#vardis

Tank: Filth Hounds of Hades (1982)

Of all the underrated New Wave of British Heavy Metal albums deserving of a deluxe -- make that hyper-deluxe -- vinyl reissue, Tank's debut long-player, Filth Hounds of Hades, honestly wouldn't have made my top 50!

Just get a load of this: posters, booklets, postcards, there's even a two-track 10-inch I'll save to review another day, this is truly as fancy as it gets.

But the care with which reissue specialists extraordinaire High Roller Records tackled this package illustrates this London power trio's persistent popularity with aging head-bangers -- even an ambivalent one like me who thinks the rest of Tank's discography is basically hot garbage.

Not this first effort, though, which generally achieved Tank's mission of blending heavy metal and punk, and which I praised as follows in in the All-Music Guide after setting the stage for Tank's arrival near the peak of the N.W.O.B.H.M.

The very notion seems preposterous today (too good to be true, more like), but in 1981, underground legends Motörhead -- the band that swore your lawn would die if they moved in next door -- took their landmark No Sleep 'til Hammersmith live LP to No. 1 on the U.K.!

At the same time, N.W.O.B.H.M. ring-leaders like Iron Maiden, Saxon, and Def Leppard were building from strength to strength, closely trailed by a hungry throng of supplementary upstarts, just waiting in the wings to take their best shot at denim-and-leather glory.

One of these was South London's Tank, composed of gravel-throated former Damned bassist Algy Ward and the Brabbs brothers, Pete (guitar) and Mark (drums), who crucially and conveniently shared management with Lemmy and co., who took them out on tour in the fall of '81.

Released in early '82 Filth Hounds was even produced by Motörhead guitarist 'Fast' Eddie Clarke, so paint-peeling heavy rockers like the title cut, "Run Like Hell," and "Shellshock" not surprisingly came at you fast and furious.

But the record also made room for more accessible offerings like the sardonic "Who Needs Love Songs" and provocatively-worded singles in "Blood, Guts & Beer" and (still trying to figure this one out) "(He Fell in Love with A) Stormtrooper."

There's also the less frantic "T.W.D.A.M.O. (That's What Dreams Are Made Of)," which some listeners may liken to Motörhead's "The Chase is Better than the Catch," but don't get excited -- it ain't that good.

But Tank's most successful punk/metal hybrids were the self-explanatory "Struck by Lightning" and the arguably career-best anthem, "Turn Your Head Around," which helped lend Filth Hounds of Hades enduring appeal, all these years later.

Alas, this was unquestionably Tank's finest hour -- and barely an "hour," at that -- as ensuing albums (Power of the Hunter, This Means War, etc.) failed to show enough musical growth, or at least imagination, within their chosen sonic niche.

So I wouldn't hold my breath for a top-tier vinyl reissue of those sub-standard albums, but, hey, you never know ...

More N.W.O.B.H.M.: Angel Witch’s Angel Witch, Aragorn’s “Black Ice,” Bitches Sin’s Predator, Blind Fury’s Out of Reach, Blitzkrieg’s A Time of Changes, Chateaux’s Chained and Desperate, Cloven Hoof’s Cloven Hoof, Dark Star’s Dark Star, Def Leppard’s High ‘n’ Dry, Demon’s Night of the Demon, Diamond Head’s “Lightning to the Nations,” Dragonslayer's Dragonslayer, Ethel the Frog’s Ethel the Frog, Fist’s Turn the Hell On, Gaskin’s End of the World, Girlschool’s Demolition, Grim Reaper’s See You in Hell, Heavy Pettin’s Heavy Pettin, Hellanbach’s Now Hear This, Holocaust’s The Nightcomers ...

"It would be shameful to slaughter such a man and call it justice"

The game has yet to/may never release any Vale characters, so another kitbashed one. Kind of wish I'd given him a bigger shield to emphasise the overburdened motif from his duel, but I did try to capture that he has just slightly too much in the way of ornamentation slowing him down and tangling him up. My headcanon is that Jon Arryn kept requesting more and more ornate details to justify spending longer investigating Gendry, and ended up with a hideously overwrought & unusable set of armour he never had any intention of using.

Love the Egen sigil, which was a real challenge to freehand on the contours of his cloak.

Incidentally, his wiki page which I used for research has "he has at least one young son" as one of the only details about him, just to make it more heartbreaking.

Gaskin: No Way Out (1982)

Like many New Wave of British Heavy Metal bands active between 1980 and ‘82, Scunthorpe’s Gaskin seemed a tad unprepared -- surprised even -- to be granted an opportunity to record a full-length LP, but the trio handled themselves relatively well on ‘81’s End of the World.

Still, when time came to do it all over again, 40 years ago, group namesake and guitarist Paul Gaskin decided to ‘upgrade’ his line-up (completed by drummer Dave Norman and new bassist Marcus ‘Baggy’ Lagzdins) for ‘82’s No Way Out, by delegating lead vocal duties to new frontman Bren Spencer.

You’d think he would have chosen a singer who was a little more capable of carrying a tune than himself, but nooooo ...

Paradoxically, Gaskin attempted to show growth and maturity that neither their talents nor Rondolet’s modest indie label budget could accommodate, and so a few of these songs -- “Dirty Money,” “Free Man,” the overwrought ballad “Say Your Last Word” -- turned out, in a word, ‘dismal.’

The title track and “Just Like a Movie Star” almost fulfill expectations, but not until very late in the spin will you find a trio of truly enjoyable head-bangers in “Ready for Love,” “Come Back to Me,” and, best of the bunch, the barn-storming “High Crime Zone.”

Now for a confession: in my All-Music Guide review -- written some 20 years ago and another 20 years after No Way Out’s release -- I let my N.W.O.B.H.M. bias get the best of me and I praised this album far more than it deserved.

So, consider this blog a partial retraction but keep an open mind about Gaskin, just as you would innumerable N.W.O.B.H.M. also-rans, from Jackal to Tytan to Tysondog -- though you’ll still have no complaints if you value sheer energy and ripping guitar solos, since Paul could really play.

As for Gaskin, though they subsequently hit the road with likeminded outfits like Girlschool, Vardis and Praying Mantis, the group’s career prospects went into a nosedive in fairly short order, when their rhythm section quit, Rondolet shuttered, and no other label saw fit to give them another chance.

By 1983, Gaskin were done, though they inevitably reunited years later for nostalgic festival appearances and recorded new albums in 2000’s Stand or Fall (reviewed here) and ‘12’s Edge of Madness, but only those with too much time on their hands should bother venturing here. 

Blitzkrieg: “Buried Alive” / “Blitzkrieg” (1981)

One of my all-time favorite New Wave of British Heavy Metal singles (and Metallica covers), “Blitzkrieg,” as performed by the band also called Blitzkrieg, started arriving in U.K. stores 40 years ago today through Neat Records ... this is NOT an original pressing.

Though it certainly looks like it, at first glance, thanks to lovingly replicated artwork, courtesy of modern reissue specialists Splattered! Records, who not only matched the original seven-inch’s simple, hand-drawn artwork and xeroxed band photos, but cleverly flipped Neat’s thumbs-up logo to a thumbs-down.

Adorbs!

Now, while you could certainly go to the trouble of tracking down a copy of the original, 1981 pressing for, oh, roughly $200, Splattered!’s 2019 pressing will only set you back about $10, and then you too could enhance your record collection with this small piece of N.W.O.B.H.M. history.

About that ... sometime in 1979, a singer named Brian Ross joined forces with a Leicester group named Split Image, and eventually convinced guitarists Jim Sirotto and Ian Jones, bassist Steve English, and drummer Steve Abbey, to adopt the more “metallic” Blitzkrieg moniker.

Many sparsely-attended pub gigs later, the group had saved enough money to finance a three-track demo that found some sympathetic ears at Neat Records, which promptly featured the song “Inferno” to their Lead Weight compilation, and offered Blitzkrieg a single deal, to boot.

And so, this seven-inch of A-side “Buried Alive” -- a mid-tempo doom groove topped by Ross’ piercing falsettos -- and B-side, “Blitzkrieg” -- a galloping, head-banging reworking of the prog-rock classic “Hocus Pocus,” by yodeling Dutchmen Focus! -- took their rightful place in heavy metal lore.

Yes, I may be exaggerating things a bit ... but the single did receive many positive reviews and Blitzkrieg got as far as recording a second, six-song demo called Blitzed Alive (because it was recorded at a gig supporting French hard rockers Trust), before growing internal friction tore them apart.

Ross would move on to front Newcastle’s Satan, which unleashed a N.W.O.B.H.M. gem of their own in 1983’s Court in the Act, before resurrecting Blitzkrieg with Sirotto and three new henchmen for ‘85’s perfectly respectable,  late-arriving A Time of Changes.

The singer has been pulling double duty with both brands -- I mean, bands -- ever since, but of course nothing compares to the raw, youthful excitement conveyed by this unassuming single ... still an unequivocal thumbs-up!