Archive for the ‘album reviews’ Category
Skullview – Legends of Valor (1997)
A song from this was on one of the many compilation tapes that Kelz sent me over the years. It was the song Blood on 
the Blade from Skullview‘s debut CD. I bought this CD and the followup and have enjoyed them both over the years but there was always something missing and I still can’t put my fingers on it. They vocals were fine, the riffs were fine…these guys were a good traditional American metal band but something always seemed to be lacking. I always thought the drummer was a bit boring and a tad sloppy. I don’t know. But nonetheless, this album is certainly worth putting ears to a few times.
They did play one of the Keep It True fests and I am sure some of the other US metal festivals. I used to correspond with the guitarist quite a bit in the days of the old usenet metal forums. Great dude, fine guitarist. Wonder what he’s up to these days?
I guess I could compare them to Armored Saint and Early Jag Panzer…a little anyway.
You know as I sit here and listen to this album again, I blame it on the drummer. He definitely had some meter problems which translated to the rest of the band.
Quiet Riot – Metal Health (1983)
Let’s just be straight here, I love this album. I have since it was released. 1983. I was 13. It was a tough year for me…I 
guess 83-85 were a little difficult. Not necessarily because of going through the typical teenage bullshit, but there were other things going on that really made those some tough years. But hey, I got through it. I spent a lot of days and nights listening to this album. I used to have this little one speaker GE boombox that I would put under my pillow at night to keep listening to music as I went to sleep and so my parents wouldn’t hear it. Not that they had a problem with QR, they just had a problem with my obsession with music. haha It was a thin cassette player so I only needed to remove my bottom pillow to make it fit and not kink my neck. Usually sometime in the middle of the night the player ended up on the floor and the second pillow was back in its proper place.
I picked this up right after hearing Metal Health on the radio. “huhuhuhuhuh, the song says bang your head.” It was catchy. I never cared for Cum On Feel The Noize. It was goofy…still is. I was never a Slade fan, but I don’t dislike them, just never really got exposed to them beyond the 2 songs that QR did, which are goofy. Beyond the goofiness of COFTN, this album is pretty great. Especially songs like Breathless, Run for Cover, Don’t Wanna Let You Go…the whole damned thing. When I pop in the CD I never skip any tracks, not even COFTN, it’s just part of the flow of the record.
In 1999 I got to see them with this lineup. They did an autograph signing earlier in the day at Mars Music and of course I went. They were all in good spirits except for Frankie Banali who seemed to have his ass on his shoulders a bit that day. I brought a few things to get signed like some odd QR EPs, a few CD covers and a few WASP CD covers. Apparently Frankie didn’t have one of the WASP CDs that I brought and asked if he could have mine. I told him no and he got a little peeved about it. “Well I’m not signing anything else.” “Fine, dude, no biggie,” and I finished out my time with the rest of the band who were gracious. Cavazo gave a head nod towards Frankie and just shook his head at him in disapproval. They had about 200 people show up to meet them which I thought was a decent showing for a concert that was getting no promotion and was at a shitty venue.
I came home after the signing to chill out for a while before the show and realized that I had 2 of the WASP CD/EPs so I brought it to the show. We got to the Riverview Theater and I swear it looked closed. This place was trying to get revitalized and they were bringing some decent bands there but it never seemed to take off for them. For this show only about about 40 people showed up…FORTY PEOPLE. I felt really bad for them. They came out and played like there were 20,000 people there. Kevin never once commented on the size of the crowd. They were awesome. After watching Cavazo play I gained a lot more respect for him as a guitarist. That guy is really friggin’ good.
After the show the band came back out to hang out with everybody. I was talking with Rudy Sarzo about his days with Whitesnake and such Frankie came up to me and said, “Hey, come here a second.” “Sorry I was such a dick earlier. I was having a bad day.” I told him it was no big deal and pulled out the spare copy of the WASP EP that I had and handed it to him. He was shocked and gave me a big sweaty hug. haha. “Until today I didn’t even know that this EP existed.” I ended up talking with him quite a bit for the time they hung out. I told him that his first 2 albums with QR were big influences on me when I was learning how to play drums. All of them were nice and Kevin seeked out every person in the room and thanked them personally for coming out. That wasn’t the asshole Kevin Dubrow that I had read about in the ‘zines, this guy was actually nice.
It was a fun day and night and I finally got to meet a band that I had loved for 16 years. The news of Kevin’s death in 2007 really brought me down. I had read just prior to that that he had gotten himself clean and sober. It was too bad that those demons continued to haunt him and that he wasn’t able to continue down that path to recovery.
RIP Kevin.
Purgatory – Tied To The Trax (1986)
Not sure who I first heard this through and it really doesn’t matter. I do know that they weren’t my discovery within 
my circle of friends but it was one of those albums that everyone seemed to love. It was really too bad that they didn’t do a follow-up to this one. I was happy to finally get a CD copy from Sentinel Steel Records about 15 years ago.
This is 80s speed/thrash metal at its finest. It’s a great album front to back and was only officially released on CD via SPV/Steamhammer forever and a day ago. Bill at Auburn Reocrds has said that he wants to re-release it but to date it hasn’t happened. Auburn Records had a few good bands on it like Shok Paris, Breaker, Purgatory and Black Death. Pity their bands pretty much wavered around in the underground.
But as I was saying, there’s not a bad song on this album. The singer, Jeff Hatrix, ended up in Mushroomhead as J.Man I believe. Shame, the dude had a phenomenal metal voice.
I highly recommend that you download and listen to it…over and over.
Lord – Second Coming (1988)
This is one that I only picked up within the last year or so off of eBay. When I saw that it had Bloodlust’s singer I had to 
check it out. How did I not know about this one before? WTF? But here we are…Lord’s Second Coming CD rereleased (aka bootlegged) on HOT METAL RECORDS. This label put out a bunch of obscure stuff like Hammeron, Satan’s Host, Killen, SA Slayer…but of course all as bootlegs and they sound like they were recorded straight from the vinyl. But I kind of like that on some things. Takes me back to the old days of listening to metal in my bedroom on my POS record player.
This is a good metal find though and oddly enough this is the first CD I ever loaded into my iTunes that it didn’t recognize. I am a bit surprised.
Second Coming starts out a bit odd in that there’s a ballad as the opening track. You do hear a side of Guy Lord’s voice that you don’t hear so much on Bloodlust’s Guilty As Sin LP. It picks up from here on the song Burnin’ but in more of a NWOBHM style. His vocals are clean and the riffs and well crafted IMHO. I’ve probably spun this 20 times since I picked it up last year. Some of the stuff has a 70s hard rock feel ala Pentagram’s more upbeat early stuff. There’s a variation of different hard rock/metal styles on here. I’m not much of a fan of The Doors but they do a pretty cool cover of The End.
So if you liked the vocals on Bloodlust’s Guilty As Sin, I recommend that you download this. It’s worth a few spins for some old metal listening.
Dokken – Up From The Ashes
I remember it like it was yesterday. I was living in Western Branch off of Taylor Rd with my cousin. I don’t remember 
exactly what day it was on but it was Jan/Feb 1991 only weeks before my 21st birthday. I believe it was a Saturday and I was driving home from somewhere listening to Z-Rock and the local affiliate comes on the air to interview Don Dokken and Mikkey Dee about their concert that night at the Boathouse in Norfolk, VA. A former friend from high school and I had tickets and were pretty excited about the show. I had been listening to Up From The Ashes since it came out a few months prior.
So as I am listening to them interview Don and Mikkey, I pull over to a gas station a few miles from my house and try to call the station to see if I could talk to them. I was so damned excited that I kept fat fingering push buttons on the pay phone. After about 3 or 4 tries I got through off air and got to talk to Don and Mikkey. I asked if there was a way to meet Mikkey prior to the show and he told me what time to be at the Boathouse (super early). I told him that I was a huge fan of his from the King Diamond days. He said make sure I don’t have more than one person with me and everything would be cool.
So at this point I am flipping out (of course not on the phone but internally). I get home a few minutes later and told my buddy what the plan was and that he had better be ready when I came by to get him. He was notoriously slow at everything. I told him if he wasn’t ready when I got there that I was leaving his ass behind. Fortunately he was ready when I got there and we headed to Norfolk to the Boathouse.
We’re the first people in the lot along with the staff cars and Dokken’s bus. Some dude came to the door of the bus and said they were coming from the hotel in a few minutes and to wait. So we waited only a short amount of time and a minivan with Don, Mikkey Dee, John Norum and Billy White in it. Mikkey gets out of the van and asks, “Are you Sean?” I acknowledged and we were instantly escorted onto the bus. So Don hands me a band photo which was already signed by Baltes (who was inside the Boathouse already). So Don and the rest of the band sign it along with some other stuff like cassette covers and such (I hadn’t gotten into CDs yet). He stood with us for a few minutes then hightailed it to the back of the bus to take care of stuff. At this point I am freaking out because one of my all time favorite drummers and musical influences and standing next to me. I don’t get start struck easily as I’ve met a lot of musicians over the years but this one was different. This was Mikkey Dee…the guy who played drums on King Diamond’s Abigail.
We hung out for what seemed like an hour but was likely a lot less. Talking with John Norum and Billy White was pretty neat. Unfortunately in my giddy starstruck state I had forgotten that Billy White played on Watchtower’s debut. To this day in my head I still hear my inner voice say, “You’re an idiot.” Kelz reminds me of this regularly and he pointed out after the show, “Dude, how was it to meet Billy from Watchtower?” Ummm…D’oh! I am a Watchtower fanatic as well. What a doofus.
But all in all, I was there to hang out with Mikkey which was the first of 3 times that I got to spend time with him, the other 2 being with Motorhead in 1993 and 2000. Will post about those meetings some other time.
In my conversation with Mikkey, I noticed he was wearing an Abigail backstage pass. It had one of the heavenly aura’s around it. haha. So being the fanboy that I was that night, we talked about drums and about some certain aspects of his playing that I tried to emulate. I asked him if he was going to do a drum solo and he said there would be one. I asked him if he could incorporate the intro to Welcome Home from the Them album. He said, “That’s a good idea, we’ll see.”
So the opening act was on the stage at this point and it was time for us to get off the bus so they could get ready. I can’t overstate how accommodating these guys were. I honestly didn’t even need to see the show after that! But we went in and caught the 2nd half of the set by The Blonz. Wow. They were just awful. One of the worst bands I have ever seen.
So we make our way towards the front of the stage and got on the barricade at stage left which ultimately was in plain view of Mikkey when he was on the kit. Perfect!
So out comes the band and they rip into their set. They were absolutely incredible and it was one of the tightest sets I have ever seen by any band. Watching Mikkey slay the drums and both Norum and White manhandling their guitars with such precision was pretty incredible. Definitely one of the best shows I have ever seen. Don’s vocals were clean and clear and he was an excellent frontman.
So I guess this blog is really about an album review, eh? I’ve seen this one get trashed in many a metal review and I could never understand why. It’s easily Don’s second best album behind Tooth and Nail and pretty much the last album that he actually sounded really good on. Initially the main reason I bought the album was because I had read that Mikkey Dee was drumming on it.
Even with some of the slightly cheesier songs like Mirror Mirror and Stay, it’s an album of which I don’t ever feel the need to skip any of the tracks. Good production as well.
This one gets 10/10.
The Metal Files 
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