Retro Reviews - 1985 Edition Part 2!

Yup, another slab of albums from 1985, this time focusing on sophomore releases from bands with two words in their names (I didn't plan that, but that's what happened).  Did these bands succeed in expanding and improving their sound, or did they fall in a slump?  This is the question I asked as I checked out this handful of heavy metal releases, and got some interesting results!

Saint Vitus - Hallow's Victim & The Walking Dead (EP)

This band is one of the classic doom metal bands that helped establish the genre with a sound very reminiscent of 70s Black Sabbath (if their name wasn't a major clue).  I listened to their first album years ago, and found it delightfully Sabbath-y, despite the muddy production.  However, now that I'm working on listening to a bunch of albums for my Top 5 articles, this ended up on the list as something I wanted to follow up on.  Unsurprisingly, it's another chunk of Sabbathy metal riffing and energy, but they mess around with the formula more.

The major thing that's different is that they push into some faster song-writing, with some mixed results.  "White Stallions" is not bad, but the title track is a sloppy attempt at speed metal.  "War Is Our Destiny" shifts its tempo around, starting slow, picking up speed, then shifting back down for the lyrics.  Of course, they retain their Sabbath inspirations on songs like "Mystic Lady," "Just Friends (Empty Love)," and "Prayer for the (M)asses," so the doom hasn't disappeared.  It just seems like they were trying to push their sound in a few different directions to see what their limitations were.  As a consequence, some of the atmosphere is gone, making it hard to just soak into the songs like with their first release.

I saw that Hallow's Victim is often paired with an EP that came out the same year titled The Walking Dead, featuring "White Stallions" again, a song called "Darkness," and the title track, which goes 11 minutes.  "Darkness" goes for more uptempo energy with triplet chugging, but feels a bit sloppy as well.  However, "The Walking Dead" is a plodding doom epic.  It does get a little repetitive, but it's also the song with the strongest sense of atmosphere compared to the rest.

Overall, I think their first album is better, but I can see that this band was trying to blend some new ideas in to see where they could go with their sound.  While I don't think this album and EP are bad, their certainly clunky.  Those looking for more classic doom will find bits and pieces to like, but may not connect with the material as a whole.  

Fates Warning - The Spectre Within

After their first album was a bit of a mess (though some decent US power metal), Fates Warning really come out swinging for their follow-up, establishing a stronger prog metal sound.  This second album is definitely an improvement, retaining what worked before and refining into something that sounds pretty distinct and powerful.

The new level of progressive comes right at the start with "Traveler in Time" with a bunch of mixed meter elements and some pretty curious melodies and harmonies.  The album maintains this proggy attitude throughout, and it feels like a bit of a missing link between early Savatage and Dream Theater's first album, with a heavy dose of Maiden-style riffing and soloing.  Seriously, the guitar work on here is impressive, as Jim Matheos and Victor Arduini really work their fingers off!  All of this would be fine if it weren't for the lyrics.  While John Arch is a great singer, the words feel like they're off by half a measure, not really lining up with the songs' phrasing, so the lyrics sound like rambling as much as singing.  Maybe it's just an attempt to be strange and unique, but the results can feel jarring.  The album ends with the nearly twelve-minute "Epitaph," which is their first attempt at a prog epic, and it's not bad.  I don't think it completely earns its length, as I think some of it is padded just to make it longer, but it was a solid closer.

"The Apparition" and "Kyrie Eleison" were the tracks that stood out the most to me, having some very strong Iron Maiden and Metal Church energy.  Considering the album as a whole, it definitely feels like a band in transition, trying some things to see what works and what doesn't.  However, unlike the Saint Vitus album above, this is clearly a step up for the band.  It's clear that they were settling into their own unique sound with this album, while having some excellent and unique guitar work.

Grave Digger - Witch Hunter

After checking out their latest album, I figured I should dig back into Grave Digger's past.  I listened to their debut years ago, and I thought it wasn't bad, despite being pretty sloppy.  With the follow up, they've definitely tightened up their song-writing and their chops, but once again, they focus on just having a lot of energy to make up for their flaws, and it mostly works.

This is pure 80s German metal, equal parts Accept and Judas Priest, with faster tempos and a harsher attitude, providing mainly by Chris Boltendahl's iconic gritty voice.  The guitar work by Peter Masson is furious and aggressive, and the rest of the band pound out these songs with gusto.  "Witch Hunter" takes a bit to get into with the long intro, but settles into some solid, horror-themed metal, and "Get Away" is a great speedster.  However, some of the other songs tend to have some strange transitions.  "Get Ready for Power" wants to have this anthemic chorus, but the half-tempo approach doesn't match the rest of the song's speed.  "Fight for Freedom" and "Friends of Mine" also have some jarring shifts, going from melodic and slow to thrashy and aggressive on the turn of a dime.  Their cover of Alice Cooper's "School's Out" is quite tame in comparison to the rest of the album.  Of all things, though, I ended up liking the ballad quite a bit.  "Love Is a Game" might seem pretty cliched, but Chris actually croons on it, and he sounds surprisingly good.  I also like that descending riff under the chorus.

Overall, it's a bit of a mixed bag of an album, but most of it falls on the good side, largely because of the energy the band pushes.  This album is an improvement over their debut, and you can tell they're having a lot of fun playing these songs.  Chris gets in some good wails and the solos are often satisfyingly shreddy, making it a bit of a gem that is better for its lack of polish.  Sometimes metal just needs to be metal, and this album shows how that works.

Armored Saint - Delirious Nomad

While I thought their first album was solid, if a bit generic, Armored Saint carried on with a rather quick follow-up, like the other bands in this article.  They ended up getting a producer who worked on Ozzy's first few albums, resulting in an album that has a lot of polish and tight songwriting.  

It really does feel like a blend of what Judas Priest and Ozzy were doing in the early-to-mid 80s, aiming for a more polished heavy metal sound without going full-on glam metal.  John Bush remains a great singer, bringing a lot of swagger to these songs, and there's some solid riffing and soloing.  "Over the Edge" has an interesting bluesy-groove, and "Aftermath" has some curious transitions to different levels of intensity.  Unfortunately, the rest feel very typical for 1985, and I'm surprised that this stuff wasn't put on MTV at the time, as it would have fit right in quite well.   The lyrics do stick to darker subject matter, like revenge, madness, nuclear apocalypse, and isolation, so maybe that kept them out of glam territory at the time.

Honestly, this album feels rather ahead of its time, sounding like some of the later 80s pop metal, like Skid Row, Tesla, and Winger (as there are a few proggy touches).  Like their first, this is by no means a bad album.  Featuring well-written, well-performed songs, you could certainly do a lot worse than many albums that came out at this time.  However, I can't deny that little of it sticks in my mind once I've finished listening to it, making for a bit of a middling release.

Retro Reviews - 1985 Edition!

Well, I have to admit I'm having a pretty slow month.  Hayfever hit pretty hard, and I'm realizing that I have a lot of gaps in my 1985 list, so I'm going to have plenty of retro review articles for this year as I figure out my Top 5 (which might be delayed as a consequence).  I decided to start things off by getting into the neo-prog scene, so here are three reviews of albums that have some interesting takes on what 80s prog rock was doing.

Pendragon - The Jewel

I admit I gave this a shot purely on the notion check out a new band from the neo-prog era.  I saw their name on a list, saw that their debut was in 1985, and gave it a listen to see if it had a chance at being in my Top 5 article.  While they toured with Marillion quite a bit at this time, they definitely sound more like Asia or Drama-era Yes, with some 80s Rush-style AOR here and there.

The album starts with "Higher Circles," which honestly feels like a single, with it's typical structure and bouncy rhythms.  It's not bad, but certainly not indicative of the rest of the album with it's more complex prog rock ideas.  The next track in particular, "The Pleasure of Hope," is just under four minutes long but has some curious energy shifts.  "Leviathan" is where I think the band finally stretches out and finds their strengths, and "Circus" really lets the synths build quite well.  While he would only be on this album, keyboardist Rick Carter gives the band a good, atmospheric wall of sound, and trades solos quite well with Nick Barrett (the guitarist and singer).  Speaking of which, I think Nick sounds a lot like Greg Lake, his unique English accent piercing through the songs.  The album closes with its longest song "The Black Knight," at nearly ten minutes long.  Here, the band leans into more somber, Pink Floyd style, and shows a lot of their unique dynamics and thoughtful melodies.

Going in rather blind, I was pleasantly surprised by what I heard.  While they were (unsurprisingly) very 80s, they don't feel stuck in one style or another, and blend their influences and ideas together well.  "Leviathan" and "Circus" were the two that stood out the most for me, largely because of Peter Gee's melodic bass work making me think of Chris Squire (which is always a good thing in my book).  I'll need to listen to this a few more times to decide how I really feel about it to rank it, but upon first impressions, I found plenty to like!

Marillion - Misplaced Childhood

While their first two albums were interesting works, if a bit messy at times, the band found their stride with this one, not only maturing as song-writers, stretching their ideas into concept albums and tracks that segue into long flowing pieces across the album.  It also ends up being their breakout success, largely through "Kayleigh" becoming a hit single.

Inspired by Fish's life (and an acid trip), the album focuses on lost love and lost innocence, but also in finding it again and being revitalized.  The band carries these ideas well, keeping to their blend of influences, though I do think their Pink Floyd side was much stronger this time around.  While the big hit "Kayleigh" is a standout, the whole album is actually quite good, without really having any low points (and Fish seems to be less whiney this time around).  The short tracks almost serve like intermissions or segues, and each side feels like a long, winding prog epic, with interesting twists and turns, again much like Pink Floyd.

It really feels that everyone in the band is more in sync with each other now, as the rhythms and melodies flow well between high and low dynamics, though for much of the album, the tone stays pretty somber.  It's not until the end that the mood improves and Fish gets rather optimistic about things.  I don't know if it's better than Clutching at Straws (I should relisten to that again), but Misplaced Childhood is a definite improvement for the band.

IQ - The Wake

To round out this article of 80s neo-prog, I decided to listen to IQ's second album.  I checked out their debut album last year and found it interesting, if a bit messy.  However, even in just a year, the band starts to settle into their unique brand of dramatic melancholy.

Once again, the production is a bit dated.  They're trying to get this wall-of-sound style to work, and it mostly does, but it sometimes gets muddy, and vocalist Peter Nicholls often gets buried in all the synths, but I was able to get used to it eventually.  This album gets more atmospheric than the debut, which becomes a staple of the band's sound (at least, from what I've listened to).  Things start pretty spacey with "Outer Limits," as it has a long intro and some interesting rhythmic changes.  I liked "The Magic Roundabout" with it's Yes-like blend of jazz and classical (though I do wonder if that wasn't intentional, considering the title), and "Widow's Peak" goes through some interesting dynamics as well.  The shorter songs were more poppy, but I liked the energy on "The Thousand Days."  While it makes for some decent variety, the tracks all blend well with the style they're building for themselves.

Overall, this is definitely an improvement over Tales from the Lush Attic, mainly because this album feels more whole and consistent.  There are some neat little melodies, and Martin Orford gets plenty of work layering all those synths and organs.  While I can imagine this getting lost in the cracks while Marillion found success, but it very much marks when this band started to codify their iconic sound.