Hairy muscle men, clad in leather embedded with razor sharp steel spikes, unsheathe their swords to do battle. No, this isn't a gay leather bar, this is..........METAL NIGHT!!!!
Tonight was early 80's Metal Blade Records night. Early 80's MB was special time for Heavy Metal, where every bargain basement Iron Maiden clones or proto-speed metal bands could seemingly get signed to Metal Blade. Back in the early 90's, these bands were deemed so cheesy and uncool that their albums were frequently found is the 99 cent discount bins. Now you could end up spending $50 on Ebay for a mint condition first press. Tonight, we reviewed the cream of the crop.
We couldn't make up our minds as to which Omen album we should listen to, so we picked two. Omen are the quintessential early power metal band. Their world is inhabited solely by dragons, minotaurs, ghastly beasts, wenches, and the mighty men who put their swords to them. Their music never strays from the Iron Maiden formula, being content to explore their sound within those confines, though a hint of speed metal muscles up the sound. My favorite Omen album is 'The Curse', their most polished and technical album, which contains one of my all time favorite jams, 'Teeth of the Hydra'. J.D. Kimball's gravely wail is the perfect harbinger of doom. Chris is more partial to one of his alltime favorite metal albums 'Battle Cry', their first album. Battle Cry is much more raw and pummeling, a straight forward and raging iron fest. Both albums fucking rock.
Next up, we reviewed Metal Blade perennials Cirith Ungol. We were surprised by their first album, 'Frost and Fire'. Self released in 1980 (we thought they existed solely on Metal Blade), Frost and Fire has the 70's written all over it. Traces of Thin Lizzy, Alice Cooper, and Iggy Pop(!) fit in weirdly with the Judas Priest and Black Sabbath derived riffs. It is all punctuated by Tim Baker's distinctive raspy yelp. Despite the Micheal Moorcock album cover, the lyrics do not explicitly reference sword and sorcery, having more of a streetwise attitude. Chris and I liked this album alot. Their next album, 'King Of The Dead', is more of a straight forward metal album, but is no Maiden clone, possessing one of the most singular sounds of the era. This is more like Black Sabbath and Budgie, prog tinged, bass heavy, and epic, the lyrics describing escapist fantasies and nightmares. Tim Baker's aquired taste vocals hint at the thrash metal and even death metal garglings to come. We like this one alot, too.
I wasn't all that crazy about Fates Warning's debut 'Night on Bröcken'. Though they developed into a pioneering prog metal band, the debut is nothing but a standard issue Maiden clone, vocalist John Arch trying his darnedest to out yelp Bruce Dickinson. Much better was the early Fates Warning line-up reunion on John Arch's solo EP, 2003's 'Twist of Fate'. Two songs, one 12 minutes and the other slightly over 15, they can be forgiven for sounding like Dream Theater, since they pioneered that sound. Chris was more into these albums than I was, since Fates Warning is one of his favorite metal bands. I do respect this band, though, and Awaken The Guardian is fucking classic.
Chris invited Ted Roper over to listen to Attacker's Battle At Helm's Deep. We chilled with Ted and beheld the albums cheezy delights. Again, a pure Maiden clone, featuring a seemingly castrato vocalist. You either like this sort of thing or you don't. I liked it swell.
And yeah, we got so fucked up that we forgot to declare a winner.
Dan Falicki showed up and drank all our damn 7 Crown. So I fashioned his skull into a belt buckle and flew his remains on my majestic wings all the way back to Belmont. HAHAHAHAHA!!!!! METAL NIGHT RULES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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