The Afterword

Musings on the byways of popular culture

Menu

Navigation

You are here: Home / Nights In / Heads down no nonsense mindless boogie

Heads down no nonsense mindless boogie

by 47 Comments

What does it sound like?:

Well this was an eye opener and no mistake – I remembered Sounds championing the NWOBHM and this never really appealed back then – perhaps time has diminished my antipathy – or perhaps I’m missing my youth
(and the hair that I would, no doubt, have shaken !).

My idea of heaven – decent guitar, bass and drums in tune with each other and a singer who can actually sing reasonably sensible lyrics.
My idea of hell – instruments all playing over each other, very little tune and a singer who screams muffled screaming vocals.

This compilation has, thankfully, an awful lot more of the former than the latter !

I’d actually heard very few of these bands – heard the names of a lot of them but was only really aware of the better known – Saxon, Samson, Girlschool (and the Girlschool track here included is excellent).

I’d previously assumed that I knew what I was getting when I saw the names Satan, Venom, Savage and Demon Pact on an album cover. In some cases I was dished up roughly what I thought I was going to get but, in the majority of cases, I was pleasantly surprised.

No – it isn’t awfully cerebral but, there again, was it ever marketed thus ?
Good “fun” music abounds on this compilation – music to which you can shake your hips (and bang your head if you’re so inclined).

A few notes I made whilst I was listening :

Jaguar sound a bit like Judas Priest and there’s the teensiest bit of prog creeping in.

Rock Goddess – an all female band from Wandsworth (and therefore doubly “unusual” in that the NWOBHM was, in the main, a Northern male phenomenon) make a hell of a good sound.

I liked Mournblade even though it did sound like the vocalist was singing in a bathroom.

Saracen sounded to me like they had a lot of ability and, according to the internet, are still going.

Bitches Sin featured legendary producer Chris Tsangarides who died earlier this year.

Possibly the strangest bit of information I gleaned from the internet was that Chevy were, in a previous incarnation, Cupid’s Inspiration – yes them from “Yesterday has gone”.

There were only a couple here that I really did not like – those being Atomkraft and Dark Star.

I’d certainly consider listening to more of some of these bands – Girl, Axis,Tokyo Blade, Raven, Persian Risk, Witchfynde and Satans Empire being prime examples of good heavy rock’n’roll.

Will these winds of time be so mighty as to lay low the mountains of the earth ? Possibly not but the breeze from Lautrec’s motorcycle may cause a few ears of corn to sway in the breeze.

To end and to quote Vardis “If I were king I’d rock’n’roll”

What does it all *mean*?

Not very much – if you don’t like rock this probably won’t change your mind

Goes well with…

An old copy of “Sounds”

Release Date:

Might suit people who like…

Saxon, Motorhead, Quo

4

Comments

  2. I’m pretty sure Kerrang! reviewed an Atomkraft (it’s German for power station, I believe) album back sometime in about 1982 or 1983 starting with the words “Atomkraft sound like a building site on a Monday morning.” I’m fairly sure I saw them supporting Saxon once (it was 35+ years ago…) and I’d say that was probably a fair assessment. I also saw a NWOBHM darling band called Battleaxe, again supporting Saxon, once, they weren’t much better. (One now wonders whether this was Saxon policy…)
    The NWOBHM did spawn some genuine gems, but a lot of it was pretty average…

  3. I will be very disappointed if this thread does not get to 100 responses.

    As a big jessie progressive rock fan who wore glasses, i was never one for headbanging, idiot dancing, or playing mock keyboards, preferring a gentle toe-tapping with my arms folded. But I was all for TNWOBHM to enrage the hip Police with their indifference to whatever is this week’s in-thing. Motorhead, Girlschool, and Saxon’s better moments wonderfully enraged humourless types who really should have had some perspective. it should be recalled that not until “The Cult” and Nirvana came along and blew indie orthodoxy right open, that the derision, scorn, and contempt for heavy rock fans by the cool cognoscenti was the prejudice you could have without guilt. Laughing at northern headbangers was the norm. Metal has been subject to massive revisionism in the past 20-odd years.

  4. Just as an aside – what is this? A compilation? A book or a movie? An “audiophile vinyl reissue” of a long-forgotten K-tel sampler?

    (….ok ok, I know: judging by other reviews here it’s one of those 3-discs-in-a-cardboard-box comps from Cherry Red…)

  6. Easy to see that Satan and Saxon were early visitors to Mr Benn’s Shopkeeper’s dressing up room with their proper metal names and strong logos.
    Fist and Persian Risk, on the other hand, just couldn’t get themselves out of bed on giving-out-names day and were left to draw their logos themselves..

    • Combining some of the band names on the album would create some great names.

      I would pay to hear Stormtrooper Bitches.

      Heritage Fist on the other hand I would probably avoid.

    • Persian Risk, from that Metal hotbed that is Cardiff, featured Phil Campbell in their line up.
      After they split he joined up with Lemmy in Motorhead and his spanking his plank for them ever since

  7. What is this NWOBHM of which you all speak? Alexa tells me that it is shorthand for silly posturing boys who play air guitar and also play with themselves to an embarrassing extreme but you know Alexa – she sometimes gets it very wrong, why even today she…..

  10. The Big 3 were Iron Maiden, Def Leppard and Saxon.
    Iron Maiden and Def Leppard rarely turn up on NWOBHM comps (licensing is probably too expensive).
    Plus, they both fairly quickly distanced themselves from NWOBHM.
    Saxon on the other hand embraced NWOBHM affectations – motorbikes, spandex, steam trains – and never made it to the “big” big time.
    Many of the bands had one single, or at a push one album in them, others got lost in the independent market, and never crossed over. Or when they did, the moment had passed (I believe that Tygers Of Pan Tang and Diamond Head should’ve been bigger than their footnotes, and Metallica references gives them credit for).

    This could’ve been a fine inclusion:

    Sledgehammer – Sledgehammer:

  13. White Spirit – desperately wanted to be Deep Purple.
    So much so, that when guitarist Janick Gers got the job in Gillan he jumped at it.
    NWOBHM history continues as he is now mainstay third guitarist for Iron Maiden

    Another case of right band, wrong track (in my (unwanted) opinion)
    High Upon High

Leave a Reply