Diamond Head: Borrowed Time (1982)

The great Diamond Head was one of the primary influences on Metallica in the early days.  We know this because Metallica's covers album Garage Inc. featured FOUR Diamond Head cover songs.  All of those songs appeared on Diamond Head's classic album Lightning to the Nations (though one is also on this album).  I have that album and was recently curious to check out some of the band's lesser-known material.  Which brings me to this, the NWOBHM band's second album.

This album finds Diamond Head going in more of a hard rock direction on a number of the songs.  There are still definitely some head-bangers on this release, including the re-recording of "Am I Evil?", which is the aforementioned song covered by Metallica that appears on both Diamond Head albums.  There is also "In the Heat of the Night" and "To Heaven from Hell".  But many of the other songs are a little softer and not as riff-driven.  That by no means suggests that they are bad or that the band was going in a direction similar to another NWOBHM band whose sound softened in an effort to appeal to the masses (ahem, Def Leppard).  "Call Me" is the most straightforward rock song here and it really showcases Sean Harris's impressive pipes, which have improved quite a bit since the last album.

"Am I Evil?" is not the only song to appear on both of these Diamond Head albums.  "Lightning to the Nations" is another song that is repeated here.  I do not really know why these songs appear on both albums.  Perhaps the band was not happy with the way they sounded on the previous album.  Maybe this album was not meant to be a full-length and the band had to pad it.  Whatever the reason, two songs appear on both albums.  That makes "Am I Evil?" the best song to appear on two different Diamond Head albums. 

On the other side, "Don't You Ever Leave Me" seems to go on forever and turns into more of a blues/rock tune that has been done pretty much to death.  It reminds me very much of that Jon Bon Jovi Christmas song that had Cindy Crawford in the video.  It just gets kind of irritating the longer it goes on.  Thankfully, it leads into "Am I Evil?".

I like this album a fair bit, but not really anywhere close to as much as I enjoy Lightning to the Nations.  That album is a landmark in the NWOBHM scene.  This one, for all of its good qualities, is more of an afterthought.  And I can't really say that there is anything wrong with that.  The best songs on the album were on the previous album and most of the rest of the songs sound like filler more than anything.