English Dogs: Forward Into Battle (1985)

For much of their early existence, English Dogs were a punk band, arising out of the fertile U.K. scene in the late 1970's/early 1980's.  That all changed however with this release.  The band went in a much more metal direction over the coming years, but this is where things really began to head in that direction.

The music here is heavily influenced by that other heavy music scene that rose out of the U.K. around the same time period, the NWOBHM.  English Dogs began incorporating speedy riffs from groups like Iron Maiden, and even some early thrash metal from groups like Metallica and Overkill.  The riffs are raucous and raw, with frenetic intensity. 

The last vestige of the band's prior punk sound can be found in the vocals.  Vocalist Adie Bailey possesses a gruff, punkish snarl.  It does not really fit the music, but it is an interesting element that helps the album stand out in its own way and provides a callback to the band's roots.

This is something of a forgotten gem.  I had no idea it existed until seeing someone mention it on a forum, and speed metal riffs with punk vocals kind of caught my attention.  This is an interesting blend of two huge heavy music scenes from the time period.  And for that, it should get a little more attention that it does.

Razor: Malicious Intent (1986)

It figures that I have been recently able to find one of Razor's earlier releases right as a box set of all of their releases has been announced.  Their earlier stuff has been so hard to find, but I have managed to get most of them, at some expense.  Now, I could get everything for a very reasonable price.  Ugh.

Malicious Intent is Razor's third album and the earliest one in their discography that I have heard so far.  It presents a decidedly different sound for the band than the more aggressive thrash metal of most of the releases I have heard.  This album finds the band in a much more speed metal sound with some obvious NWOBHM influences.  It appears thrash metal had not yet made its way up to the Great White North by the time this album was released.  That's probably not completely true as Voivod still existed at this time.  But still.

This album is a fast-paced and energetic one with a barrage of riffs and wailing leads.  The vocals are gruff and intense with some truly ear-piercing shrieks at times.  It is an extremely raw and unrestrained sound and one can tell that the musicians here are still finding their way, but that just adds to the charm of the release. 

This is not my favorite Razor album, but it is damn good.  It is clear the band is still finding their voice on this release, though I have yet to hear their first two albums at this time.  It just does not seem as focused as some of their later output.  That's fine though because the rawness of this album makes it appealing in the same way that Kill 'Em All by Metallica is so interesting.

Sins of the Damned: Striking the Bell of Death (2019)

Well, that name is a mouthful.  Not to be confused with gothic metal band The Sins of Thy Beloved, Sins of the Damned is a relatively new band out of Chile who plays tried and true speed metal with blackened metal vocals. 

The album starts off with some ominous bell-ringing, that most likely being the titular "Bell of Death".  It then kicks off into "They Fall and Never Rise Again", one of the better songs on the album.  Most of the song titles are a little lengthy, just like the album title and the band's name.  The songs are also a little long, with only two songs being less than five minutes, and one of those is the intro track (also the title track). 

The music is mostly fast-paced, as is normal in speed metal.  The band seems to take some major influence from the likes of Helloween, among other bands, playing traditional speed metal with a barrage of riffs and drums.  The high speed riffs often repeat ad nauseam and are mostly clean, stopping just short of edgier riffs that would take the music into thrash metal territory. 

The main element that distinguishes this band from so many other traditional-minded speed metal bands is the harsh vocals.  They often veer into black metal-style rasping and growling, adding a threatening tone to the otherwise mostly melodic metal.  It is a unique idea, somewhat similar to the blackened power metal of Satan's Host, but it never quite works as well.

This is an interesting album with some off-kilter elements, but it never quite comes together.  Granted, this is the band's debut album and there is plenty of time to flesh out the ideas.  This is a fun album to listen to, but it never really grabs the listener's attention as much as an album of this style should.

Exciter: Long Live the Loud (1985)

Let's all go back to a simpler time.  When the only real concerns were making a few bucks to put gas in your cherried out Dodge Charger or Grand Am to take out your spandex-clad feathered-haired girlfriend.  This cassette was likely playing in the car at the time.  This is the perfect soundtrack for exceeding the speed limit while flying down the highway.

Canadian metal of the 1980's has really garnered a lot of nostalgia in recent years.  Part of that was likely due to the Anvil documentary of several years ago.  But there were better bands in the scene.  Exciter, named after a Judas Priest song, was one of the leading bands in the scene, releasing three classic albums from 1983 through 1985.  This was the third, and probably my favorite of the three.

As could be expected when a band names itself after a Judas Priest song, Priest and Iron Maiden seem to be the primary influences on Exciter's sound.  "Born to Die" would have easily fit on Priest's Defenders of the Faith while the beginning of "Wake Up Screaming" sounds a lot like Maiden's "Hallowed be Thy Name".  Most of the rest of the songs are made up of catchy-as-hell pure speed metal.  There are several terrific songs here, including the title track and "I am the Beast".

I missed out on this album the first time around (I was four after all), but there are several great metal albums being reissued all the time.  All three of the first Exciter albums have recently been reissued and I have been picking them up.  I have not ventured beyond the first three yet, but someday I may have to.  As I said, this is my favorite album by Exciter thus far.

Anthrax: Fistful of Metal (1984)

I have talked a lot recently about my newfound love of Anthrax.  It was with this in mind that I decided to finally pick up one album from the band that I had been avoiding: their debut.  Now, I have not been actively avoiding it, just not making any special effort to pick it up.  The reason for this is that the vocalist on this album was Neil Turbin instead of Joey Belladonna, so I had no idea what to expect.  In addition, the style is not quite the same.

Anthrax's debut is a fantastic example of power/speed metal, not the hardcore-influenced thrash metal the band became known for.  The chunky riffs are not present, instead featuring much more melodic riffs that call to mind Judas Priest and Iron Maiden.  It is an upbeat and powerful album with fast-paced songs and blazing solos.

The other aspect of the album that sets it apart from the band's other releases is the vocalist.  Neil Turbin is a significantly different kind of singer than Belladonna or John Bush.  He has a wide range and is powerful and dynamic.  He is doing his absolute best impression of a NWOBHM singer on this release.  He throws everything he has into this performance and it is the big highlight of this album.

While this album is not as strong compared to the later Anthrax material or compared to the debut albums of the other members of the Big Four, it is quite a good album in its own right.  It is significantly different from Anthrax's other material, but it is still a better album than any of the John Bush albums, except for maybe Sound of White Noise.  It is an underrated album in Anthrax's catalog.

Black Viper: Hellions of Fire (2018)

How could you not get sucked in by that album cover?  That thing is ridiculous, insane and awesome all at once.  It helps to justify picking up the album that the drummer was in Deathhammer at one point, so I am fully on board now.

From the opening strains leading into the siren howl of vocalist Salvador Armijo, it is very clear that this is a direct call back to speed/heavy metal classics of the 1980's.  It is a breathtaking cavalcade of riffs and melodies that flies by at blinding speeds.  In fact, the speed is so intense and breakneck, it is a wonder that the individual musicians are able to keep up.  At the backbone of all of this is the aforementioned Deathhammer drummer, one Cato Stormoen.  His ability to keep time while propelling the band forward is amazing and is the biggest highlight of the album.

On first listen, it seems like a lot of the songs are more of a collection of ideas than cohesive songs, but subsequent listens tend to reveal more of a common thread.  There are multiple different sections and speed changes during most of the songs.  But they manage to hold things together and the songs always come full circle. 

This album definitely captures the sound and the fury of 1980's speed metal, without sounding out-dated.  I love it.  It's a ton of fun. 

Lightning Lord: All Father Death Stalkers (2013)

This is going to be a really short review, because this is a really short EP.  You see, there are a couple of things people may think of when they think EP.  One is a short, four or five song album that does not exceed thirty minutes in length.  The other is short enough to fit on a 7" vinyl record.  Guess which one this is?

There are just two tracks here, so not a whole lot to go on.  Lightning Lord is a band that came from New York in 2012, yet sound like they came from England in the late 1970's or early 1980's.  Yep, NWOBHM is the sound here, specifically groups like Angel Witch, Diamond Head, Satan, and Hell.  The music is melodic, yet heavy with fast-paced speed metal riffs and soaring vocals.  Both tracks are almost anthemic with fist-pumping choruses and catchy hooks.

The vocals on second track "Children of the Night" are a little difficult to stomach on initial listens, but it gets better on repeated listens.  Other than that the problem I have with this is it's too damn short.  Looking forward to some proper material.

HI-GH: Night Dances (2013)

Yeah, you can probably tell some things about this band from the cover of the album and their band name.  If you guessed that they enjoyed pot on occasion, you would probably be pretty accurate.  HI-GH also has a little bit of a weird sense of humor, best shown by their name for their style of music.  They play a combination of punk and speed metal that they refer to as "spunk".  Yes.

The Rome-based HI-GH plays a fast-paced, energetic brand of metal that bears a very strong resemblance to the early days of Metallica, Slayer, and Overkill.  Yes, I named three bands that are well-known for thrash metal.  But I am referring to the early recordings of those groups, back when the punk influences were more pronounced and they were just playing a faster brand of heavy metal (that's really all speed metal is in reality).  Think "Hit the Lights", "Rotten to the Core", and other tracks along those veins.

That being said, some of the songs are much closer to punk than the speed/thrash described above.  Tracks like "Zig Zag Shaped" definitely have a lot more punk than metal in it, with the simple, repeating riff and standard chord progression.  Real punk though, not the pop punk shit that most associate with it.  Dirty and raw-sounding punk.

It becomes pretty clear as the album goes on that this is a very light-hearted band.  Songs are a little humorous at times without a whole lot of heavy themes.  The songs are fun.  Tracks like "Let Me Know" which has a very bouncy and peppy feel to it.  Many of the songs in the middle of the album are a lot more light-hearted than expected.

The final track, which is twelve minutes of experimentation and random noodling, could be lost without any effect on the rest of the album though.  It does not match the rest of the album at all and is pretty tedious to listen to.

Overall I enjoyed this album.  It is not anything terribly special.  It's a bunch of songs that sound like the early days of thrash metal, when most of the bands were playing a combination of punk and speed metal.  It's an interesting retro-sounding album.  Not bad.  Not terrific, but it is a lot of fun.

Enforcer: Death By Fire (2013)

I was pretty excited for this one.  I loved Enforcer's 2010 album Diamonds.  The band struck the right chord with their take on NWOBHM crossed with speed metal.  Not only that, their songs were catchy as hell.  The album was a ton of fun, and even my wife liked the album quite a bit, which is pretty damn rare.

The first time I heard this one though I was slightly disappointed.  All of the elements from the previous album were present, but there was no track like "Running in Menace", which was the standout song to me on this one.  That is not to say that the songs were not good, there just was not that one track that made the entire album.  However, with repeated listens, the album grew on me.  I still do not think that I like it quite as well as Enforcer's last album, but it is no longer a disappointment.

The sound on this album is a little bit different.  The NWOBHM sound is still very much present, but instead of focusing on the poppier groups as they did on the last album, this time around they went for a heavier Diamond Head-meets-Blitzkrieg sound.  "Satan" even sounds like Metallica pre-Kill 'Em All.

The elements that made Enforcer's last album are still there.  The band combines an impressive melodic sensibility with some biting riffs and impressive vocal work.  The songs are catchy, though not as much as on their previous album.  I do not think this album will gain the band new fans, it is not quite as good as Diamonds after all, but it is a reasonably impressive follow-up.

FMA Reviews: Striker: Armed to the Teeth

Originally reviewed here.

I took one look at that cover art and knew that I absolutely had to check this one out. It is an animated skeleton of a carnivorous dinosaur, can not tell which one, possibly a tyrannosaurus. But the skeleton is equipped with two machine guns on its arms and a mini gun on its back. It is seriously awesome.

So the album art definitely grabs attention, but the music really keeps it. An album is disappointing if the music does not live up to the artwork on the cover. Luckily Striker is not a disappointment. This is Canadian speed metal, very much in the vein of Exciter and other underground bands from the Great White North. The music is certainly energetic and fast-paced and it is almost impossible not to find your self keeping time with it.

I will say that my first listen to Striker did not lead to me being terribly impressive. The vocals kind of turned me off on the first attempt at the album, but on repeated listens, this was less and less of a problem. The vocals are very similar to those in other power/speed metal bands like Hibria and Lost Horizon. So if you enjoy those bands, you will likely not have any problems with Striker's vocalist.

The music really resembles the kind of album that would have come out in the early 1980's when metal was still finding its own voice away from the glam and arena rock sound. The result is music that definitely gets blood pumping while remaining heavy enough that it would not have been heard on the LA strip in the mid 1980's. There are a lot of bands playing this style of metal these days, so groups need to be really impressive to stand out from the litany of groups that sound the same. Luckily for Striker, their keen sense of songwriting and penchant for writing fist-pumping anthems like "It Could be Worse" and "Feed the Fire" is just what they need to stand out.

Iron Dogs: Cold Bitch

I would be lying if I said that the cover art for this release did not capture my attention.  So I am not going to say that.  It is pretty damn cheesy, yes, but then there is a naked woman on the cover, holding a sword, covered in blood, and flanked by a couple of wolves.  How much more metal can you get?

There have been a lot of bands from Canada recently that play 1980's style true metal.  And what could you expect from a country that gave us Slaughter, Sacrifice, Anvil, Razor, and Exciter, among others?  Canada has a rich metal history.  And it would appear that Iron Dogs is very much aware of that and paying tribute to it, while also pushing forward.

This is heavy and speed metal that definitely and defiantly calls to mind the above-named bands.  It is not just the music that sounds like a 1980's band.  The production is done in such a way as to accurately capture the sound of those bands.  The vocals sound like a cross between early 1980's metal and Misfits-style punk.  It is another aspect of the sound of Iron Dogs that sounds like an homage to their countrymen.  This is a very short, but very fun record, clocking in at just over 30 minutes.

Of course Iron Dogs is doing something that other bands have done before.  Not only older bands whose sounds Iron Dogs obviously build upon, but newer bands as well.  Cauldron still stands at the front of the pack of Canadian retro metal bands.  But Iron Dogs is definitely making waves.

Reader Submissions: Inquisitor: Dark Ages of Witchery

I love it when a band comes out of nowhere to blow me away with a release.  Enter Portugal's Inquisitor.  They have only been around for a few years now and have yet to release a full-length.  Thus far their entire discography consists of a demo, this 7" EP, and a split with Virgin Killer.  But if this EP is any indication, Inquisitor should have a bright future.

Inquisitor is a thrash/speed metal band with a sound firmly rooted in the 1980's.  Their music strongly resembles bands that straddled the line between thrash metal and more melodic styles.  Names like Flotsam and Jetsam, Exciter, and Razor come to mind.  The vocals are done in more of an early extreme thrash metal style, most similar to Teutonic thrash masters Destruction, Kreator, and Sodom.  The riffs are fast-paced and memorable and the band possesses some impressive songwriting chops.

The production on this sounds great.  The sound is beefy and muscular, which befits the style of music.  There is a heavy bottom-end which is sometimes missing in more traditionally-minded metal albums.  Everything is clear without sounding sterile.

This is an extremely impressive release, but it is just a teaser.  There are only two tracks here and they both sound very good.  I am looking forward to something longer.

FMA Reviews: Midnight: Complete and Total Hell

Originally reviewed here.

Midnight is a band that I have been wanting to check out for quite a long time, but for some reason I never really got around to it. Midnight is pretty much the prototypical Hell's Headbangers band, besides the mighty Nunslaughter of course. They pay tribute to a lot of the early black metal bands while remaining firmly rooted in the NWOBHM and speed metal. 

Midnight basically sounds like a combination of Motörhead and Venom. It is fast and intense, with very short songs, but with raspy vocals and distorted riffing. It is never a pretty sound, but that's to be expected from this record label. Midnight is unabashedly retro, but they sound like they are absolutely having a blast doing it. They are fast and intense, with NWOBHM-inspired riffs and a Lemmy Kilmister-esque vocal style. This is beer-drinking, party music, if the party was to spin out of control and end up with people smashing beer bottles over people's heads and turning into a giant drunken brawl.

This is a compilation of the band's material released prior to their Satanic Royalty debut full-length. Most of this material was hard to find and long out of print. There are 21 tracks here, but they fly by really fast, with only a handful breaking the four minute mark.

As a compilation of demos and splits, the production is a little uneven. Some of the songs sound better than others, but that is all par for the course for this type of release. This compilation offers a look at Midnight's material prior to their full-length.

This is filthy and dirty metal in the vein of Motörhead and Venom. I love it.