The Crooked Wanderer

Sanctuary

Purgatory

The Trooper (you are here)

Bring Your Daughter … To The Slaughter

Virus

Rainmaker

Slayer – Seasons In The Abyss (Album of the Week)

On March 13, 2023March 12, 2023 By bigbadburchIn Album of the Week4 Comments

This week it’s time to head back to 1990 and have a look at an album that propelled Slayer into a new decade.

Slayer – Seasons In The Abyss

Released October 9, 1990 via Def American

My Favorite Tracks – Seasons In The Abyss, Dead Skin Mask, Skeletons Of Society

Slayer had quite a run of it through the late ’80’s, what with essentially redefining thrash metal with Reign In Blood and then pulling up on the throttle and chilling out a bit on South Of Heaven. The change in speed and/or sound did not resonate with everyone but was probably a wise choice, as attempting to do RIB again would have likely proven disastrous.

The band hit the studio with Def American mastermind Rick Rubin to crank out their next album and hit on a bit of gold with a combination of their more mid-tempo fare along with some bursts of energy. Slayer would also mostly pull back their lyrical fare from the demonic and supernatural to more of a look at real-world issues.

Seasons In The Abyss comes in with the standard American Recordings track list of the time at 10 songs (that’s all Rubin and company would pay a group for) and a run time of 42 minutes, which is a virtual eternity in Slayer world.

War Ensemble

The opener sets a quick pace as the band pound through a dark look at war, one of metal’s favorite topics. This is a stark look at the true scope of a battle and it’s supplemented with a very aggressive and re-energized Slayer. We don’t necessarily know what or where this battle is, though the Rhine is mentioned so Germany is a good guess, but it is definitely brutal.

Blood Red

The pace comes down just a hair as the band shred through a condemnation of governments using violence to silence their citizens. This one is quick and dirty and the next song kicks straight off.

Spirit In Black

This time we do revisit the more supernatural with a descent into Hell. Tom Araya is running the show as some poor sap is sent on his way to the eternal torture chamber. The song gives a few call backs to prior Slayer works, such as “blood forever rains” and “Hell awaits.” It’s also clear that the band did not piddle around with finding new guitar tones or anything – they have their sound locked in and banged this out efficiently.

Expendable Youth

A song that discusses gang violence, though of course in Slayer fashion. Gangs were the number one scapegoat of media and politicians around this time and of course the root causes of gang existence were never truly addressed. Slayer are not offering any solutions, though, this is more of an observation of the battle for turf and the cold reality of bodies on the ground.

Dead Skin Mask

This track is a look at infamous murderer and grave robber Ed Gein, the real-life influence for many Hollywood serial killers. Slayer amps up the creepiness factor with a twisted riff as Tom Araya yells through the process of a killer’s mind deteriorating. It would mirror how Gein would claim that he did not remember moments during his murders or grave robbing. This one has been one of Slayer’s marquee tracks through the years.

Hallowed Point

Pretty simple here – the band kicks the speed up a fair bit and discusses the issue of hollow point bullets, which were a hot-button issue in the early 1990’s. The bullets expand on impact and can literally tear apart a person’s insides, as opposed to the more straight shot of a “typical” bullet. The song does not really participate in the debate over the bullet, rather it simply follows the journey from firing to shredding someone apart.

Skeletons Of Society

The tempo on this one goes way down, almost to a doom metal pace. The song marches through the eyes of a survivor of an apparent nuclear holocaust. It’s probably not shocking that Slayer’s version of the post-apocalypse is a grim one. The solos from Kerry King and Jeff Hanneman here, always dissonant, are an extra special touch on this track that’s a bit of a departure from the album’s norms.

Temptation

Back to a thrash pace again and also the topic of satanism and the old classic stuff like possession and being corrupted. While couched in a lot of fanciful and supernatural stuff, the song does make a fairly real-world point about how it’s always evil that is the tempter and the attractive option, at least viewed through the lens of belief in that sort of thing.

Born Of Fire

Slayer breaks it open speed wise here as they get at least within the ballpark of Reign In Blood speed. The song is kind of a stock rundown of more evil imagery as the lyrics were written last minute by Kerry King. While Slayer’s slower pace has worked well through this album, it is nice to hear some straight-ahead bashing for a bit.

Seasons In The Abyss

The album closes with a track that really slows things down and gets into some gnarly sounding tones. A creepy intro runs for a few minutes before the song really kicks in and picks things up a fair bit. The lyrics are a bit more abstract here, they are dealing with the concept of The Abyss as presented by noted occultist Aleister Crowley. I personally have no clue what it’s really about so I’ll leave it alone. A brilliant video was also filmed for the song and was shot in Egypt, adding a huge degree of visual awe to the song.

Seasons In The Abyss would mark another notch in Slayer’s now-lengthened thrash belt. The album would get to number 40 on the Billboard album charts and also break on several other nations’ charts. An eventual US gold certification would come, and the album has sold at least 800,000 copies.

For Slayer it was a boost in reputation after South Of Heaven and its transitional nature left some fans alienated. Now people were used to the newer Slayer sound, and there were still a few all-out thrash moments to be had. It also positioned Slayer quite nicely entering the 1990’s, as their style would fit in with rising “alt-metal” movement while conventional thrash fell by the wayside. These songs, both in studio and live form, would frequent MTV programming, especially Headbanger’s Ball.

Though Slayer would make it through the very tough 1990’s relatively well, it wouldn’t come without some cost – drummer Dave Lombardo, often regarded as the band’s best asset, would quit the group in 1992. But he left after a successful album and tour cycle for a record that reinvigorated long-time fans and brought in many new ones, myself included.

Metallica – For Whom The Bell Tolls

On March 10, 2023March 15, 2024 By bigbadburchIn S-Tier Songs7 Comments

This post was part of a series that I called S-Tier Songs. I later decided to abandon the series in favor of a simpler Song of the Week format. I am keeping these posts as I wrote them but removing the old page that linked to the list of S-Tier Songs, so that is why these posts might look a bit odd. Enjoy.

I always have the next handful of songs for this planned out. I was about to work on one of them when I went back and read through the list of what I did so far. I could have been knocked over with a feather to find that this song was not already on my list. So today it’s time to right that wrong.

Metallica – For Whom The Bell Tolls

The third track from 1984’s seminal thrash record Ride The Lightning was a massive force that captured the attention of the metal world out of the gate. The song was released as a promotional single and has endured as one of Metallica’s best-loved songs through the course of their 40-plus year career.

Ride The Lightning has been the subject of the Album of the Week before, that post is here.

The intro to the song is classic, but it actually begins with something else. Two bells ring, followed by the drop of the riff. If you hear more than two bells, then you are most likely about to enjoy the classic song Hell’s Bells by AC/DC. Or maybe some other song that has bells but isn’t as good as either this or AC/DC. It’s a fun game to play if listening to the radio or whatever and the bell starts ringing to figure out which song is playing.

Once the bell is over with it’s all guns blazing with the guitars and – wait, what is that infernal noise? It’s actually bassist Cliff Burton with his rig plugged into a few effects, doing a part he used to do in old Bay Area bands alongside Jim Martin and Mike Bordin, who would go on to form Faith No More. Cliff’s twisted bass piece fits the guitar part very well and the song trudges on to begin the verses.

The song’s lyrical fare is inspired by Ernest Hemingway’s 1940 novel of the same name as the song. I’ll just get this out of the way – I read the book in high school because of the song and I wasn’t all that into it. But it’s pretty badass when distilled into a song – it’s set in the Spanish Civil War of the 1930’s. In the book, a group of fighters are planning to blow up a bridge to stall an enemy advance when shit hits the fan and people are butchered. In the song, a group of fighters takes a strategic hill but get blown apart by an air raid or artillery strike soon after. Different specifics but same general concept.

For all the song’s epic feel and delivery, it is also a very, very simple song. This takes a few minutes for even a novice guitar player to pick up on, and yet it is the full weight of heavy metal crushing down on someone. It was proof that metal was more than just “play fast and scream” and that songwriting and arrangement were a part of the process. And also proof that Metallica especially would be sharp in that field.

For Whom The Bell Tolls entered Metallica’s setlists and did not leave – according to Setlist.fm, it is the band’s fourth most-played song live. It would appear the song has never left the stage in the band’s many gigs over the years. It would be a clear inclusion on any “greatest hits” of Metallica list and certainly ranks toward the top of many fans’ favorite songs lists. And the single went gold in the US, an impressive feat as the band were not a radio or MTV darling in their early years.

Why is this an S-Tier song?

For Whom The Bell Tolls is one of Metallica’s immortal anthems, a crushing tale of the horrors of war set to a simple yet devastating heavy metal track. Even in all the subsequent world-conquering fame Metallica would enjoy, this song remains one of their most beloved. It was a showcase for Cliff Burton and it proved the band had the writing chops to excel beyond the scope of simply playing fast and loud.

Flight Of Icarus – The Iron Maiden Singles Series

On March 9, 2023July 23, 2023 By bigbadburchIn Iron Maiden Singles Series37 Comments

We’re back into the Iron Maiden singles series. As a note, the list presented below is now the final list for my series run through. Should I get more singles I’ll update sometime down the road but I’ll go with this for now, which is really easy since many of the ones I don’t have are getting pretty expensive.

We are now on to the band’s fourth album Piece Of Mind. With it comes a new drummer – Nicko McBrain, who had been drumming for years and had most recently worked with French outfit Trust. His replacement in Trust would be none other than Clive Burr, the man Nicko was replacing in Maiden. Nicko has held down the drumming for Maiden all the years since. And this line-up change gives us a period of stability up until the end of the 1980’s.

Today’s single is in similar fashion to the past few – really just one version with the same cover and content. I have a 12-inch European pressing. This single did get issued in the US as a 7-inch record but I go after the 12-inch stuff when I can. The cover art shows bat-winged Eddie with a flamethrower, because that’s how the Greek tale that this song is inspired by was told originally.

Flight Of Icarus

The single’s lead track is one that doesn’t go full blast but keeps a steady rhythm through its run. The song tends to soar rather than snap necks and would be indicative of future Iron Maiden music. The showcase of the tune is Bruce Dickinson singing his ass off, especially on a part toward the end that is almost inhuman.

Flight Of Icarus is about the Greek myth of the same name, though Maiden adjusted the story a bit to fit their song better. Icarus flew too close to the Sun and bit the dust, and that was the birth of the adage about flying too close to the Sun.

The song one of Maiden’s more popular tracks, though the band took a long time off of playing it live for a few decades. It left setlists after 1986 and didn’t return until 2018. Steve Harris has always been a bit grumpy about the song so that might explain its extended absence, though I can’t say that for sure.

I’ve Got The Fire

No, you don’t have deja vu (and won’t, that Maiden song was never a single). We are handling an Iron Maiden cover of a Montrose song for the second time and it’s the same song. Maiden did the song live with Paul Di’Anno and this time did a studio version with Bruce singing.

This version is more clear than the rougher live track done very early in the band’s recording career and Bruce is a true highlight handling the vocals of a Montrose song. This is short and sweet and is one of the better cover renditions Maiden have done, though we have a whole heap to go through as this series rolls on. And we’ll visit another Montrose song later down the line.

The Iron Maiden Singles Series

Sanctuary

Purgatory

Flight Of Icarus (you are here)

Bring Your Daughter … To The Slaughter

Virus

Rainmaker

The Number Of The Beast – The Iron Maiden Singles Series

On March 2, 2023July 23, 2023 By bigbadburchIn Iron Maiden Singles Series35 Comments

Back into the Maiden singles and this time it’s the title track to the third album. We get the epic song and a live cut as a B-side.

The cover is again Eddie and the Devil, this time Eddie is holding the Beast’s severed head in hand. While there are other art pieces depicting the pair in later Maiden work, this is the end of the line for the “Eddie versus The Beast” series proper.

While the single had several pressings for different countries and was on both 7- and 12-inch formats, the content remains the same across all versions. Mine is a 12-inch European pressing.

The Number Of The Beast

We again have one of Iron Maiden’s most popular songs to go through. And right off the bat we have a bit of lore and a huge misunderstanding among the metal community – the spoken word intro is NOT delivered by famed actor Vincent Price. The band did want Price to recite the Bible verses, but Price was charging too much money so the Maiden camp passed and got actor Barry Clayton to do it instead.

After the spoken bit, the song proper opens with Bruce Dickinson going in full air raid siren mode. Then the verses roll through into the familiar chorus with the “bad number” 666 and all of that. The song is iconic both in Maiden’s lexicon and in heavy metal in general. I don’t know of a live setlist that doesn’t have this song in it.

The album and single would raise the ire of those engaged in the “Satanic Panic” of the 1980’s, with record burnings and sermons aplenty launched against Maiden. These protests did not have the desired effect, it only put Iron Maiden’s name out there more and helped the single get to number 18 on the UK charts. And the album would be a number one UK hit and gain platinum certification in many countries.

Remember Tomorrow

The B-side is a cut from the debut album, this time performed live with Bruce singing. The song was played in Padua, Italy in October of 1981 and was just three days after Bruce’s first gig with Maiden.

Remember Tomorrow is an interesting tune, a bit of a moody track that picks up later and gets into the signature Maiden riff and rhythm stuff. Hearing Bruce absolutely wail on it, actually dueling the guitar in pitch toward the end, is pretty impressive. This song did get a little bit of stage time in Dickinson’s first run with the group, mostly in the early 90’s before Bruce left, and also featured again in a some 2005 setlists. It’s a really cool live cut here that showcases Bruce very early in his first Maiden tenure.

This single would be the last Iron Maiden release for drummer Clive Burr. Different things have been said about his departure, though I wasn’t there so I don’t know what exactly happened. Burr would go on to drum for a number of other bands before suffering a multiple sclerosis diagnosis in the late 1990’s. Iron Maiden would play a role in fundraising for Burr’s medical needs and Burr’s cause was given a spotlight until his unfortunate death in 2013. Burr’s drumming style had a pretty massive influence on the heavy metal world. Burr’s replacement in Maiden, which we’ll obviously get to next week, would lead to a stable line-up that holds together for the next several singles.

Note – Remember Tomorrow starts at 4:49 in the following video, I use it as it’s from the band’s official channel and won’t get yanked.

The Iron Maiden Singles Series

Sanctuary

Purgatory

The Number Of The Beast (you are here)

Bring Your Daughter … To the Slaughter

Virus

Rainmaker

Nightwish – Ghost Love Score

On February 24, 2023March 15, 2024 By bigbadburchIn S-Tier Songs4 Comments

Today’s pick was not a single from its album but was picked out by fans as a highlight track right away. It has gone on to become one of the band’s most famous songs and its fame has grown, even in the midst of a major singer change in the band.

Nightwish – Ghost Love Score

Today’s song comes from the 2004 album Once. In a neat coincidence, I have previously covered Once as an Album of the Week. And after looking back at that post, it’s no surprise that I spent most of my words talking about this very song.

Ghost Love Score is a long, epic movement clocking in at over 10 minutes. It is not a simply-structured pop song with verse/chorus/repeat, rather it is a symphonic piece arranged in movements. It is in parts both progressive and classical, and bears the accompaniment of the London Philharmonic Orchestra. (That would be part of the album’s €250,000 budget) The song was composed by keyboardist and band leader Tuomos Holopainen, as per usual with Nightwish’s music.

The song is about someone looking back fondly on a past relationship. The pair are no longer together, yet the narrator still keeps a place in their heart for their former lover. This isn’t a story-song with a plot or anything like that, but the song does explore the range of emotions when looking back on lost love.

While the band and accompanying orchestra are in fine form on this run, the most-discussed aspect of this song is the performance of the singer. Original vocalist Tarja Turunen cut the studio version of the song and the live version presented above. Her performance on this song is majestic and otherworldly, though that could describe the vast majority of her singing over the years. Ghost Love Score is an operatic performance, which Turunen excels at. It is not an opera, but certainly the vocals are of that style.

Nightwish’s star was on the rise during the Once album cycle and Tarja Turunen became noted as one of the best singers in the world. Then, in a very unexpected twist, she was dismissed from Nightwish in 2005. In fact, she was fired just after the concert that the live footage above is taken from. While the drama surrounding the move is both long and not entirely clear, Nightwish was now without what many considered its star performer, and the one who made Ghost Love Score such an especially compelling song.

Turunen was replaced with Anette Olzon, a Swedish singer who had previously fronted rock act Alyson Avenue. The two albums Nightwish recorded with Olzon suited her more rock-oriented singing style and were well-received by most fans, while derided by others for not being Tarja’s work. It did stand out when Olzon performed some of the older material, as Olzon and Turunen had very different singing styles. While a lot of the discourse over these differences became toxic among fans, I don’t feel it’s wrong to point to the contrasts objectively while being respectful of Anette.

Olzon did perform Ghost Love Score live. Her renditions were well-executed and she approached the song in her style as opposed to trying to imitate Tarja, something only a select few singers on the planet can do. I wouldn’t pass judgment on Anette’s singing or make nasty remarks about her simply for not being able to mimic one of the best singers on the planet, but I’ll also admit that a song like Ghost Love Score didn’t hit exactly the same way without Tarja.

In 2012 while on a US tour, Nightwish entered another stage of drama and the result was the exit of Anette Olzon. The band already had an emergency replacement lined out – former After Forever singer Floor Jansen, another standout singer who also had been speculated as the pick to replace Tarja in 2007. Jansen stepped in to help finish the tour and then was promoted to the role of full-time singer soon after.

And this is where the story of Ghost Love Song takes another turn and the song truly propels itself into the heights of Internet fame. Nightwish performed at the 2013 edition of the famed Wacken Open Air festival in Germany. The show and some documentary footage were filmed for a release later in the year, packaged as Showtime, Storytime. Nightwish performed Ghost Love Score as part of their set and it was this performance that lit up YouTube and social media. The song became the primary fuel of the emerging “reaction” channel movement and everyone with access to a camera filmed their hot takes of Floor’s performance.

Floor Jansen was honestly the perfect singer for Nightwish – someone able to handle multiple styles yet also sing in the range and scope that Tarja previously offered. Her Wacken performance of Ghost Love Score was a complete home run and the song’s viral reaction would introduce Nightwish to new fans all over the world.

It isn’t a terribly common thing for a new singer to come in and knock an old song out of the park, but in the case of Nightwish and Floor Jansen that’s just what happened. Floor was able to fill Tarja’s shoes and even add her own element to the song, in a case of one of the best singers in the world tackling the work of one of the best singers in the world. Ghost Love Score still lives on today in scores of YouTube reaction videos, even if that format has grown beyond stale at this point. Hard to knock it when it brings a masterpiece such as this to the masses.

Why is this an S-tier song?

Ghost Love Score is a wonderfully composed epic that combines the realms of classical music, heavy metal and even film score in a way that suits many fans of all those areas. And its centerpiece is the performance of the singer, a song that has now featured a few of the world’s best vocal talents that have raised the bar of talent and performance in metal.

Run To The Hills – The Iron Maiden Singles Series

On February 23, 2023July 23, 2023 By bigbadburchIn Iron Maiden Singles Series37 Comments

Today we hit a milestone mark in the Maiden singles series – we are now to the third album The Number Of The Beast and therefore Bruce Dickinson has joined the band as the replacement to Paul Di’Anno. This marks the start of the “golden era” for Maiden and the bulk of their epic releases fall in this time frame.

Run To The Hills features another stunning Derek Riggs cover piece depicting Eddie and The Beast in a fight. The cover was the same across different versions of the single, in fact this single has no differences among versions – everything is just different pressings for various countries. Art and content are the same through all. Mine is a 12-inch paper sleeve version. Also we’re on a run through several singles that are simply A-side and one B-side, it’ll be a little while before something with multiple B-sides pops up again.

Run To The Hills

On the feature side is one of Iron Maiden’s most iconic songs. Run To The Hills is a very popular tune, having been a part of many setlists over the years. I’d wager it’s one of their top 5, if not top 3, most well-known songs.

The song is about the plight of the Native Americans at the hands of the invading European-American forces. Such a song could come off as boneheaded or worse, but Maiden handled the subject matter with suitable degrees of both seriousness and accuracy. The first verse’s lyrics are from the perspective of a Cree native who is lamenting the invasion and slaughter, while the second verse is told from an American cavalryman’s perspective. Note that this verse shift happens before the chorus is delivered. The final verse pulls back into a distant perspective and harshly recounts the brutal nature of the actions against the Cree.

While the subject matter is grave, the song’s iconic chorus is simple and, at least musically, uplifting. For many the cry of “run to the hills, run for your lives” would be one of the first things heard from the lips of the new singer Bruce Dickinson. Iron Maiden was re-armed with a potent young singer, and here was the first taste of what would become heavy metal history. The “Human Air Raid Siren” was just getting started.

Again, this is one of Maiden’s most-played songs live and most recognizable on the airwaves. Some feel maybe it’s been played a bit too much but I personally don’t get enough of hearing it.

Total Eclipse

The B-side is an interesting case, as it was a song intended for the album but cut in favor of Gangland. The band have long expressed regret over the decision. Reissues of The Number Of The Beast have included this song, and last year’s vinyl only reissue actually did replace Gangland with Total Eclipse. While I’m personally fine with the other reissues that have all the songs, I can understand last year’s decision as they had to keep the album to one record to accommodate a (very awesome) double-LP live album press as well.

I’d say I agree that Total Eclipse is a better song than Gangland, but of course that makes this single that much better. The song is a doomsday track, one of many that Maiden would crank out over the decades. It has the sound and feel of the first few albums, but of course with Bruce wailing away on it. I’d say it’s one of the better original non-album cuts the band did.

That does it for this week’s single. Next week it’s on the iconic title track from the iconic album, and another point where we’ll say farewell to a member of the band. And there a few things sifting through the mail system on their way to me to expand the list a bit further, including at least one representation of the Blaze era.

The Iron Maiden Singles Series

Sanctuary

Purgatory

Run To The Hills (you are here)

Bring Your Daughter … To the Slaughter

Virus

Rainmaker

Venom – Welcome To Hell (Album of the Week)

On February 20, 2023October 1, 2023 By bigbadburchIn Album of the Week6 Comments

Two weeks in a row for debut albums – this week it’s a first offering from a band that would cast a wide influence on what would come to be known as extreme metal. While much of early 1980’s England was in the midst of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal scene, one band would take noise, speed and Satan to a different level.

Venom – Welcome To Hell

Released December 1981 via Neat and Combat Records

My Favorite Tracks – In League With Satan, Live Like An Angel, Welcome To Hell

Venom was formed when the three core members eventually came together out of the ashes of other bands. Conrad Lant would handle bass and vocals, Jeff Dunn tackled guitar and Tony Bray sat on the drum throne. The three would choose stage names – Cronos, Mantas and Abaddon, and be more known by those names in the pre-Internet era. Much of this first album was composed of tunes that Cronos and Mantas each had worked up in some stage and brought to their new band’s sessions.

There were two other members of Venom early on, but both Alan Winston and Clive Archer would leave the group before the recording of the album.

Venom would record their early demos at Impulse Studios in the Newcastle area, where Cronos had a job and traded work for Venom’s studio time. They would land a record deal with Neat, a British label who also happened to own Impulse Studio. Venom recorded the album proper in a few days, and Neat released the record after a few more days and not much in the way of mixing and mastering. This raw, unpolished sound was not entirely intentional on the band’s part but would wind up being a key point of influence on the later black metal movement.

Venom would use overt Satanic imagery and lyrical fare as an attention getter, but would also fully commit to the gag in a way that pushed beyond the “quasi-satanism” of Black Sabbath and earlier acts. The band’s interest in Satanism and the occult would play into the Satanic Panic of the 1980’s and even later land the group a coveted spot on the PMRC’s Filthy Fifteen list. (I’ve covered the list in the past here).

Today’s album holds 11 tracks with a running time near 40 minutes. There won’t be much in the way of technical proficiency to discuss, but a lot of ripping through songs about evil and lust and the influence many would bear later on the metal scene.

Sons Of Satan

It’s fair to call this a collision of musical parts being played together at once as opposed to a cohesive song. The lyrics implore the righteous youth to abandon their path and join the satanic Venom legions. And perhaps against the odds, Venom would succeed in their dark recruiting mission.

Welcome To Hell

The title track is a much more put-together affair than the opener, though still swamped in the lo-fi buzz that would come to be a defining point of the band. The lyrics are a crude pounding through the glorification of Hell and the end of the world, with a spoken word portion of Psalm 23 from the Bible thrown in because why not.

Schizoid

While the title implies a mental disorder of some kind, the song is about a serial killer. It’s a pretty good song though it’s hard to ignore the awful drum sound here, certainly a case of something that would have sounded better with more work in the studio.

Mayhem With Mercy

A brief instrumental that isn’t of note itself. The Norwegian black metal band Mayhem would name themselves from this track and then go on to live in infamy in the 1990’s.

Poison

A nice song about a girl who entices the song’s narrator, though the girl is of course evil and all that. The lo-fi production works pretty well here. It is worth mentioning that hair metal act Poison did NOT name themselves after this track.

Live Like An Angel

A very nice song here that would be an early influence on thrash metal. This song would be bundled with In League With Satan for release as a double A-side single. This did illustrate that Venom’s primitive sound was down more to studio limitations than musical effort.

Witching Hour

All hell breaks loose on this, one of the most celebrated tracks from the album. So lo-fi it can almost hurt to listen to, but also a fantastic slab of sick heavy metal. It’s pretty easy to find a cover version of this song on any number of underground metal bands’ albums.

One Thousand Days In Sodom

Bit of a concept piece here, I guess, as Venom explores the sin and decay of the city of Sodom, as told in the Bible. It should be no shock that Venom’s recounting of the story does not align with Christian teachings. A very nice riff here and some pretty well-done songcraft. It is widely reported that the German thrash band Sodom named themselves from this song, though I can’t locate actual confirmation of that tidbit.

Angel Dust

In keeping with the lyrical themes that piss off the “moral majority,” we now have a song about drug use. Angel dust is the common street name for PCP, which is honestly a pretty messed up drug. While the song is clearly glorifying drug use, I don’t recall that the members of Venom were particularly taken with drugs, this is just another character piece.

In League With Satan

We are now at what is largely considered the highlight of the record. In keeping with actually doing everything that other bands were incorrectly accused of, the beginning features a backwards-recorded Satanic message. And the main lyrics of the song have the similar Satanic messages said normally. This is a very nice and evil sounding song that hypnotically marches through its dark message and generates the kind of sound that other metal bands would strive for.

Red Light Fever

The album closes with a savage rip through a song that is not about running red lights in traffic, but rather the seedy red light districts of infamy. While Cronos finds himself a good time gal, he realizes that she’s just doing her job and his moment of glory is just a moment.

Welcome To Hell was the start of a sound and scene that would not light up mainstream sales charts but would spread a wide influence across what would become new strains of heavy metal – not only ignoring the criticisms of theme and imagery, but embracing those themes. Venom’s second album Black Metal would give a name to the most infamous of these subgenres of extreme metal, and Venom’s honestly unintentional lo-fi sound would shape the early recordings of that movement.

Venom would gain notoriety for their sound and antics, but were outpaced by the movements of other metal bands. By the end of the 1980’s thrash metal was king and several versions of extreme metal were entering their prime years. Venom themselves would go through a series of line-up changes and dramas, though they are still active with Cronos being the sole original member and have released 15 studio albums with a variety of line-ups over the years.

Venom and Welcome To Hell are viewed in a positive light in terms of influence and legacy, though in the realm of sound they aren’t particularly noteworthy among critics. Yes, the album does sound like shit. Listening closely today it’s a bit of a slog to get through, though for me personally there are worthy songs under the layers of badly done studio work. But I imagine this was a different thing to hear in the early 80’s when the average listener didn’t have the context to understand recording techniques – this sounded pure evil.

At the end of the day, even if it sounds like a bad attempt at recording, the influence of Welcome To Hell far exceeds any technical limitations. For all of the finger wagging at heavy metal and its supposed immorality, Venom were actually providing that unironically. In the family tree of extreme metal, this is the trunk.

Twilight Zone and Wrathchild – The Iron Maiden Singles Series

On February 16, 2023July 23, 2023 By bigbadburchIn Iron Maiden Singles Series35 Comments

It’s back into the Iron Maiden singles and today it’s time to bid farewell to the Paul Di’Anno era. We’ll do so in style, as we have what constitutes a “double A-side” single, including one of the most iconic songs from the early years.

As with a lot of Iron Maiden artwork, the cover is a great piece that also generated some controversy. A woman is holding the death tarot card while a ghostly visage of Eddie stands behind her. Some dull-witted people took it to mean that Eddie was stalking the woman and about to commit violence against her, while in fact Eddie in this art is dead and is in the room with his still-living lover. The picture on the side is signed to Charlotte from Eddie, so the attack angle was (probably) unwarranted.

There is another possible bit of trivia here, though it might be coincidence – the woman’s name is Charlotte, the famous subject of the song Charlotte The Harlot from the debut album. Charlotte would appear in a handful of other Maiden songs, with her saga apparently ending in a future entry of this singles series. Twilight Zone the song is not part of the Charlotte saga so I don’t know if this woman on the cover is the infamous Charlotte of the other songs, but maybe she is.

There are several pressings for this single in multiple formats but in the end the content is the same, same cover and same songs. Mine is a German pressing, probably easy to spot with the text in German on the back cover. And, in typical Maiden fashion, here is the official YouTube offering with both sides of the single in one convenient video.

Twilight Zone

The first A-side is a short but sweet tune that appeared on Killers … well, sort of. The US and Canada got Twilight Zone and Japan got it as a bonus track (they always do get bonus tracks), but the UK did not get this song on the album, so the single became another collectible.

The song packs a nice punch, it has a groovy riff and pounds along in typical early Maiden fashion, with Paul Di’Anno showcasing his vocal talents in a song that is lyrically wordy for being so short. The subject matter is in line with the cover art, as the narrator is dead and longing for his still-living lover.

And for one other little bit of trivia – Twilight Zone is Iron Maiden’s shortest song with lyrics. It beats out Invaders and Burning Ambition by a few seconds. I found this out in a YouTube comment so my source is totally unofficial, but it sounds right.

Wrathchild

The “other” A-side was an album track for all territories and is most likely the best-known song from the Killers album. This is Maiden firing on all cylinders and pounding through a tale of vengeance – a child was abandoned by his father, the child then grows up and seeks to find and end his deadbeat dad.

Wrathchild has been a staple of Maiden live sets. According to Setlist.fm the song is their 8^th most played live. Even when factoring in a margin of error, I’m sure that’s an accurate figure.

The odd story of Wratchild being considered an A-side is really just a business decision. Steve Harris relayed that the band could not afford to cut a video for Twilight Zone and they already had live footage for Wrathchild filmed, so they deemed Wrathchild a “single” so that they could offer it up with video if needed.

The single did pretty decent as far as singles go, hitting number 31 in both the UK and US, as well as 27 on the French charts. The band were spreading their wings and getting to be a known quantity.

And, as stated in the start, this is the point in the series where we bid Paul Di’Anno farewell. His tenure in Iron Maiden was brief but includes two well-regarded albums. Di’Anno would go on to front a variety of projects over the years before health concerns limited his activities, though he is having another go at a small tour schedule this year. I’ve always enjoyed his Maiden run and the pretty unique sound he had coupled with the band’s then-strange blend of metal and punk.

That does mean we’re getting to the next era of the band and the glory years of Iron Maiden. But hey, that’s for next week.

The Iron Maiden Singles Series

Sanctuary

Purgatory

Twilight Zone/Wrathchild (you are here)

Bring Your Daughter … To The Slaughter

Virus

Rainmaker