969. Twisted Sister / Under the Blade. 1982. 3.5/5

I was never really sure what all the commotion was about when, after the success of Twisted Sister’s third album Stay Hungry, there was a rush to re-release and go back in time with this, the debut album Under the Blade. Having said that, I had probably not heard this myself at the time, and was much more enamoured with You Can't Stop Rock 'n' Roll and felt it deserved a better audience. Still, in revisiting this album now, some 35 years after its release, there was probably more to it than I thought then.

While the sound is probably dated in this day and age, the basics of the band, and for the most parts of the album the songs themselves, are all in order and still make all of the right moves. The raw energy of songs such as “Tear it Loose”, whose song current flows along like a torrent while mixing in the duelling solos with Dee’s fighting vocals.
The opening track, “What You Don’t Know (Sure Can Hurt You), starts off strangely and stagnantly, before finally getting into gear about halfway through and delivering a much more emphatic ending to the song. I laugh a little bit when Dee sings “We’re the Bad Boys (Of Rock ‘N’ Roll)”, because, well…it doesn’t SOUND bad! It sounds tame given the punk era that has just passed and the thrash metal era that is growing around them in 1982. But, it’s a catchy tune and vocal gathering which of course makes it fun, if not dangerous.
“Run For Your Life” drags its feet a little, slowing the tempo right down to almost nothing before busting out to a more enjoyable style – reminiscent of another song a couple of albums down the track. This jumps straight into “Sin After Sin”, which faithfully reproduces a similar riff progression and vocally melody line, which easily flows into “Shoot ‘Em Down”, another straight up hard rock anthem led by Dee’s vocals, which do seem somewhat strangely a tad in the background of the mix.
“Destroyer” goes back into the box of the slow moving hard riff sludging chant fest, the kind of song that needs to be a good one or else it can induce boredom. For me here it is more the boredom inducing variety. “Under the Blade” and “Tear it Loose” both redeem this, moving along at a gloriously fun pace, with “Teat it Loose” in particular giving the teenager in all of us some fun lyrics to sing along to.
“Day of the Rocker” is the final track on the album, and is one where it feels as though the wrong move was made. Following all of the energy and hard work put into earlier tracks, to decide on this as the song to finish on, a plodding AC/DC inspired soundtrack without the drive and desire of that bands’ music, makes this an unfortunate finale to what is a pretty enjoyable album.

As I probably made clear earlier, better albums were to come after this. As a starting point it is more than worthy of your attention, because it shows what a lot of hard work in cracking the market can produce. The fact that they found their niche in the 1980’s is not surprising and this starting point has all of the characteristics you will recognise.

Rating:   “I’m gonna live my dream, shout and scream!”  3.5/5