And you know? It shows. The production on this album in 1985 is probably a lot better than it would have been had it been recorded back in 1981. But the major problem for this album, and the reformed band, is that by 1985, the New Wave of British Heavy Metal was well and truly over, and the real opportunity for this band to make a name for itself had passed. Metal had changed in those four years, to the point that Def Leppard had gone big with their version of hard rock, and Iron Maiden had gone big from their version of melodic heavy metal... and just about every other band of that era had been left behind or disbanded. To bring this album to the public some four years after they should have meant that it was never going to receive the plaudits or following that it deserved to have from those heady days of 1981. Add to this the problem that the new and improved versions of their songs, while still good versions here on this album, couldn't match the original versions that appeared on Demo Tape and Buried Alive / Blitzkrieg and Blitzed Alive!. In retrospect from the modern day looking back on an era that was just slightly before my time as a music lover and headbanger, I can still get the best out of this, but it is obvious that a trick was missed when the four years passed between the prime time for release and the actual time of release.
Opening with the instrumental "Ragnarok", the album moves swiftly into the core of Blitzkrieg's known repertoire with "Inferno" followed by "Blitzkrieg", two fast paced songs driven by the drums and the vocals of Brian Ross. "Pull the Trigger" is actually a song by the band Satan, with whom Ross had gone to sing for when Blitzkrieg broke up. It hadn't appeared on their album, and Ross decided to play it here. It fits in well and becomes a comfortable part of the album. This is followed by the other previously available song "Armageddon", which goes through about three different time changes throughout the song. At one point it sounds like Ross wants to be Rob Halford and the song wants to be Judas Priest. Similarities end very quickly, but it is still one of their best songs here. "Take a Look Around" drops back into a darker metal song not so reliant on Ross' soaring vocals as the guitaring of Jim Sirroto and Mick Proctor. "Hell to Pay", with dubbed live crowd noise ala Dio's "King of Rock and Roll", ups the tempo again, with the fast paced 2/4 timing and anthemic chorus and great guitar solos making this one of the best songs on the album. "Vikings" is followed by the lengthy "A Time of Changes", one that again seems to crush three different songs into one, such is the changes in the flow of the song. I guess the title does somewhat give that away. The album concludes with "Saviour" in a cacophony of crashing drums of squealing guitars.
Taken on its merits and compensating for the fact that it is from a different era, this is a better than average album from a band that had significant talent at the time. Judging it against other fellow NWoBHM alumni, who also followed the path of recording their debut album sometime after the iron had been even slightly warm, I believe this to be on a par with Holocaust's The Nightcomers, but not quite up to Sweet Savage's Killing Time. All three are excellent albums from band's from the era of NWoBHM. It's just that only one of them was actually recorded during a time that could be considered to be within the confines of that era. Blitzkrieg is still active, and has released further albums, but it wasn't for another ten years after this that their next album was released. Probably a lost opportunity.
Rating: Save us from fate, save us from hate, save ourselves before it's too late. 3.5/5
No comments:
Post a Comment