Album Reviews, Classic Rock, Genre, Heavy Metal, NWOBHM

Iron Maiden – Piece Of Mind (Album Review)

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Iron Maiden – Piece Of Mind (1983 – EMI, 2014 Reissue)

When you’re in a “back to basics” metal mood, like I am today, classic Maiden is just a no-brainer. For the first six songs, 1983’s Piece Of Mind is basically metal perfection with rousing boy’s-own stuff like Where Eagles Dare and The Trooper, the soaring Flight Of Icarus and more progressive fare like Still Life and Revelations which lend the album a dark, gothic aspect. Maiden were hitting the tour/record cycle hard in the 80s so, inevitably, the quality starts to get inconsistent towards the end but it would take more than a slightly silly song about cavemen to take down a beast like this.

Album Reviews, Black Metal, Death Metal, Genre, Heavy Metal, Thrash Metal

Possessed – Seven Churches (Album Review)

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Possessed – Seven Churches (1985 Combat Records)

It came out of the Bay Area thrash scene but Possessed’s 1985 debut Seven Churches is now renowned for getting the death metal ball rolling. And quite right too: Jeff Becerra’s voice is demonic and cavernous; the riffing is brutal and relentless; and it closes with a song called… Death Metal! But it’s really more than that. As with other early efforts from the likes of Sodom, Kreator, Slayer and Celtic Frost there’s a primordial stew of dark extremity at work here that doesn’t fit neatly into any genre but has elements that can be extracted into loads of them. It’s not just the death metal guys that have worshipped at the altar of Seven Churches. And that’s why it still holds up today and always hits the spot, whatever kind of evil metal mood I might be in.

My 2008 Century Media reissue. Too black to take a good photo of, but it does fold out into an inverted cross!
Album Reviews, Classic Rock, Genre, Hard Rock, Heavy Metal

Dio – Holy Diver [Joe Barresi Remix] (Album Review)

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Dio – Holy Diver: Super Deluxe Edition (Warner Records 2022)

I can’t say that Joe Barresi’s 2022 remix of Dio’s Holy Diver is a revelation exactly but it’s a tasteful update. It loses a bit of ambience but adds punch and it’s great to hear a fresh new version of an album I’ve listened to a gazillion times. And because the remix lets us hear beyond the original’s fade-outs we get to hear more of Vivian Campbell’s inspired guitar playing. Holy Diver was always one of my favourite-sounding metal albums though, so when I find myself thinking “this sounds fucking great” I also remember… it always did.

Black Metal, Genre, Heavy Metal, Song Reviews

Bathory – One Rode To Asa Bay (Song Review)

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“The God of all almightiness had arrived from a foreign land”

I often worry I use the word “epic” too much in my reviews but there is no song more deserving of the term than Bathory’s majestic One Rode To Asa Bay. The Swedish band’s seminal 1990 album Hammerheart explores Viking life, belief and mythology but its climatic track One Rode To Asa Bay depicts the arrival of a Christian missionary intent on erasing that way of life. The use of choral keyboards and relentless, driving repetition gives the song a hypnotic grandiosity and it’s impossible not to get swept up in Quorthon’s raw, impassioned storytelling. This is the extreme metal Stargazer. Epic.

Album Reviews, Classic Rock, Genre, Hard Rock, Heavy Metal

Blue Murder – Nothin’ But Trouble (Album Review)

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Blue Murder – Nothin But Trouble (Geffen Records 1993)

Blue Murder were starting to sounding hopelessly outdated on their second album, 1993’s Nothin’ But Trouble. But in 1993 my taste in music was hopelessly outdated so I gobbled it right up. Compared to their bold debut album, Nothin’ But Trouble is a more calculated, commercial effort and there’s some rote wimphem here like Love Child and Save My Love. But I didn’t mind… back then I would have listened to Mr. Blobby if John Sykes was his guitarist. And there are some blazing rockers here like We All Fall Down and Cry For Love that took me right back to the glory days of Whitesnake’s 1987 and Thin Lizzy’s Thunder And Lightning.

Album Reviews, Black Metal, Death Metal, Genre, Thrash Metal

Kreator – Pleasure To Kill (Album Review)

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Kreator – Pleasure To Kill (Noise Records 1986 – 2017 Reissue)

Today I’m indulging in one of my favourite extreme metal classics: Kreator’s Pleasure To Kill. This 1986 album is obsessed with the various ways one might meet an end (whether it’s death by the blade, an axe in the back or a ripping corpse attack). It’s a masterpiece of thrash but such a raw, violent and bloodthirsty one that it also satisfies a craving for death and black metal. And it’s strewn with absolute classics: unforgettable bangers like the title track, Riot Of Violence and Under The Guillotine. Pleasure To Kill is the kind of bullet-belted lunacy that makes you feel glad to be alive.

Classic Rock, Genre, Progressive Rock, Song Reviews

Jethro Tull – The Witch’s Promise (Song Review)

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“Lend me your ear while I call you a fool”

I’ve always been a sucker for a bit of folk and fantasy in my rock so I instantly fell in love with The Witch’s Promise the moment I saw Jethro Tull’s 1970 performance of it on Top Of The Pops (as part of the 1993 BBC series Sounds Of The Seventies). It took me years to find it on an album but luckily I videotaped the show so I could continue to partake of the song’s wonderful vocal melodies and lush layers of acoustic guitars, flute and keyboards. It had the swinging, hippy pop style of the band’s early material but The Witch’s Promise also pointed the way forward to the folkier, singer/songwriter focus and lush orchestrations of Jethro Tull’s future work. It was a watershed track that introduced me to one of my favourite bands and, by extension, the wider world of folk and prog rock. And it still bewitches me to this day.

Album Reviews, Classic Rock, Genre, Hard Rock, Progressive Rock

Hawkwind – Hall Of The Mountain Grill (Album Review)

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Hawkwind – Hall Of The Mountain Grill (United Artists Records 1974)

Despite being a mellower and more conventionally “prog” album, with a soundscape reminiscent of Pink Floyd and mellotron-laden King Crimson, 1974’s Hall Of The Mountain Grill is one of my favourite Hawkwind albums and a great place to start if you’re new to these dystopian space rockers. Psychedelic Warlords (Disappear In Smoke) is worth the price of admission alone: the band at their anarchic, street-level best. And Lemmy fans will enjoy hearing an early, pub-rocking take on future Motörhead tune Lost Johnny.

Album Reviews, Classic Rock, Genre, Hard Rock, Heavy Metal

Gary Moore – Run For Cover (Album Review)

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Gary Moore – Run For Cover (10/Virgin 1985)

Gary Moore had a good voice but never quite at the same level as his fiery guitar playing so on 1985’s Run For Cover he enlists two legendary, but troubled, vocalists to help out. “Voice Of Rock” Glenn Hughes lends his powerful, soulful singing to four songs, most notably the classy Reach For The Sky which could have fit right in on his superb 1982 album Hughes/Thrall. And then Moore’s old Lizzy pal Phil Lynott basically steals the show with his larger-than-life presence: duetting on bullet-strewn hit Out In The Fields and contributing his own thumpingly macho, but characteristically vulnerable, Military Man. I enjoy the whole album but it’s these guest appearances that make Run For Cover a favourite.

My copy is from this box set. Good music, crappy packaging!
Classic Rock, Genre, Hard Rock, Song Reviews

Van Halen – Hear About It Later (Song Review)

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“But I ain’t home… at night!”

Van Halen’s fourth album, 1981’s Fair Warning, was one of their toughest, edgiest records but on Hear About It Later the band sound more like their old party-hearty selves. The bouncy main riff and the happy harmonies of the chorus are all classic feelgood VH. But, unhappy with band and producer interference, Eddie Van Halen was sneaking into the studio overnight to get his guitar parts just the way he wanted them. And the extra layers of dives, bends and swirling open chords gives the song a nocturnal, neon atmosphere. Pesky frontlegend David Lee Roth ends up stealing the song all the same. His performance is alluringly stand-offish until he offers an emotional olive branch in the middle-eight (“you can try me at home”) that ends up being the song’s, and maybe even his, greatest moment. And he didn’t even have to work any night shifts.

… and classic rock too!