113. Iron Maiden / Beast Over Hammersmith. 2002. 5/5.

This was the second double CD from the Eddie's Archive package that was then later released on its own. It is recorded on the Beast On The Road tour, with Bruce Dickinson raising hell on vocals.

This concert had pretty much every great song Maiden had recorded over their first three albums, and is just brilliant. It has all the elements required to make a great live album (refer to previous post for list). The fact that it took so many years to surface is strange, considering the number of bootlegs of the show that exist (yep, I've got one).

Personal favourites are the less-heard-in modern-days songs such as Another Life, Drifter, Transylvania and Killers, along with The Prisoner, Children Of The Damned and Phantom Of The Opera.

Rating : Just a great album of what must have been a great gig. A snapshot of a band that was heading for big, big things. 5/5.

112. Dokken / Beast From The East. 1988. 4/5.

Over the course of the preceding four years, Dokken had been scaling the heights of the music mountain, releasing three studio albums in support of their debut album some years before, refining their sound and in the process breaking into the glam metal market that had risen in popularity in that time frame. On the back of their 1987 hit album “Back for the Attack”, the band had not only had a hit single with the song “Dream Warriors”, which had been written for and appeared in the movie “A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors”, but their profile had increased in tandem. The rhythm section of Mick Brown on drums and Jeff Pilson on bass, on Dokken’s amazing vocals complemented by Pilson’s soaring back ups, and George Lynch’s scintillating guitar, had all combined to bring the band to a prominence that they had not seen before.
All of this led to Dokken being added to the bill for the 1988 Monsters of Rock Festival alongside Van Halen, Metallica and Scorpions, and a chance to shine in front of their biggest audience to that time. Prior to this appearance, the band had booked dates for a headline tour of Japan, and the decision was made to record several shows and then release a live album. It was a canny decision given the increased popularity of the albums they had released to that point of their career, and the album in retrospect contains some of the bands most well known and loved songs, and perhaps more surprisingly was eventually nominated for ‘best metal performance’ at the Grammy Awards two years later in 1990. Though it didn’t win, missing out to Metallica, this live album which came to be titled “Beast from the East” became a pivotal point of the band’s career. For more reasons than one.

Even today, 35 years on, if you were to pick a best of Dokken album, this would just about cover all bases. All of the band’s four albums released to this point in time are represented in the song list, containing Dokken’s best known songs. And they all sound great here. Don’s vocals are fantastic, probably at their peak in his career at this point in time, and all through the album the support from Jeff Pilson and Mick Brown is superb. They actually enhance the songs here from their studio versions because you can hear the three distinct vocals when they come together, and it makes these songs sound enormous. Then add George Lynch’s amazing guitar into the mix and you have a terrific live experience.
Everything about this album mixes well and plays well to the ear. “Breaking the Chains” is both the band’s first album and first single, and still sounds great on this album in the live environment. “Under Lock and Key” has three songs featured, the opening track “Unchain the Night” which kicks off the album in style, and “In My Dreams” and “It’s Not Love”, both the power ballad like tracks which still sound palatable here. Arguably the band’s most favoured album is “Tooth and Nail” which has five songs featured here. The title track “Tooth and Nail” is a beauty. “When Heaven Comes Down” and “Into the Fire” are both great live versions here, with a greater energy live than their already excellent studio versions contain. “Alone Again” again moves into the power ballad territory, but is performed well enough here to ignore its pitfalls, while the hit single “Just Got Lucky”, arguably the bands most famous and best track, is turned up to 11 here.
The four songs from the album they were touring on, “Back for the Attack” are wonderful here. “Dream Warriors” as the movie soundtrack song comes across perfectly, uplifting and building to the belting ending. Great version. This is backed by “Kiss of Death” which rushes at you with that fantastic Lynch riff powering its way through the track. “Heaven Sent” is in the power ballad class of song, but to give it credit it sounds good here. But the star is a cracking version of the instrumental “Mr Scary” which has always been a great vehicle for Lynch on guitar but is enhanced here with his own solo work before the actual entry into the start of the track. Great stuff.
The album also contains a new studio track “Walk Away”, something that seems unnecessary given the brilliant quality of what has come before it, but this was the age of getting in a new song to encourage people who felt they weren’t going to outlay their money for ‘songs I already have’ to actually buy the album. It was a different time, that’s for sure.

I was unfortunately a little late on picking up Dokken as a band. As I have said on previous episodes on this podcast in regards to Dokken, they so suited exactly what I was listening to in the mid-1980's that it is incredible that it took me until over a decade later before I really found them and all of these albums from that time. Including this one. What surprises me more is that this album isn’t spoken of more often when it comes to comparing or listing the greatest live albums of all time. Because every song on here is a great song from the band, and every version is a great live version. Whether you are a fan of the band or not, you can’t help but be impressed with the clarity and range of the vocals, and the mastery of the guitar from George Lynch, and the great support acts on bass and drums. Everything about this album sounds fantastic. The performance, and the material. The album did well at the time, but didn’t really raise any flags as to its quality. And every time I put this on and listen to it, I can’t help but shake my head at that revelation. But perhaps there is a reason for this. This was a high water mark for the band, but within months of it being released the band broke up, essentially from both personal creative differences finally becoming unmanageable between Dokken and Lynch. Lynch and Brown went off to form Lynch Mob, Pilson formed the band Flesh and Blood on lead vocals before playing with MSG and Dio, while Dokken himself put out a solo album. It was not the end of the band forever, but it drew a curtain on the golden years of the band. And if you are going to do it, then a terrific live album is not the worst way to do it.

111. Iron Maiden / Be Quick Or Be Dead [Single]. 1992. 3/5.

First single from the Fear Of The Dark album. The song is good. The two other songs are OK.

Rating : Well, it only gets what it gets because of who they are. 3/5.

110. Michael Schenker Group / Be Aware Of Scorpions. 2001. 4/5.

When I first put this album on I was pretty impressed. Apart from a couple of hiccups, Schenker just keeps on putting out great material. Of course, it's not just the guitaring. He and his band keep on writing great songs, and his vocalists are also able to sing, which helps a lot.

Though I still believe the album name was meant to draw back those fans who had deserted him in the '90's, anyone who took the bait could not help but be glad they had. It is almost as though the same thing has happened to Schenker as has happened to Malmsteen and others – that they have dabbled in the mainstream looking for success, and now just make the music they want. If that is true – it works.

My favourite songs on the album include No Turning Back, Because I Can, How Will You Get Back and Blinded By Technology.

Rating : An indication that Schenker is getting back to what he does best, writing great songs. You can't revisit your heyday, but this is up there on a second tier. 4/5.

109. Iron Maiden / BBC Archives. 2002. 4.5/5

Originally released as a part of Eddie's Archive, this was the first of three double CDs. It contains four separate live shows – two with Paul Di'anno on vocals, and two with Bruce Dickinson on vocals.

The quality is excellent, and it makes a nice historical package. The original version of Killers, with different lyrics which apparently were made up five minutes before going on stage, is quite amusing. It's a good thing they sat down afterwards and thought more about it! :)

Most of this stuff has been available as bootlegs for years – I have copies of them myself – but it is good to have the real deal. The Reading Festival show is an excellent showcasing of the band in Di'anno's day, and how he used to drive the crowd. It's also great to have a solid live recording of the material from the first album.

Rating : Great live performances from another age. This gives a clear indication of how a band grows through the years on stage. 4.5/5

108. Deep Purple / The Battle Rages On. 1992. 3.5/5

For a band with so much success over a long period of time, there is little doubt that the working relationships within the band Deep Purple had always been temperamental. Prior to the band’s cessation in the mid-1070's most of the Mark II line up had moved on, looking for other opportunities and also to be able to express themselves in their own way without being forced to conform to the majority rules of being a part of a group. On their reformation in 1983, there still seemed to be an unease, mainly between Ian Gillan and Ritchie Blackmore, and it had eventually led to Gillan leaving the group after “The Hose of Blue Light” album, replaced by Ritchie and Roger Glover’s former Rainbow colleague Joe Lynn Turner on the “Slaves and Masters” album in 1990.
The unease was still there, and with the writing process for the next album already in full swing, Turner was let go from the band. The reason was not a dispute – in fact, Blackmore wanted Turner to stay – but with the band having signed a new muti million dollar record deal, the record company wanted Ian Gillan back at the helm, especially in the lead up to the 25th anniversary of the band’s inception. This created a lot of angst, as Ian Paice, Jon Lord and Roger Glover were in favour of the outcome, but Blackmore was adamant. How adamant, you may ask? Well, in order to go along with this occurring, Ritchie asked for, and received, $250,000 in his bank account before it went ahead. Even at that time it was a ludicrous amount of money for one band member to receive to change his mind. And given this was the case, you surely could only have assumed at the time that it was barely a band-aid on the growing sore of the band, and that it was not a cure but only a temporary solution to a problem that would continue to fester as time moved on.

The album kicks off with a typically strong opening track, the title track in fact, and as Ian Gillan’s layered vocals come straight to the fore you could easily imagine that everything has been restored despite the drama between albums, and the band have hit their straps again. The mix of Lord’s Hammond organ and Blackmore’s riffs settle nicely again within Glover’s soothing bass and Paice’s under appreciated drumming.
From this point on however, the rest of the album is a series of songs that are varied in style and quality, and varied in a way that is very un-Deep Purple like. And there could been several reasons for that, but none seem satisfactory. For instance, “Lick it Up” is a slowed-tempo song that seems to lack any great motivation through the base of the song, and is not rescued in any way by Blackmore or Lord by ways of a memorable solo. “Talk About Love” sticks to the same sort of style, probably with more energy than “Lick it Up”, but still without anything particularly interesting happening in the song. Then you have “Ramshackle Man” which is a straight out blues rock song, right down to the nuances of Gillan’s vocals. Now to me it seems like an extraordinarily strange move to throw this song into the middle of the album, for no other reason than it is so completely different from everything else around it. You be forgiven for thinking you’d accidently changed albums if you didn’t look at the tracklisting on the CD. Listen, if you are a massive blues fan you will probably still be surprised when this comes on. Five and a half minutes of completely off the wall misdirected music. I’ve listened to this album a bit over the last coupe of weeks, and I still can’t get my head around why this song is here. As a B-side to a single? OK, I could get that. But here? No, no, no.
On the other hand, “Anya” finds a much better place, and SOUNDS like a Deep Purple song with Lord’s Hammond organ making its presence felt and Blackmore playing off against it nicely. The song moves along freely and lifts the spirit rather than kill it with boredom. “Time to Kill” is enjoyable enough with a bouncy feel and singalong lyrics, but it also feels very stock-standard with a fill in the numbers kind of writing and playing. “A Twist in the Tale” fortunately comes on straight after the abomination of “Ramshackle Man”, and is played at a good clip, and again features the best parts of Blackmore and Lord making the song their own, along with Gillan’s higher soaring vocals to complement it. “Nasty Piece of Work” is a slower tempo’d track but is still mixed with a varied array of Gillan’s vocals and dominated by Lord’s organ and Paice’s beautifully timed drumming skills. “Solitaire” and “One Man’s Meat” are both songs that are fine without being memorable again, that close out the album.
In the long run, Ritchie Blackmore was openly critical with the less than melodic output the band had come to put together, and there is a mood change here again following the very Rainbow-esque “Slaves and Masters” album and this. And it is hard to put a finger on just where this comes from. Sure, the genre changing era of grunge and alt music had arrived and was creating different platforms for artists in regards to their music, and on some songs here it does sound like they are trying to diversify in that kind of direction. But even that seems too simplified a response as to the whole direction of this album. It just SOUNDS like there is a battle going on for the sound of the band, and of the band itself, and it hasn’t made for an exciting release.

I rushed right out and bought this in the first week of its release, which wasn’t a particularly popular move because at the time I was newly married and our disposable income was very close to zero. Still, it was Deep Purple. Their three albums since the 1984 reformation had been brilliant (at least, I thought so), and this was going to be just another notch on the belt. Well, that wasn’t quite the case. The music world had changed, and the individuals in the band don’t appear as though they were committed enough to fight against it.
I listened to it a bit at the time (making sure I got my money’s worth in a way), and look, it was an easy listen on days when that was what I was looking for. And there is no question that many of my favourite bands from the 1980’s had released less than sterling albums in those years around 1992 and 93. Now whether it was because they were running out of ideas, or because the times they were a’changing, or a combination of both, I don’t really know. What I do know is that this album, along with several others from those kid of bands at the time, had a few question marks over it if you wanted to dig deep enough and scratch beyond the surface of “oh yeah, another nice Deep Purple album!” I’ve listened to it plenty in the last few weeks, and when I’m at home in the Metal Cavern, playing it through my stereo with a scotch in hand, I have still enjoyed this just as I did 30 years ago in that one bedroom flat in Kiama.
Is it a memorable album? No, it isn’t. It does have some good songs, but unlike the previous three albums it all feels a bit forced. No doubt part of that comes from having to mould the songs written with the previous vocalist to Gillan’s unique style, but in the long run you just get the feeling that the camaraderie and band work ethic was not the same as it had been before. This was all obvious when halfway through the world tour to promote it, Blackmore quit the band for the second and final time. Joe Satriani was drafted in to complete those tour dates, and then Deep Purple moved to a new era with the recruitment of a new lead guitarist, one whose style and energy revitalised the group and allowed them to continue moving forward into the next century. The Mark II era ended with an album that none of them would have been satisfied with, but still contains enough good songs to make it worthwhile in the Deep Purple discography.

107. Iron Savior / Battering Ram. 2004. 4/5.

I cannot help but continue to be impressed by this band – the concept band, not the concept album.

On this release, Iron Savior continue their progression into power metal's top echelon, continuing to drive their music to greater heights, even becoming heavier. In many ways, they appear to be modelling their progression on the greatest band of all, Gamma Ray. This is no real surprise, given Kai Hansen's involvement in the early albums, and his friendship with band leader, Piet Sielk.

Stand out tracks on the album include Battering Ram, Break The Curse, Stand Against The King, Time Will Tell, Riding Free and H M Powered Man.

Rating : This album continues to grow on me whenever I listen to it. A fan of power metal will love this, those that are not will probably not appreciate it as much. 4/5.

106. Blind Guardian / Battalions Of Fear. 1988. 3/5.

The first long-form release for Blind Guardian, following on from their two EP releases under Lucifer's Heritage.

In the same way as their earlier releases, there are distinct references to Helloween and Iron Maiden throughout this album. Certainly the guitaring is obvious at times, and allows their influences to shine through.
Songs like Majesty, Guardian of The Blind and Battalions Of Fear are my favourites on the album, and in my opinion the stand-outs.

This is a good album, impressive for a first up effort. Good songs, good vocals. It was a sign of what the band became.

Rating : A solid start, before their direction changed slightly later on. 3/5.

105. Lucifer's Heritage / Battalions Of Fear. 1987. 2.5/5.

This was the EP put out by the band that very shortly changed their named from Lucifer's Heritage to the better known Blind Guardian.
Most of the songs on this EP also appear on Blind Guardian's debut album, also entitled Battalions Of Fear (see next review).

Like other efforts within these walls, this is significant as a historical piece. Because most of this became half of the first official release of the band, it is interesting to see the difference in production between the two.

Rating : An interesting beginning. 2.5/5

104. Meat Loaf / Bat Out Of Hell. 1977. 5/5.

Given its enduring legacy, it seems amazing that this album took so long to come together, and that it was knocked back by several record companies prior to being accepted. Jim Steinman is the man behind the album, as the writer of all of the songs, and this album made him as a writer, after which he went on to write for many other prominent artists. Todd Rundgren was the producer of the album, who was not only an artist in his own right but transferred that to production as well, and while he was well known prior to this album, and was in fact hired for his reputation, that reputation garnered greater weight after the release of “Bat out of Hell”. While it was Steinman who came up with all of the arrangements for the songs on the album, it was Rundgren who actually put them together when it came time to record. This came about, so it is said, because Steinman would hum what he wanted, which Rundgren would then take and orchestrate.
This left the artist himself in Meat Loaf, whose actual name was Michael Lee Aday, and as an offshoot, whose daughter is married to Anthrax guitarist Scott Ian, making Scott Ian the most rock person in music with Meat Loaf as his father-in-law. Meat Loaf had met up with Steinman in a touring group, at a time when Steinman was putting together some songs that he wanted to create an album around, based on a musical he had written based on Peter Pan called Neverland. The songs “Bat out of Hell”, “Heaven Can Wait” and a form of “All Revved Up with No Place to Go” all appeared in that musical. Over a period of about two and a half years, they wrote and recorded material to get this up and running, all the while trying to get some interest from a record company to sign them for its release. Amazingly, they lost count of the number of rejections they received, even when they performed the material live to those companies. They eventually signed up to Cleveland International Records, and independent record label, to get the album to come to its fruition.
Upon its completion, there was still little response from the American market. However, videos recorded of the main songs being played by the whole ensemble took off in both Australia and the UK, and the album raced to the top of the charts as a result. And it was the initial singles, such as “You Took the Words Right Out of My Mouth” and “Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad” that helped this enormously.

“Bat out of Hell” is written in the style of a rock opera, much like other powerful album of the age including The Who’s “Tommy”, Pink Floyd’s “The Wall”, Queen’s “A Night at the Opera” and productions such as “Jesus Christ Superstar” and “The Rocky Horror Picture Show”. As a result there is a varying style of song on the album, reflecting just what part of the show that it represents. The very love angst pieces such as “Two out of Three Ain’t Bad” and “Heaven Can Wait” play off the more passionately sung songs of “For Crying Out Loud” and “You Took the Words Right out of My Mouth”. And then there is the faster and heavier songs where the scenes play out before you. “All Revved Up with No Place to Go” mixes motorcycle metaphors and teenage angst again. “Bat out of Hell” itself, in Steinman’s own words from the ‘Classic Albums” episode on this album, came as a result of Steinman's desire to write the "most extreme crash song of all time”. I think he succeeded. And the beautiful mix of musical sing off between characters in classic “Grease” style on “Paradise by the Dashboard Light” is the perfect example of why this works, even without the visual of a stage show.
All this results in an album that works in almost every setting. It isn’t stuck to a genre or anchored to its time as a result. The mix of hard riffing guitars and heavy beat drums with the rifling keyboards, and then back to the piano driven ballad with an orchestral feel about it, makes it a perfect music stage experience, but still also an album in its own right. With just seven tracks throughout, it still manages to have highlights throughout. Meat Loaf is brilliant throughout in both raising the tempo and drive of a song and also delivering the meaningful emotional songs with the same authority. It isn’t easy in delivering a song like “Heaven Can Wait” as well as being able to belt out the lyrics over several stanzas in the multi part epic that is the title track “Bat out of Hell”. And given his experience on the stage and screen by this stage, not least in the aforementioned “Rocky Horror Picture Show”, his performance in “Paradise by the Dashboard Light” is just terrific.

There has been little of my life without this album being a part of it, or so it seems looking back. My father got this album back around the time that it was release, or again so it seems, and mixed amongst the Johnny Cash and Tom T Hall and Kris Kristoffersen that floated through the house when he was in a mood also came this album. Certainly I recall it on longer car trips especially. And in the days where the radio was the main form of music both at home and in the car, it was unusual to have forty odd minutes of the same singer all coming out together. Eventually in my teenage years, when I wanted my own copy of the album, I went to my next door neighbour, and borrowed his vinyl copy of the album to record to cassette tape, and that really sounded so much better! And it was in those teenage years, when I started to listen to bands and buy their albums rather than just stick with the singles on the radio, that I truly began to appreciate this album overall. Because then I began to listen to it all over and over, and take in each song on its merits and how it fitted into the whole. And as I discovered rock musicals and the such and began to enjoy them, that just made this album even better.
There are times when Bat out of Hell almost became a premonition, driving around in my mates car and probably going way too fast, with this booming out of the tape player. And in the long run it is probably a strange album to love, given that it isn’t heavy metal, it isn’t hard rock, it isn’t soft rock... it is a combination of them all over the course of the seven tracks, and that to love one is to love all seven, and not just enjoy one or two of them separately. And I loved it as a kid, I loved it as a pop single pre-teen, I loved it as a hard rock mid-teen, and as a heavy metal mid-teen to the present. No matter what time of my music listening history I was in, this was an album that has always been on the play list. It may not be to everyone’s taste, but it has lasted the test of time. Like a bat out of hell.