Anteater

Nice spotlight. The Warning, at least for me, is one of metal's big watershed moments in the 80's: it was the point where some of the jazzier, "artsy" tendencies touched upon in the late 70's and very early 80's by Judas Priest, Iron Maiden and Black Sabbath were fleshed out and dialed up to 11 with a healthy dose of Genesis and Pink Floyd to boot. And while not perfect ('Before The Storm' is a tad weak as you said), I'd say its the definitive start of progressive metal as a genre. Was any other metal band doing songs like NM 156 in '84?

James Guthrie was a interesting choice of producer too: his ethereal touch elevates 'No Sanctuary' and 'Roads To Madness' to another level, aided in part via orchestration by the legendary Michael Kamen.

I'm going to assume Operation: Mindcrime will probably make your list in '88, but I'd recommend checking out Rage For Order again at some point too. For a lot of folks, that's where QR really came into their own.

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Unknown Soldier

As I know they're your favourite band, so your knowledge of the band is going to be spot on. Thinking about it the watershed moment that you're referring to, I think seemed to happen without many people being aware of it and doing some more reading on the album, it's certainly a prime candidate to be recognized as the first true 'prog metal' from end to end. Sure nobody in metal was doing tracks like "N M 156" at this time.

Nearly every review touches on this and in a negative way (I didn't because of my own word count) but for me James Guthrie as producer seems quite logical, I mean he'd worked extensively with Pink Floyd and if a band wanted to record a prog metal album, it made more sense at this time to go with a prog familiar producer than a metal one.

Operation Mindcrime of course and super high, and I'm already a fan of Rage For Order so no need to convince me on that one.

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Pounding Decibels- A Hard and Heavy History

Unknown Soldier

The Lowdown
Out of the Cellar was one of the very first metal albums that I ever purchased and it was long before I was even into heavy metal music as a fan. In fact I remember buying it at the same time as I bought the Bon Jovi debut which came out more or less at the same time and both were classified as hard rock/glam metal a fairly accurate label for both albums. I quickly tired though of both albums as they they both failed to ignite any big interest in me to pursue metal much further at that time. I already had at this time anyway albums by the Scorpions, Def Leppard and Van Halen and far preferred those three to new boys Ratt and Bon Jovi. So around the mid 1980s metal for me was just one of the music genres that I was listening to from time to time and was somewhere down my list of favourite musical genres. Many years later as I was getting into metal proper I realized that the Bon Jovi debut was a blandish album, even though I dig a couple of its track like openers “Runaway” and ”Roulette” but overall all the tracks sound like that they’ve been recorded better by somebody else previously. The Ratt album though whilst not being a classic, at least had an engaging if somewhat simplistic sound to it, that always made it decent listening glam metal material. I think it might surprise a number of people that the members of Ratt had been in various bands since the early 1970s and on top of that once Ratt had formed, they had gone through numerous line-up changes with artists like Jake.E Lee spending time in the band. In 1983 they recorded their 6-track EP which upon the success of Out of the Cellar was re-recorded in a polished manner in 1984. As for the album Out of the Cellar as far as I’m concerned is not a particularly good album, for the simple reason that nearly all its tracks sound like variations of its stellar song “Round and Round” and nearly all the album’s tracks seem to feed off the engaging and energetic sound of that track, which make no mistake about it is one of the most memorable tracks of the 1980s metal music scene anyway. In fact if this journal were concerned with the best individual metal tracks each year then Ratt would surely be in the top 3 this year, instead of dicing it up around the top 20. The song and the band of course, were another metal band that certainly touched gold when it came to radio and MTV as “Round and Round” was played constantly and become one of the most recognizable tracks of its time. When I drew up this year’s list I was kind of determined to squeeze in the Ratt debut despite its shortcomings, for the simple reason that the album is such an energetic highlight of the early glam metal scene and also one of its biggest sellers along with Quiet Riot’s Metal Health. Out of the Cellar is currently certified as a triple platinum album, so that speaks volumes of its impact around this time and on glam metal in general. Out of the Cellar as said is really about just one track “Round and Round” but there are certainly a few others that are worthy of being let out of the ‘Ratt Cage’ and these include album opener “Wanted Man” whose lyrics would go nicely on an Alice Cooper album and "Lack of Communication" which is an addictive melodic-muscle bound track and a favourite of mine. Then there is the single sounding "Back for More" which is not great but its chorus and opening guitar riff are top drawer stuff and finally "Scene of the Crime" which flows well, despite having some more of the band's silly lyrics....which though can still be fun. Overall the album has three saving graces that ultimately grant its inclusion here 1) A musical energy that approaches Motley Crue. 2) Stephen Pearcy’s addictive voice is just so distinctive. 3) Round and Round…… need I say more. Finally Ratt kind of remind me of fellow American west coast band the Knack, who several years earlier had been one of the highlights of the American new wave scene but ended up being just a one trick pony, as they had nothing that could match “My Sharona” in terms of quality and in many ways Ratt suffered the same fate, as they had nothing that could really match “Round and Round” in their glamster locker.

Stephen Pearcy- Vocals
Warren DeMartini- Guitar
Robbin Crosby- Guitar
Juan Croucier- Bass
Bobby Blotzer- Drums

Production- Beau Hill

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The Lowdown
I’ve constantly mentioned how glam metal had its different elements in some of my previous reviews and up until this moment only Twisted Sister had represented both the garish and heavier element of this metal sub-genre to the maximum. Twisted Sister would now be joined by the shock rock themed W.A.S.P (an Acronym btw) from Los Angeles. Initially the W.A.S.P debut had missed my cut for the year, but a friend of mine who often reads this journal despite not being a member here, wanted to know what the hell I was playing at passing over this album when I said it would be off the list and stated that if W.A.S.P weren’t on it he would be boycotting, so guess what I picked up the album and gave it another twirl and I’m glad I did in a way. First of all any album that’s on this list needs to be good, but those nearer the ‘20 mark’ usually have some distinct flaws that knocks them back and W.A.S.P in this respect are no exception as I will soon explain. The band emerged out of an outfit called Circus Circus which contained frontman Blackie Lawless (who sounds like a bad guy in a western) and guitarist Randy Piper. Photos of Circus Circus at this time basically have the band looking like Kiss but without the make-up and even the band’s poses are literally a double for Kiss at times, so it’s no secret that they were the biggest influence on the future W.A.S.P. Soon both Blackie and Randy formed W.A.S.P and after various line-up changes, Tony Richards on drums and party-animal guitarist Chris Holmes were added to form the definitive line-up of the band and a deal with Capitol saw them ready for their debut album. The album was a high profile affair given the band’s infamous theatrical stage show which included lobbing raw meat at the audience and having exploding codpieces amongst other delights. The W.A.S.P debut truly has some great cuts where they combine their heaviness with a surprising amount of melody and this combination reverberates throughout most of the album, as does the band’s love of the 1970s British glam scene, and of course the album’s biggest feature is the powerful energy of the band. The opening tracks start with the infamous “Animal (Fuck Like a Beast)” which was actually deleted from the original album due to it’s language content and didn’t appear until the 1998 re-issue of the album, but as it’s such a great track and an obvious album opener I’ve mentioned it here (the way it was meant to be) and it’s a pure muscle track that ignites the whole album. This is followed by the raging “I Wanna Be Somebody” (which became the original album opener) and it’s another definitive muscle song by the band and its powerful anthem overload blows a lot of the competition out there away. The band are still not finished because up steps track killer number three “L.O.V.E Machine” and this is followed by the angsty “The Flame” both these tracks imo are as good as the opening two classics. “B.A.D” takes the foot slightly off the power button but the energy is still there on the song. Now based on these songs this album would be in the top 6 for the year and when I listen to these tracks I’m usually blown away by the energy and power of them, but about 50% of the way through the album I tend to switch-off and this happens on every listen, and happens on “School Daze” and all the following songs, its not that these are bad songs or anything, but it feels like ‘my W.A.S.P fix’ has run its course! Meaning that the one-dimensional sound of the band and the similarity of the songs all end up blending together and start to feel watered down in the second half of the album. Overall I think the glam metal albums further up this list, despite not having the same shock value do offer much more musically than W.A.S.P do. As of yet I haven’t mentioned the PMRC (Parents Music Resource Center) which was an influential American committee at this time, that was charged with censuring offensive material in music and included the usual topics of sex, drug and alcohol abuse, strong language and the usual so-called satanic goings-on in music. Needless to say the shock rock tactics of W.A.S.P were soon brought under their microscope, which was no surprise considering the band’s risqué stage show and songs like “Animal (Fuck Like a Beast)” were of course perfect examples of songs being pulled up for language....hell even Def Leppard were pulled up as well at one stage! In fact in the case of W.A.S.P that song was actually pulled from the album, but luckily for us listeners it got back on the re-issue. Overall the album belongs in any metal collection for its impact, but as for how often it will come out depends a great deal on whether the listener is into the one-dimensional metal being put out by the band or not. Comparing them to say Kiss an obvious comparison, sure for a metalhead W.A.S.P are heavier and probably rank as being better musicians, but the real charm of Kiss is the fact that their classic line-up had three/four vocalists to add a different dimension to their sound which was something that W.A.S.P didn’t have as they only had Blackie Lawless.

Blackie Lawless- Bass/Vocals
Chris Holmes- Guitar
Randy Piper- Guitar
Tony Richards- Drums

Production- Blackie Lawless/Mike Varney

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Metal Wars

Power Metal

Pounding Decibels- A Hard and Heavy History