655. Samson / Shock Tactics. 1981. 2.5/5

Shock Tactics is the third album for Samson, and one where the band would have been desperate to build on the solid foundation it had made with its initial releases and tours, especially with the mood for heavy metal growing more favourable in the previous two years. To me, they missed a trick or two when it came to writing and recording this album.

Unlike Head On, the balance of the songs doesn't mesh or gell as well. There seems to have been a general stepping away from what could have been regarded as heavy metal at the time, with most songs moving back towards a bluesy rockier kind of release. Not quite Deep Purple without the organ, but there is a definite trend towards that kind of genre. You can almost hear Ian Gillan's vocals coming at you in songs like "Riding With the Angels" and "Bright Lights". In fact, both of those songs could have slotted onto Bruce Dickinson's Tattooed Millionaire album from eight years hence, and you wouldn't even blink an eyelid. This doesn't make them bad songs, but it does make them different from what they had released prior to Shock Tactics.
"Once Bitten" and "Blood Lust" are both melodramatically written and performed, moving along at a much slower pace than the better Samson material, and are both overly repetitive both lyrically and musically. Not too much of a challenge here, just repeat the riff and basic drumbeat and have a chorus repeated many times over the top.
"Nice Girl" AND "Grime Crime" come with the same "happy" drum beat and guitar riff that sometimes makes you think of 1960's happy hippy songs. In fact, try and sing the lyrics of one of the songs over the music from the other, and I'm pretty sure you'll find that they fit. Similarly styled, and probably don't work as well as others, with a real blues riff underneath "Grime Crime" in particular.
The closer "Communion" is often praised amongst Samson fans as a wonderful song that shows the great layers that this band was able to produce, and that it showcases the growth the band has made from simple metal/hard rock to produce such an genre-shifting song in both performance and writing. To me, it has always been just a plodding track, one that stretches out the end of the album interminably. Whilst I appreciate that Samson's guitar and Dickinson's vocals in particular are given another platform to show their wares on this track, in the long run it just bores me to tears.

Perhaps it tells the tale best here that my favourite track on Shock Tactics is "Riding With the Angels", which is written by Russ Ballad, and the only one that the band did not write. Yes, it is a different album, and yes, it is the last one that Bruce performed on before moving over to Iron Maiden. In many ways, it was perhaps the best thing to happen for all concerned.