The Metal Files

Now here’s a closet classic!  I first heard the track Dead On Arrival on The Metal Shop in 1988 and I am pretty sure I taped the song, if not the whole show (wish I still had those tapes!).  I let Kelz hear it the next day or so and he hated it.  Doofus.  Of course today he’s all about it, or so he says.  He’s such a liar sometimes.  hahaha.  Kidding.  Ok, not so much.

Anyway, I promptly went to the Music Man and picked up the cassette.  I loved it!  Mainly the dude’s vocals.  He had a cool range.  Good riffs on the album and some smooth drumming.  Unfortunately the drums were severely under-produced much like the drums on Megadeth’s Peace Sells or Sanctuary’s Refuge Denied.  Very muddy.  I loved that tape.  This album was just good classy US metal with some Geoff Tate type vocals but music not as progressive at Queensryche.

Lyrically this album could be better but I can overlook it.  The one track I don’t dig is their version of Secret Agent Man (Secret Asian Man!).  I never liked the original so I didn’t want to hear a cover version of it either.  We jammed on this album a lot.  We always cracked jokes about the song “Backstreet Rebels”; usually make jokes about some chick…”Backstreet Nikki” or whoever.  Silly dumbasses we were, but the lyrics needed to be joked on.  All in all this was a fun album to play drums to.  The double bass work was straightforward enough that my feet could keep up with it.

In 1991 or 1992 I went to Cleveland to see my friend Bronwyn and hit a great string of record stores up there.  One of which had this CD import for $3!  This one store had a ton of metal for cheap on vinyl and CD.  The manager said “I don’t like metal and just want to see this stuff out of here.”  I easily dropped $200 in that place on some cheap metal.  Glad to be of service, sir!

So, I highly recommend this to you as some really good 80s US Metal.  Again, very out of print so I don’t mind uploading it.  I do not recommend their followup album, Vivas Machinas.  It was pretty bad.

Download it here.