the whole thing sounds like one long song from the previous track, but as title tracks should always be something special this song fits the bill nicely and is literally 6.35 mins of pure progressive thrash metal from the band. “For Whom the Bells Toll” which now in hindsight sounds like the slower archetypal Metallica song title, is a more ponderous affair that kind of reminds me of those dark Judas Priest tracks from the late 1970s and at 5 mins it’s actually one of the shorter tracks on the album. Next track “Fade to Black” kind of starts the band’s affair with balladry and basically the band show here that they had been listening to a whole load of Wishbone Ash albums, which of course shows that they had immense musical taste anyway in choosing their influences. Given that the song is almost 7 mins the second longest on the album, the track is a masterful representation of the band’s musical talent. The second side of the album starts with “Trapped Under Ice” which turns out to be the most one dimensional track on the album and also one of the album’s lesser tracks, which is surprising given its pure thrash credentials. I’m not exactly enamoured with the following track “Escape” either which tries to work some melody into proceedings and give us an easier on the ear approach, and in many ways these two tracks let the album down a notch or two. “Creeping Death” deals with the subject of plague and basically sounds like a b-side composition, and in my mind drags on a bit too much. A less than brilliant b-side is then saved by the epic “The Call of Ktulu” an awesome instrumental which just seems to glide by and hardly feels its almost 9 mins. Finally one thing that strikes me again as with the best tracks on “Kill ‘Em All” the two tracks that are written here with Dave Mustaine “Ride the Lightning” and “The Call of Ktulu” are yet again some of Metallica’s best tracks from this period, which leads me to believe if Dave Mustaine had remained. Metallica could’ve been even better than they were, but then of course we would never have had Megadeth. Overall Ride the Lightning clocks in several minutes shorter than Kill ‘Em All and is the perfect link between that album and the even more seminal Master of Puppets, personally I believe had Metallica not recorded Ride the Lightning, then the band would’ve never have reached the heights on the Master of Puppets.

James Hetfield- Rhythm/Vocals
Kirk Hammett- Guitar
Cliff Burton- Bass
Lars Ulrich- Drums

Production- Flemming Rasmussen

First of all, while I can sort of agree on "Trapped Under Ice" and "Escape" (which was the first sign of things to come, as it was consciously written as an attempt at a radio single), although I still dig both those songs, but did you just call "Creeping Death", one of the greatest thrash metal songs ever written, a "b-side composition"? :finger:

Secondly, I completely understand and approve of having Iron Maiden at #1, but you're about to give the second spot to Scorpions, aren't you? Thankfully this will be the last I'll ever have to worry about that band taking space away from actual good artists.

Oh, and I just updated the index, and you misspelled "Accept" at the top of that entry. NAGL.

Well considering that mainstream metal was now dishing out hit singles, I guess it was obvious that some extreme bands (the lighter ones) would follow suit and you're right "Escape" was a sign of things to come for the band. I know "Creeping Death" is one of the rated songs on the album but I never thought it was that special, great name though. I think by the time it comes up I had already been spoilt by the more diverse tracks on the first side of the album.

That Scorpions album is the balls, but you're right it may well probably be their final high placing on these lists.

Thanks and have just corrected the error, wouldn't have noticed until you said.

Time for me to get my two cents in after a few beers:

Celtic Frost: admit ably I have a soft spot for Celtic Frost, but I wouldn't have put them so high myself, in the end they're just a lesser Discharge on their earlier releases, not as talented & playing metal instead of punk. Still though, good stuff.

Metallica: I won't gripe about the number three spot on this one, although For Whom the Bell Tolls is possibly my all time favourite Metallica song, I'm not as big on the album as I am Kill Em' All, and I'm neither her nor there on Trapped Under Ice & Creeping Death. Trapped Under Ice is a catchy & easy song to get into, but a bit basic, Creeping Death has a good evil tone, nifty guitar solo, but perhaps a tad over rated, still great though.

Now do the right thing and put Zee Germans over your homeland. We both know the song Rock You Like a Hurricane walks all over 2 Minutes to Midnight!

http://vignette3.wikia.nocookie.net/...20100108063328


We were bros, man. What happened?

Hey I had to endure him putting a lesser Scorpions album before Highway to Hell, so its only fair that you get to suffer to. :)

I doubt you two clowns have ever listened to a Scorpions album. :nono:

Actually I have, several, which is why I'm routing for Love at First Sting

As have I. I have Love at First Sting on cassette as a matter of fact (I never would have payed money for it if I hadn't found it at a thrift store).

The Lowdown
It had been two years since the band’s previous album Blackout in 1982 and in that time the Scorpions had become one of the biggest metal draws in the world, most notably in the USA where they regularly sold out venues. The band had achieved this worldwide status largely on the back of constant touring and of course through no shortage of musical talent, and therefore it was only fitting that Love at First Sting would be their biggest seller to date. The album would ultimately reach no.6 on the US Billboard album chart and go double-platinum by the end of 1984, before finally going triple-platinum several years later, making the album one of the big commercial metal sellers of its time. The album produced two hit singles in “Rock You Like a Hurricane” “Still Loving You” and to a lesser extent with “Big City Nights” all compositions on the album were by Klaus Meine lyrics and Rudolf Schenker music. This album was amongst the first batch of metal albums that I ever bought back in the mid 1980s and I remember buying this album along with albums from Def Leppard and Van Halen, and despite liking all three albums, this was the one that I adored largely because of its powerhouse tracks, mixed in with balladry and all tied together delightfully by that melancholic nasal style of Klaus Meine. I of course adored its album cover, an area where the band had always excelled with their seriously risqué/controversial covers over the years, in fact the previous album cover for Blackout had appeared quite normal by the band’s standards. The album cover for Love at First Sting which despite not being controversial, was certainly in your face as it were, with an attractive woman partially naked having a man wearing those swanky cowboy boots putting a tattoo on her thigh, this was extremely very forward thinking as this album cover comes from a time long before it was fashionable for women to have tattoos and the black and white approach is very slick as well. The album also came with what I call the ‘just in case album cover’ which was an alternate clean cover that featured the band dressed up in god knows how much £ or $ worth of leather and this finally appeared on the reverse of the album sleeve. Now any readers of this journal, will know that I not only think of the Scorpions as one of the finest bands to grace metal in the period of the late 1970s and early 1980s, but they also happen to be one of my favourites largely because they were able to tow that centric metal line without ever sounding generic, I guess being German and having a German feel to their sound helped in this respect as well and overall Love at First Sting ranks for me as their second best album after Lovedrive (see 1979 review) The album starts with that breathtaking spiralling shredding intro of “Bad Boys Running Wild” and then the muscle of the song hits and this track is a metal thoroughbred through and through and Klaus Meine’s tasty sounding vocals propel the song along on this definitive track. Next up is the seminal “Rock You Like a Hurricane” which needs little introduction and that ‘hushed’ vocal approach by Klaus Meine combined with the meat of the band is the stuff of legend, and by now the band have the best lyrics of this year’s list. “I’m Leaving You” is a breezy and blustery delight and the half-ballad half-powerhouse “Coming Home” shows that the band were very much at the top of their game and its two halves meld together perfectly. Side closer “The Same Thrill” is that typical speedy and tenacious album track from the time, that was often common on centric metal and AOR releases. “Big City Nights” turns the power back on and this is a slow burner that swaggers around like it owns the place. The melodic "As Soon as the Good Times Roll" is actually one of my favourite songs on the album and again like with most of the songs here I just love how Klaus Meine sings those lyrics. Marching drums lead us into the almost melancholic "Crossfire" a song that threatens to explode into something louder but the band do a great job by keeping the song on a leash. Final track is the band's second big hit from the album "Still Loving You" one of the best power-ballads from the time and again known by most listeners. Musically this album is a delight, the band don’t bring too much new to the table here and instead were contented to refine and polish up what they had brought to the table before. As over the years and in the post-Uli Jon Roth period from 1978 onwards, the band had long since established their core sound and even back then the typical Scorpions’ sound on Love at First Sting resonates on most of those albums. The Scorpions at this time were very much in the superheavyweight metal league and the band were still shrewd enough to know on Love at First Sting, just the type of album that was needed to ensure their lofty position. After this the band profited on their huge commercial success with the live double World Wide Live album in 1985, which came at a time when live albums despite being a highlight from the 1970s, still showed that they could go multi-platinum in the 1980s as well.

Klaus Meine- Vocals
Matthias Jabs- Guitar
Rudolf Schenker- Rhythm
Francis Buchholz- Bass
Hermann Rarebell- Drums

Production- Dieter Dierks

The Lowdown
Powerslave is quite simply one of the quintessential albums in the history of heavy metal and it’s the album where the band continued to cement themselves into the annals of metal history. Powerslave and their two previous albums The Number of the Beast and Piece of Mind, had made the band the most vital in metaldom, along with all those Black Sabbath releases of the early 1970s. In fact it would be interesting to line-up the first five Black Sabbath releases against the first five Iron Maiden releases in a showdown, anyway that’s an idea for another time! As for the album, the first thing that strikes you as being different with Powerslave is its album cover, which now sees the band depart from the more traditional fantasy horror artwork that was the norm for the band and instead they have now gone in for an Ancient Egyptian theme this time around. This Egyptian style is only really evident though on the title track “Powerslave” after the band had already previously displayed their exotic musical desires on Piece of Mind’s “To Tame a Land”. The line-up would be the same as on Piece of Mind and for me this was musically the best line-up that the band ever had (not that of the band were chopping and changing like some bands do) The album was recorded in a period when the band were undertaking some of the longest touring of their careers and being one of the very biggest metal bands on the planet, the sets for the ‘World Slavery Tour’ were lavish to say the least. The band would constantly tour over the next couple of years which would finally result in their first live album the double Live After Death in 1986. On Piece of Mind every member of the band minus Nicko McBain had contributed to the songwriting, the band go one less here as Dave Murray doesn’t get onto the writing credits either, leaving the credits for Bruce Dickinson, Adrian Smith and Steve Harris. Once again the songs on the album are destined for fans of dungeons & dragons style metal, with the added bonus of swashbuckling style themes. Powerslave opens the barrage with its two singles “Aces High” and “2 Minutes to Midnight” the first an almost speed metal track about WWII pilots and the second a beefier affair and a more apocalyptic track. At 6 mins though it’s long for a single and once again a lyric sheet is strongly recommended here as it is for the rest of the album. Third track "Losfer for Words (Big ‘Orra)” is an instrumental and surprise surprise it was written by a guitarist. The album then delivers up two glory sounding anthems in “Flash of the Blade” with its amazing riff and the song was used on Dario Argento’s Phenomena in 1985. “The Duellists” is the longer and slower paced of the two tracks and finishes the album side. Side two opens with “Back to the Village” which is kind of a sequel to “The Prisoner” and this leads into the album’s most grandiose two tracks and the reason why this album is here. Firstly we have the title track “Powerslave” the Egyptian themed track on the album and it’s combination of mysticism, eeriness, galloping riff and its repetitive vibe make it one of the band’s most addictive songs. Final track is "Rime of the Ancient Mariner" probably the most ambitious track ever put out by the band, who had already hinted at their proggy ambitions on the previous Piece of Mind album with tracks like "Revelations" and "To Tame a Land" but neither of those tracks quite reach the prog epicness of "Rime of the Ancient Mariner" which is double their length and feels like a call back to the grandiose style of 1970s prog. As I stated on the Piece of Mind review the thing I find quite unique about Iron Maiden at this time, is their ability to go complex both musically and lyrically, but at the same time still keeping everything in a controlled musical sphere and making sure that everything actually has meaning to its actions, as they were very much masters at cutting the fat from the bone in their musical arrangements, and this ability is perfectly summed up on Powerslave as well. Powerslave is regarded as the closing trilogy of the band’s most highly regarded albums with Bruce Dickinson and in my mind it’s the best of the three. So it could be concluded that The Number of the Beast is their landmark release, Piece of Mind their most evolutionary release, then Powerslave could be seen as their most accomplished, as on this album is where all the signature elements of the band just seamlessly all fall into place. Strangley enough it’s an album that is actually regarded as the fan’s favourite rather than the favourite of the critics, I guess the album’s ability to slowly grow on you rather than just hit you may have a lot to do with conclusion, especially since a number of the songs here do seem quite long. Powerslave can easily serve as a blueprint for any power metal and progressive metal band out there, making it one of the most influential albums ever recorded and it just happens to be one of the best as well.

Bruce Dickinson- Vocals
Dave Murray- Guitar
Adrian Smith- Guitar
Steve Harris- Bass
Nicko McBain- Drums

Production- Martin Birch

Back when I was 13 or 14, I was just getting into Maiden, and I walked into a store to get Number of the Beast, but as this was around the turn of the millennium, any non-Metallica metal could be almost impossible to track down, and so the only thing I could find was Powerslave. So I "settled" for it.

Although I'm a fan of Somewhere In Time I don't think Iron Maiden were ever the same after Powerslave. It's like they lost their edge.

Just realized that all the dudes on the Powerslave album cover are walking right into Eddie's junk.

I'm surprised at that, I would have thought even in your neck of the woods Maiden albums would be easy to come by.

Somewhere in Time was like their compromise album to what was happening commercially at that time. Van Halen with Sammy Hagar were super radio friendly with all those synthesizers, so to a degree Iron Maiden jumped on the bandwagon. Luckily they made a far better job of it than Judas Priest did. Personally I really like Somewhere in Time but agree they had reached their peak on Powerslave.

I never noticed that until you mentioned it.

You forget. You're English. Maiden and Priest might have gotten big here, but I'm pretty sure they were still never half as big this side of the pond as they were over there. Around 2000, I'd say you'd be lucky to find one out of ten kids my age who'd even heard of Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, or Motorhead.

This is the section where I discuss what I think is a contentious album that came out in the year and will fall under one of the following highlighted. 1) An album that a large section of musical followers (critics and fans) rate highly and despite not seeing the album as bad, I still don’t really get the attraction. 2) A hugely significant album that was highly commercial but not really good enough for the main list, but still worth a mention. 3) Basically an album that’s a pile of crap and the artist really shouldn’t have released it.


Verdict
The 1980s would see the dominance of the guitar maestro in metal as the actual frontman himself, which is no surprise given the fact that heavy metal had technical guitarists like Eddie Van Halen, Michael Schenker and Randy Rhoads etc, who at times were often treated as separate entities to the band’s that they actually belonged to. Sweden’s Yngwie Malmsteen would very much be a product of this new breed of metal musician and he would go onto the reach the pinnacle of guitar perfection with his debut solo album Rising Force. Yngwie Malmsteen would virtually lay down ‘technical guitar perfection’ for neo-classical devotees on Rising Force and he would very much be a cornerstone of metal throughout the rest of the decade. Yngwie Malmsteen had a been a fanatical disciple of Ritchie Blackmore’s neo-classical leanings on those early Rainbow albums and the name Rising Force is taken from the ‘Rising’ on the Rainbow album. The first real student of this Ritchie Blackmore neo-classical style had been Randy Rhoads, but with his premature rockstar death Yngwie Malmsteen would take over this mantle. Before releasing Rising Force Yngwie Malmsteen had already been based in California for a number of years, as he had been invited to join the glam metal band Steeler for their debut album (see 1983 review) before jumping ship to join Graham Bonnet on the debut Alcatrazz album No Parole from Rock ‘n’ Roll, which is probably one the best albums that I never reviewed here. Rising Force consists of eight tracks and all are unsurprisingly written by Malmsteen himself. The almost forty minutes playing time of the album are just full of guitar obliteration in the neo-classical sense by Yngwie Malmsteen, as he displays his chord progressions, harmonic scales and classical imitations to a dazzling level of perfection, and this is all achieved at blistering speed which would be the envy of many a guitarist at the time. It would be wrong of me to ignore the other contributions on this album so I won’t and these most notably come from Jeff Scott Soto who was a dominant vocalist especially designed for a hard rock outfit, and he would go onto feature as a vocalist with countless bands (even though I never liked him when he fronted Journey in the 00’s) his tenure with Yngwie Malmsteen kind of reminds me of Gary Barden’s time with Michael Schenker, in that both vocalists were overshadowed by their guitar masters as it were, even though Gary Barden had a lot more freedom than Jeff Scott Soto. Jens Johansson plays keyboards and features on a lot of these early Yngwie Malmsteen albums and a whole load of others before finally ending up with Stratovarius in the 1990s. Finally and strangely enough there is Barriemore Barlow on drums of Jethro Tull fame, who to be fair is a drummer I would hardly imagine to be playing on this type of album. Rising Force is quite simply both a neo-classical and guitar wankery album (as in when the guitarist is the principal highlight) and to be fair both these descriptions have never really been my thing in music, but as with most things there are always going to be exceptions to any rule. The simple fact of the matter is, I really like Rising Force as an album on selected listens and especially the "Little Savage" track, which is all a surprise as it’s a neo-classical album full of guitar wankery, hell Jeff Scott Soto doesn’t get to sing until track three and that’s like 10 minutes into the album and then disappears for most of the rest of the album! As said I like this album and it’s probably the only album of its type that I actually do like and the reason that it didn’t make this year’s list, is that I genuinely had nowhere to put it in a ‘top 20 context’ it's also a highly contentious album amongst many listeners out there, so I thought this was an ideal home for it. Anybody that hasn’t listened to Rising Force should do so, because most of the instrumentals are accomplished listens and the album is a cornerstone of the genre.

I quite liked the one he did with Joe Lynn Turner and the Alcatrazz album but other than those I thought the rest of his stuff was total garbage.
Maybe him performing with ex Rainbow vocalists subconsciously made him more palatable to my ears.

I think he did about three albums with Joe Lynn Turner in the late 80's.

That link is broken.

Only 1 studio album though.
Joined in 88, left in 90 to join Deep Purple.

Yes you're right as the other album from that time was just a live one.

Never forget hearing Rising Force for the first time. I was doing stuff around the house with the windows open and all of a sudden one of my neighbors slapped it on really loud. This would have right after it was released in 1983.

At that time no-one was playing like that. It blew the roof off. Unfortunately it didn't take long for a bunch of dudes to jump on the neo-classical band wagon, but Yngwie was the trailblazer.

Tony McAlpine's Maximum Security has always been my fave of that genre.

I remember blazing with a GF back in the 80's and I put Rising Force on. We sat in my car and listened to the whole thing in my driveway. After it was over, I put her station back on the radio, which was a top 40 thing. Here's how the conversation went:

GF: "You're an *******"
Me: "Why? What'd I do?"
GF: "That guitar player"
Me: "Was it that bad?"
GF: "No."
Me: "Well, whats wrong then?"
GF: "You ruined all my music"
Me: "I did what?"
GF: "I can't listen to this anymore, it sounds like crap"
Me: "Good"

I gave her the cassette tape and went and bought another one.

These two stories really indicate the true impact of music and show how certain songs or albums really do form those historical memory banks of a person and how they can take a person right back to a certain moment or situation in their lives.

Thanks for sharing ;)

Journal Note

For anybody the regularly reads this journal I won't be starting 1985 for at least two weeks or even more, as I've haven't had time to listen and order all the albums for the year yet, have just started doing it but this takes time.

In the meantime I've a couple of extra albums to add onto 1984 to fill out the time until 1985 arrives, so there will be entries.

Verdict
The Bathory debut album certainly belongs in this journal for its historical importance and is largely regarded as the first ‘black metal’ album and would form part of the fledgling ‘first wave of black metal’. The NWOBHM had firmly given the heavy metal genre its own unique identity, thrash metal had then pushed that envelope even further and had thrown metal into unknown waters. This had in turn opened the door to the more extreme metal sub-genres of both black metal and death metal which would shape metal considerably over the coming decades. Black metal would certainly be a phenomenom as far as metal was concerned, as it quickly nominated itself as a European concept rather than a British or American one, but that’s not to say that its roots weren’t in bands such as Venom and Slayer! The European angle though came in the form of bands like Mercyful Fate and even more significantly from Hellhammer who quickly evolved into the better known Celtic Frost (reviews for all these bands) Bathory though fronted by Quorthon would firmly establish the genre in its purest form so far, as in the space of just 26 minutes Bathory would deliver an inspiration for a whole sub-genre. The band formed in Vallingby Sweden were named after the infamous Hungarian countess Elizabeth Bathory (check your history) and were fronted by multi-instrumentalist Quorthon who besides writing all the music and lyrics for the album, covered the vocals and the guitars here too as well as most of the production duties. The album starts off with an almost Black Sabbath style of morbid church bells tolling away in “Storm of Damantion” before the thrashy low-fi “Hades” sets the scene for the rest of the album, of which I find “Necromansy” and “Raise the Dead” the pick of the tracks. The album is also blessed with fantastic lyrics even though a lyric sheet is essential here and it has some great sounding titles like "In Conspiracy with Satan" and the whole thing is a unique bleak ambient experience. Swedish death metal author Daniel Ekeroth descirbes this album as "basically a mix of the satanic party rock of Venom and the energy of San Francisco thrash metal” an analogy that I think pretty much sums up the black tasting recipe here. Another interesting description I also came across stated that this album sounded like Motorhead had actually been to hell and had just ridden back. What’s most significant about this album and early black metal in general (from what I know) that instead of delving into a general satanic past as a lot of other metal bands would do here, is that bands like Bathory instead looked into their own Nordic heritage and its pagan past for their inspiration, Quorthon of course would provide the inspiration for Viking metal as well. This heritage creates a bleak environment combined with a claustrophobic low-fi sound and the album's heavy black based cover presents a forbidden realm of disturbing doom, that does an excellent job of infiltrating the listeners mind more so than any other sub-genre of metal.

My 1985 request list, though I know you will piss me off by slighting them for your wussy NWOHM bands :)

W.A.S.P. The Last Command (Should be number 1)

AC/DC - Fly on the Wall - it is a worthy album

S.O.D. - I imagine that you will start throwing crossover thrash bands up? The bet thrash album released that year in my opinion. Better than Slayer's Hell Awaits, Megadeth's and Exodus's debut albums.

There are other notable releases Helloween ect, but I care not, only the above matters.

Hardly any bands by 1985 with the NWOBHM label were good enough for a top 20 listing.

Sure to make the list but no.1 is highly unlikely :D

I hadn't considered any AC/DC but will add that to the listening list now.

All the best albums in 1985 were either thrash or other extreme metal styles and all the above are defs for a top 10 placing. SoD is such an acclaimed album anyway.

I'm a big power metal fan, so any band under that style is more likely to make the list than some other sub-genres.

Btw the first 1985 listing should be up in about 10 days time and in the meantime I'll stick another album up like I did with Bathory.

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.

Most people’s knowledge of Europe largely comes from the much maligned The Final Countdown song and album, which of course was not only the breakout combination from the band, but was also a worldwide commercial sensation in the mid 1980s. Based on this, the band would be largely grouped in that somewhat generic central-northern European metal sound and dismissed as pop metal for the masses, thus sealing the fate of the band in many people’s eyes and ears. The simple truth of the matter is, that before The Final Countdown album the band released two terrific albums especially the debut, which are highlighted by the band’s driving melodic hard rock/metal sound with tinges of neo-classical metal and these two albums are very much shining lights from the Swedish 1980s metal scene. Both albums largely went unnoticed outside of Sweden until the band as said above broke big. Now to be honest I’ve only recently discovered how great these albums are, largely thanks to one of my favourite metal listing sites on the internet, where the reviewer there is a huge fan of this kind of metal and actually placed the Europe debut as his best metal album of 1983 wow! Whilst not agreeing with that lofty position the album is still stellar and had I known the album for my 1983 list it would’ve made the top 10 as it’s that good.


The debut album here from these Swedish rockers starts with the raw sounding “In the Future to Come” where we’re introduced to the axe work of John Norum and the smooth but strong vocals of Joey Tempest. “Farewell” is 1980s AOR material and shows that the quality of the album tracks are simply going to be top notch. Europe were often frenetic sounding without ever quite getting into speed metal territory and a track like “Seven Doors Hotel” is a good example of this especially with its neo-classical touches, as John Norum thrusts his guitar through the whole song in pretty dynamic fashion. “The King Will Return” is a fairly epic reflective sounding track that touches on that classic 1970s vibe that easily could’ve appeared on a Ritchie Blackmore album and the name suggests that the band may have been into Wishbone Ash too. “Boyazont” is an instrumental and this leads back into the frenetic pace of the band with “Children of This Time”. “Words of Wisdom” starts of as a slowish track then moves into a delightful poppy section and shows that every song on this album is kind of special and real care was taken by the band on these compositions. “Paradize Bay” chugs the album along till the final track “Memories” which again captures the melodic essence of the band.


Wings of Tomorrow the sophomore set which despite not being as solid as the debut, is probably the more diverse album though and starts off with the galloping euro-metal standard sound of the band with “Stormwind” and the album soon hints at a stronger power metal direction than the debut did. “Open Your Heart” is the first power ballad from the band an was an obvious choice for a single and “Treated Bad Again” one of the heavier tracks by the band also vocally enters into Dio territory. “Dreamer” would be the second single from the album and is certainly a slower track that seems to be treading water a bit. The crunchy sounding “Dance the Night Away” finishes an album that does tend to be heavier than the debut and again is a nod to Dio in certain sections. Two of the songs on this album “Scream of Angel” and “Wings of Tomorrow” the latter here a great track would both later be covered by melodic death metal band Arch Enemy.

 

For a long time now I've been planning to do a full discog of Europe, but I've yet to get to it. Have you heard their latest, Bag of bones? Really a superb album.

So what you're saying, US, is that you neglected to add Europe into... the final countdown?

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