VACANT STARES OF UNGUIDED EMOTIONAL DRUNKS, INTRODUCTORY LEVEL BEINGS!

Nice to be back to the grind of both slinging glass on the daily, and informing you buttheads about all the neat little tunes of yesteryear. Over the past few weeks I’ve been going back into my catacomb-ic archive of bands that got lost to the annals of time with my new co-worker, talking about some of the NWOBHM acts that had all the talents of the big acts without either the distribution or following to succeed. There are like a billion of these bands and most of them are honestly about a five out of ten, but every once in a while one of them really caught the essence of lightening and threw it into a guitar, so I’mma show you some of those bad britches today.

JAGUAR – AXE CRAZY

1982 seems like it was just hands-down one of the best years for music in the history of rock and roll, like Black Metal by Venom, or The Cage by Tygers of Pan Tang. All ya needed sometimes was one big single like this one to keep you immortalized forever. Even being covered by the more thrashtastic Axe Battler in 2014, if that doesn’t show a beating the test of time, getting covered twenty five years after the fact. It didn’t have perfect mastering or even much in the way of content, it literally sounds like the amps AND guitars AND microphones AND drums were on FIIIRRREEE.

RAVEN – BREAK THE CHAIN

Shoutout to England for this whole “English language” and making each and every one of the boys in Raven. Along the lines of bands like Accept (who he sang for), Iron Maiden, and Anvil, Raven also built itself out of the rise of amplified distortion and riffs galore. (Why is no one in a rock and roll band with me called Riffs Galore?) Fronted by Udo Longestlastname, he followed the pattern of many frontmen who think the most of themselves, literally becoming a solo act under his own name. Now, I let that go for names like Halford, and Dickenson, but man. . .UDO was a guy. I understand that you need to diversify and keep your side hustle strong, but UDO did a song for the game Mount & Blade: Warband, which if you don’t know about that left-handed attempt, please wallow in that ignorance.

BLOODLUST – CHAINSAW

The overall tone of NWOBHM definitely made it across the pond quickly, landing us with songs like this in 1983. The USA was far more supportive of the growth of heavy bands in their inaugural years, with labels sending off every act they could as far and wide as possible. Some big hair bands ended up being the gold standard in places like Japan, and those bastards even managed to permanently steal people like George Lynch (Lynch Mob), Kiko Loureiro (Angra before Megadeth), BUT this created so many amazing new acts. Bands like EZO, LOUDNESS, and even insane acts like GISM, or GALLHAMMER.

Stay ancient, Dregs!

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