740. Various Artists / Metal For Muthas. 1980. 3.5/5

What constitutes what became known as the New Wave of British Heavy Metal, or NWoBHM as the acronym and shortening of the long and clunky description has become, could well be laid at the feet of a man called Neal Kay. In the period between 1975 and 1980, Kay managed a rock club called The Bandwagon Heavy Metal Soundhouse, which was a back-room venue of the Prince of Wales public house in Kingsbury, North London. Kay built this venue up from humble beginnings, promoting bands and utilising playing songs in a music venue dedicated to the more traditionally raucous sound of hard rock and heavy metal, at a time when punk music was in its prime. Offsetting this, Kay was able to get promotion of his club in the major music publications of the time in th UK, “Sounds” and “Melody Maker”, and with their help in promoting the acts and the venue, Kay was able to establish The Bandwagon as the place for new upcoming bands and like-minded fans of the heavy metal genre. Following a two page centre spread in Sounds written by music journalist Geoff Barton, demo tapes started to arrive in their hundreds at his door, looking to play at his venue. This then led to Kay beginning to help arranging and producing demos of new bands, recorded at Spaceward Studios in Cambridge. Amongst these bands were, Saxon, Praying Mantis and Iron Maiden, at the time new unsigned up and coming bands which would become key players of the NWOBHM, a phrase first coined by the then editor of Sounds.
On May 9, 1979 at the Music Machine, a venue that would later metamorphose into the Camden Palace, a gig took place with three bands on the bill. The opening act was a band named Samson, and he headline act was a band named Angel Witch. Sandwiched in the middle was a local up and coming band by the name of Iron Maiden. This was when, by popular belief, the NWOBHM was born.
Kay championed these and other acts and even went on to tour with those bands on full UK tours. The resulting popularity of Iron Maiden's recording, eventually self released as “The Soundhouse Tapes” led to a record contract for them with EMI. Several other NWOBHM bands also gained contracts due to their Soundhouse demos. And t was through all of this that Neal Kay worked with EMI Records compiling many of these demos onto an album that would showcase this new uprising, this new movement. And that compilation album was called “Metal for Muthas”.

Any notable article or long form document looking back at the start of the so called New Wave of British Heavy Metal will often refer to this release, if for no other reason than it was a part of the history of one of the greatest heavy metal bands of all time, Iron Maiden. Given that they were afforded two song positions on this ten track release, it really does state just how far advanced they were as a band compared to most of their fellow bands of the era by this period of time. Just as viable a question is, given the success Iron Maiden attracted following “The Soundhouse Tapes” and then this initial release, what happened to the other bands featured here? Is there any particular reason why they did not go on to huge international careers such that Iron Maiden did. In fact, where did they go from here? It remains an interesting conversation piece when you compare the success of Maiden, and the relative obscurity of every other artist on this album, and indeed of the NWOBHM movement.
You can accept the fact that the two Maiden tracks here are excellent, but it is interesting to hear the earlier versions of "Sanctuary" and "Wrathchild". “Sanctuary” of course was eventually re-recorded and released as the second single by the band, a non-album single (although it did appear on some US versions of the debut album... I’m not counting that...) and “Wrathchild”, although it missed the cut from the debut album did appear on the follow up “Killers”. These earlier versions of these two songs, like the ones that appeared on “The Soundhouse Tapes”, are an interesting historical counterpoint to the versions everyone knows so well.
The self-titled track by Sledgehammer immediately comes across as impressive and fits in well with the album's direction. The band had initially released this as their first single in 1979. The band went on to record their one and only album “Blood on Their Hands” in 1983. This is followed by another faster track, "Fighting for Rock and Roll" by E F Band, an interesting development because the band was actually from Sweden, and had only relocated to England weeks prior to the release of this compilation album. The "E.F." portion of the band's name was derived from the first letter of Par Ericsson and Bengt Fischer's last names. This is another song that you can see why it was put on this compilation at the time, as its basic structure and sound all have the elements necessary to be popular with the era.
But then... let’s talk about a song that really has no place being anywhere near this compilation album. The band is Toad the Wet Sprocket, named after the skit by Monty Python's Flying Circus, and the song is "Blues in A". And it is exactly that, a blues track, and does NOT fit in at all with the album's direction. How in the hell does this artist and track get on an album that publicises itself as promoting heavy metal? That would be the first point, that this is not a metal song. Secondly, it is a very weak and ordinarily average song, and it has no place in this collection when you place it alongside the other songs on the album. They must have slipped Neal Kay a fiver to get amongst this collection. The first side of the album concludes with Praying Mantis, who was seen as a band from this compilation that would be the one to "make it" and were heavily promoted by Kay in this direction. "Captured City" is the song they have here, which is okay, but the vocals are just a bit weedy. However, you can sense greater things in the music than the vocals allow to improve it. They released their debut album “Time Tells No Lies” the following year but found management and record company problems too big a burden to overcome.
Ethel the Frog, another band named after a Monty Python's Flying Circus skit, are showcased here by their song "Fight Back", and possesses what I would call the atypical NWoBHM sound based on fastish guitars and drums, but suffers from not having a hook that would really drag you in and have you searching out the band to hear of the music from the band. Perhaps it also suffers from the following three songs, as Angel Witch's "Baphomet" is probably my favourite from the remainder of the album, and my favourite band here apart from the obvious top dog. Angel Witch suffered a similar fate to most of the bands here, which seems unfortunate when you listen to this song, and then check out their self-titled debut album that landed later that year. This is followed by Iron Maiden’s “Wrathchild”, and then the Samson track, "Tomorrow or Yesterday" is an early taster of their material, a song that had come from their debut album “Survivors” released the previous year. It is fair to say that while it is fine for the environment their music improved dramatically over the next two years with the recruitment of a different lead vocalist who went by the name of Bruce Bruce, a third Monty Python reference on this album. The closing track on the album, "Bootliggers" from a band called Nutz is another unusual one. The band had formed in 1973 and had already released three albums by 1979. The addition of their song here gave them a boost, with which they changed their name to Rage and released three further albums before disbanding for good in 1984, but it again makes you wonder whether a fiver had changed hands to make this song appear on this album.

45 years on, and this is still an interesting look back at what was happening in the metal scene in the UK at the time, in what was perhaps a breeding ground for the genre. The cross section offered here shows almost precisely how the whole NWOBHM movement exploded and then faded with such a bright burning intensity. It offers bands that in 1979 looked on the cusp of great careers, with music from demos that were proving to be extremely popular in one of the biggest metal venues of the UK. And then from those bands, we see the different levels of success each eventually came to achieve. And that covers the gamut of success, from ‘none at all’ to ‘superstardom’. From Iron Maiden at the top, to Praying Mantis and Angel Witch and Samson in the middle, to the remainder in the lower regions.
I chased this album down in the early 2000’s mainly to satisfy an itch I had developed in trying to find music from all of the UK bands of that era, to listen to their best material and research for myself why some bands made it out of that era, and most seemed to struggle onwards for a short while before disbanding and going out to find real jobs. I found this album in the middle of all of that, and discovered that some of the bands were familiar and that others were not. And it also was obvious after just a couple of listens as to whom the star of the pack was, and why they rose so quickly to such popularity. But it the long run there are only two songs here I just didn’t enjoy at all, and that was “Blues in A” and “Bootliggers”. The rest were interesting enough for the way the project was put together, and of course led to many of them getting a record contract and being able to pursue their dream of releasing an album.
Funnily enough, it turns out that more bands made it to the big time after this period, having been inspired by what these bands were producing, than the bands who produced the material in the first place. Sometimes you just can’t pick what the future holds.