DREAM DEATH - "journey into mystery" LP 87 (New Rennaisance Records)
Whoops! Didn't I just write that NRR pretty much sucked? NRR managed to sign just about every crappy thrash-band in the midwest, the bands, their records and the production on said records being far below average. Well, I still stand by those words, but there must be an exception or 2 to every rule. In this case the exception would be DREAM DEATH (and ofcourse the good taste of licensing the almighty BATHORY in the states! ...and WEHRMACHT ofcourse). I only just recently managed to get my hands on this rekkid. I really wonder why you don't hear DD mentioned more in these retro-Death/Black Metal-hype days, coz they deliver some of the coolest Doom Death Metal I've ever heard from the 80's. They mention doom classics like CANDLEMASS, old ANGEL WITCH and WITCHFINDER GENERAL as influences but more than any other band they remind me of early CELTIC FROST, with healthy doses of TROUBLE and SLAYER at their heaviest. The production is nothing special, but for a NRR album it's excellent! Mean riffing, mean vocals - essential, heavy doom-death!

LIVING DEATH - "back to the weapons" 12" EP 86 (Aaarrgh Records)
I once saw this EP being slagged off by some Danish rag. My God, how thick can people get?! Any L.D. release up to "protected from reality" is a virtual masterpiece and it was really hard to choose which record to review. I finally settled for this 4-song EP, mainly because it has some of their best songs ever + it's one of their most brutal recordings. Their biggest asset was probably vocalist Thorsten "Toto" Bergman. This guy sounds sooo mean & sinister! Udo eat yer metal heart out! LIVING DEATH were The Ultimate Speed Metal Band. Sure, they had some great mid-paced tracks as well, but they played their double bass drums & speed riffing with such soul and enthusiasm we'll probably never here the likes of them again. As a wise man once put it: "Aaaaaarrrrrgh!!!!"

ACID - s/t LP 83 (Giant)
Belgian Metal! What? No cheers? Well, ANGUS and X-CRETA did some really cool platters, but top of the crop of the Belgian 80's metal scene would be ACID. This their 1st effort is one of those albums which just grows and grows with every listening. ACID made very basic heavy/speed Metal and their only claim to originality would be a female vocalist (Kate). They're that kind of band that does nothing out of the ordinary, but you can't come up with one band to compare them with. Maybe it's just those 3 factors, the fem vox, the pioneer, double-bass-drum Speed Metal and the sheer simplicity of the music - the honesty - that makes them so good. 100% pure, stripped-down metal hits like "ghostriders", "five days' hell" & and the "heaven's devils" are all the kind of ingenious "bloody-song-get-outta-my-head-I-can't-fucking-sleep!"-ditties you usually only find one per album. Another great track, "woman at last", is probably the 1st Heavy Metal track dealing with female puberty from a woman's own perspective. Follow up "Maniac" (Megaton '84) is just as great and basically the same in style. The 3rd one, the "Black Car" M-LP and last album "Engine Beast" I've yet to lay my hands on, but maybe YOU can help me out there;-)

HOLOCAUST (UK) - "no man's land" LP 84 (Phoenix)
Those who think they're in the know would probably whine "oh no, not that album! 'The Nightcomers' is soooo much heavier!", but I say fuck 'em. "The Nightcomers" is indeed a classic NWOBHM LP and awsome album - all HOLOCAUST platters are (not counting the godawful HOLOGRAM ones ofcourse) - but I have this special love for this their infamous 2nd album. Why? - It's not as heavy, the production is downright bad and Garry sings worse than ever! However unlikely it may sound, these are all reasons that make this album so special. At times they're like a moody lo-fi pop band mixed with classic NWOBHM ("on the ropes", "by the waterside" etc), other times they sound like a D.I.Y. '77 punk band mixed w/ heavy 70's glam rock ("let's go", "satellite city" etc), all in all it's that rough, lo-fi sound that makes it all work. Garry's juvenile "I-can't-really-sing-worth-shit-but-I-don't-care-so-fuck-you!"-vocals surely do their part in the magic. It's an all-out "love or hate" record - if you hate it, it makes perfect sense, if you love it, not a megabyte of text could ever properly explain why. A VERY special metal album.

ROLLERBALL - "outlast the game" 12" EP 83 (private)
Another EP. "Aren't there enough decent full-length HM albums around for U, DaN?!" Well I guess not...>;-)
Just 3 trax + intro, but what songs! Opener "rollerball" is a great, fast proto-speed track, "do you know allan?" a killer Hard rock song and the closing "escape" a real epic piece of Heavy Metal. The vocals, which in Metal is the most important instrument (yeah, fuck 'em guitars!..), are cool as hell, kinda like Toto on the 1st LIVING DEATH LP. If it weren't for the fact that they hail from Italy I'd take them for an early, more adventurous edititon of the Live Deathsters. According to the "Bible Of Heavy Metal" this was their only release, and for once I wish these indexes weren't so goddamn reliable. It would have been really interresting to hear what they would have accomplished with the full 40-minute format.

SARCOFAGUS - "envoy of death" LP 80 (re-released on CD by Mellotron Records)
Why this band hasn't rendered more interest than contemporary bands like ANGEL WITCH, HOLOCAUST and WITCHFYNDE is totally beyond me. Maybe coz they came out of freezing Finland and not from the UK as their adversaries, maybe they were regarded too heavy and extreme for their time. Still, "e.o.d." came out only one year before VENOM broke. I guess this only shows you the importance of a good agent in whatever genre your in. Stylewise they're kind of in the same league as the first 3 abovementioned NWOBHM-originators, but SARCOFAGUS score on sheer brutality and evilness. I bet my complete CARDIACS-collection that both MERCYFUL FATE and CELTIC FROST have had these Finnish metalheads as major influences! There's some extremely evil riffing going on on this record, the absolute masterpiece being the closing "black contract" - 9 min+ of BRUTAL avant-garde Doom, not unlike some of the stuff found on C.FROST's "into the pandemonium". The second half of the song even ventures into FAUST/AMON DÜÜL II krautrock territory, so you can kinda guess where they got that dark, sinister edge from. The CD also includes older tracks (a single?) sung in Finnish, not quite as heavy, but still really great NWOFHM.

BLACK VIRGIN - s/t LP 85 (Metal Enterprises)
Aaarrgh!!! KILLER band - KILLER album! Found it in a dusty old storage of a long gone vinyl record store. Black & White budget-covers usually comes with really cool bits of vinyl plastic in them, and with an inverted Flying-V guitar in their logo and arty s/m photo on the front this felt like a certified purchase. They should be the only german band on Neat Records but they're neither. The band came out of New York, had a mean looking vatos on bass, cuteish gal on drums and wild-eyed guitarist/vocalist who spewed forth some of the meanest, bad-assed metal vocals this side of Styx. They aparently toured w/ HELLOWEEN on their "Walls of Jericho"-tour and released this their only (?) album exclusively in Germany. 8 heavy, rough, grimey metalhits, no fillers, somewhere in the same neighbourhood as VENOM, CLOVEN HOOF, WARFARE and early RUNNING WILD. The wonderful, primitive production and the abovementioned godly vocals makes this platter a real rough diamond and underground classic. Should you ever come across it, throw yourself on it and don't let go until it's safe at home on the turnable, ready to be enjoyed with a cool pepsi, glass of diet milk or whatever beverage you prefere to spice up your consumation of metal music with. They had a 7" out as well, but if you find it, it's probably just my own copy that got lost. Better give it back and maybe I'll have a nice reward for you, a bunch of KROKUS-records perhaps?

INFERNÄL MÄJESTY - "none shall defy" LP 87 (Banzai Records)
UNHOLYFUCKINMOLY WHAT A MASTERPIECE!! This platter actually whips Reign In Blood (=holy cow of Deathrash)! Better vocals, more sinister production and last but not least much more enhanced songwriting. You'll never find a tighter, more full-fledged Thrash/Death-album from this period. Shit-ugly cover though (some ugly green ape with a "princess daisy"-crown playing peek-a-boo in space), but the music RULES, although the SLAYER-influence is obvious. Ever thought about how you can devide the development of Thrash Metal in pre- and post-Reign In Blood eras? Before everything sounded really mean & German, after everything got monotonous and boring, as if it were the easiest thing in the world to re-create a gem like RIB. HA! The exception from the rule, the only ones who ever really succeded were INFERNÄL MÄJESTY (OK, SINDROME and Chilean PENTAGRAM too, but they never released any albums). SLAYER would sell their souls to sat... to jesus for a song like "night of the living dead" - a masterpiece within the mastepiece, 7 min+ of total riffing orgy, FUCKIN' DIABOLICALLY AWSOME! Like a "post mortem" x 10... Now off you go and ger yer filthy hands on this here platter. It has been re-released in the states on CD but I forgot which label...

BROCAS HELM - "into battle" LP 84 (First Strike)
"Forgotten Metal Masters" is quite an overused label that some people use on average, 2nd-rate 80's bands like RAVEN, MANILLA ROAD, ANVIL, WARLORD etc. Fuck 'em I say, BROCAS HELM are The Forgotten Metal Masters! I found this gem some years ago at the bottom of a dusty recordpile, stuffed away in the corner of some Stockholmian vinyl peddler for something like a dollar. A bargain if I ever made one! Why BH never conquered the world together with bands like IRON MAIDEN and MANOWAR is a mystery to me. Here we have 3 (as far as 80's metal go) brilliant musicians who write geniuous, original, melodic (a la MAIDEN) and powerful (a la MANOWAR) metalpieces. The lyrix deal with such essential subjects as dragons, battlefields and the r'n'r lifestyle and they do practically everything right. The production has got this exquisite, typical 80's lo-fi edge, the vocals are somewhat hoarse and faint, but feels really genuine and is the proverbial icing that makes this metalcake a feast for your ears. They did a second album in '88, "Black Death", another masterpiece that Gargoyle Records have re-released on CD, and a 7" just 1-2 years ago that RIPS, so I suggest you check them out now via their homepage.

SACRILEGE - "within the prophecy" LP 87 (Under One Flag)
Not that underground but possibly the heaviest Thrash album ever made and definitely the most interresting album on UOF. This one's got SOUL! They have this distinct "crusty" sound which probably has alot to do with the fact that SACRILEGE was formed by 3 ex-VARUKERS (classic UK-crustpunk for all you ignorant, one-track-minded metal nutheads) members who got tired of spiking their hair each morning, sacked their vocalist and got a girlie by the name of Tam to give their new metal direction that Extra Special edge. The crust-influences are even more evident on their debut EP "behind the realms of madness", but it's on this their full-lengt debut that their ideas got fully developed. WtP is the album that BOLT THROWER always wanted to do. It's got one of the most spinechilling sounds in metal history, rough and crusty but still tight, buzzing guitars invocating riffings from the netherworld, 100% mean & unclean mid-paced grrrrrrinding. The fact that all 7 tracks sounds pretty much the same is totally uninteresting in this contex and yet another reason to listen to this record over and over again. 3rd wax "Turn Back Trillobite" is OK, cleaner, a bit more varied and doomy, but is let down by Tams vocal attempts. Annoyingly high mixed they are too.

BLACK DEATH - s/t LP 84 (Auburn Records)
One would suspect that it's only an attempt at political correctness of mine to rave about the only (as far as I know) True Metalplatter with all black musicians, but you're WRONG. BLACK DEATH ROCKS!! Vocalist Siki Spacek is a GOD! Why oh why oh why weren't there more black Metal-singers?? Never before or after have I heard someone screaming "yeaahh!!", "C'mon!!", "I don't think you're with me!!" and "Uh!!" (OK, Tom Warrior) with such authority and Soul as this guy. No falsetto-faggotry here, mate! (Well, some high-pitch screams, but that's another story). The music can easily be described as "Killing Machine"-era JUDAS PRIEST played with some early VENOM-dirt under the fingernails. Rough, tough and primitive! Hits like "screams of the iron messiah" and "night of the living death" are frequent visitors on my walkman mixed tapes. They've also released a 7", one of my major wants. Help!

PENTAGRAM - s/t LP 84 (Pentagram Records)
"You can never win, pay for all your sins - LIKE THIS!" YEAH! BANG YÖÜR PHUKKIN HEADS!! The GODS of Doomy Heavy Metal. After only releasing singles since the early 70's, the debut LP finally came out in '85 and it's one Mean, Bad, Naughty & Unpleasant mother. Contemporary mates of the genre like NEMESIS, TROUBLE and SAINT VITUS pale in comparison to PENTAGRAM's authority. Vocalist Bobby Liebling practically oozes of wickedness and malice. Follow up "Day of Reckoning" from '87 is a worthy one and when they reformed in the early 90's to release their surprisingly great 3rd album "Be Forwarned" in '94, Peaceville did the good deed of the century and re-released the 2 1st albums, so there's no excuses for missing out on this superb lot.

EXORCIST - "nightmare theatre" LP 87 (Cobra Records)
This is one HELL ov a sinister album! Black Metal seems like the only proper monicker. The vocals must be some of the baddest ingrained on vinyl plastic from this timeperiod and it sort of reminds me of late Pelle Dead of MORBID / MAYHEM. Musically not really Death Metal, more heavy riffing, Speed and groove, originality that at times musically wander between bands like LIVING DEATH, DEATH SS and SABBAT(UK). I've heard of Black Metal-collectors who've offered and equal of $150 for this records and I'm not surprised. At times they really do sound like a modern Black Metal band who, according to fashion, are half-way into mutating into an 80's Metal band. To further credit the band one should point out the fact that they were on the same label as cult/metalploitation band PILEDRIVER. Stick to the original, kids!

SECOND HELL/SKULL CRUSHER - "metal deadness" split LP 86 (Killer Elite Records)
This, boys & girls, must be one of the rarest proto-Death/EvilThrash records ever released in Europe. What makes it even more special is the fact that it's also damn good. The only time I've ever seen the record was at the time of purchase, at a record fair several years ago. I once met a guy who thought he'd seen it on a mailorder list some time during the 80's, and searching the web only gave one (1) hit: a tapetrader who claimed to have a dub of the album. LP and bands are apparently from Holland, SECOND HELL does a surprisingly sophisticated mix of early POSSESSED and early SLAYER, brutal and a real treat for the fans of old-school Death. SCULL CRUSHER makes just as interesting an impression and mixes old DESTRUCTION with some early M FATE. Another metal party for the few invited! ...but what makes the album really priceless (-;apart from the title;-) is the cover, drawn by Wim Baelus. On the front we have this gorgeous blackmetaller-zombie rising from the grave with a guitar in one fist and the Sign of the Devil in the other. On the back there's the usual info surrounded by a frame made out of hundreds of up-side-down crosses, skulls, spider webs, pentagrams, 666's and other niceties. If anyone out there has any information about this record, the bands or Killer Elite Records (an index?), please get in touch.
HELLOWEEN-completists take note: I heard somewhere that one of the guitarists from said constellation started their career in a band called SECOND HELL. He's not in the line-up on this record, but nothing excludes the fact that it could be a later edition of the same band.

RIPPER - "...and the dead shall rise" LP 86 (Iron Works)
Shortly after the old cult-horror-goth-punk-wave band 45 GRAVE buried themselves, guitarist Rob Graves gathered a group of Metal ghouls and formed the Horror Metal band RIPPER. Musically they sometimes touches on 45G's territory, but RIPPER is really 99% Metal. Still it might have been that 1% horror-wave that made the metal audience turn their back on them. If that's the case, it is indeed a tragedy, coz this is a certified Ace in any Metal-collection. Originality, great variation between heaviness, speed and hooks, not one weak song on the album! 3 great, different vocalist, one of which is female, doing one of the most high-pitched singing I've ever heard. For once you don't get let down by a band where the members are dressed up as vampires, undertakers, ghouls and skeletons. They usually turn out to be some kinda lame rockabilly-crap (THUNDERSTICK anyone?).

PRESS STOP! (or whatever..) JUST FOUND THE ULTIMATE METALPLOITATION REKKID!: KILLER FOX (?) - "orgasm of death" LP (Metal Enterprises)
If there ever was a metal album that brought my mind to a complete halt, this is the one.

HEAVY METAL ARMY - "1" LP 81 (Nexus)
HMA's 1st and only album (gee, I wonder why?..) is the earliest example of Metalploitation I've come across so far. Qualifications? Well, only being Japanese doesn't quite cut it, first U have to form a band with all washed up jazz fusion/progressive rockers, then U need a really cool image. Let's see now... drug romanticising? Nah, that got old years ago. Devilworshipping? Nope, that one's getting old pretty fast too. We got it: Nazism! Hai(l)! This will really scare the living crap out of the "white devils"! Well, like (giggle!)… ehr… "shudder!" (giggle!) Musically it's quite alright melodic Hardrock with some symf-bits and eastern etno-melodies, but as far as image go they're quite a sight. Can't imagine any of the members stayed in the Metal-biz long after this. Fun? Yes. Essential? No.

LORDS OF THE CRIMSON ALLIANCE - s/t LP 86 (Grudge Records)
This is actually one of my fave Power/Epic Metal records. Musically it moves in the same circles as bands like BROCAS HELM and WARLORD, but this record holds more secrets than those visible after the first glance. Fitst of all it's probably the 1st (only?) "true" metal LP with a drum machine, not credited of course. Secondly, there has definitely been some tampering with the vocals. All through the album a second up-pitched (another first?) vocal track has been added, probably to create a kind of King Diamond-sound. It actually sound quite OK, it doesn't spoil the album or anything, but at certain high notes it's a dead-chipmunk giveaway that this is a case of serious metalploitation. I wouldn't be surprised if LOTCA turns out to have been a one-man-job. Anyone seen them live? Metalploitation or not it's a superb Metal album, 8 KILLER metal songs, no fillers. Don't be a tight-assed purist, grab this baby if you find it!

SIMON - "shiva" LP 8? (Metal Enterprises)
Ingo Nowotny of Metal Enterprises (now there's a man I definitely have to meet before I die) didn't only release one of the best indie-Metal records of all time, the self titled BLACK VIRGIN record from 1985, he also had a couple of pure Metalploitation-rec's on his coinsience. Apart from trying to market the Oi/HC punk band FUCKERS as a metalband(!), he also released this record by a guitarrist calling himself SIMON. I giggled all the way through first listening. Why? Cause this guy is really all over the place. The album opens with the beautiful, pompous "shiva", then comes your typical SAXONish hardrocker, then a great Doom track, then it's HR again and then it closes with another great, instrumental pompy piece. B-side opens with a pretty basic guitar instrumental, basic apart from the fact that mr Simon decided to name this song "vagina"! Then he's suddenly speed metal ("shiva's slave"!), then Calypso Metal with congas(!!), then speed metal again and finally some istrumental jazz-rock for even more exotic flavour. An original, innovative metal musician? Ha! Rather an exploited german AOR-geek in white shirt and spandex without a clue. Some really great musical pieces here though...

SVATY VINCENT - s/t LP 90 (Monitor)
This record is so unbelivably fucked. Somebody give mr Vincent a big hug for lightening up numerous parties of mine. History lesson, kids: After the fall of communism in eastern Europe, countries like Czechoslovakia (SV's home base) got flooded with western "junk-culture", including the most upleasantly nasty and evil forms of "pop musik". "Import is troublesome and expensive, let's produce!", the Czesh's thought and behold!: SVATY VINCENT is born! The brainchild of one Vincent Venera (leer...), SV is Satanic non-music, improvisational noise metal blur, plain crap in lack of better words. It's the kind of album you fall on your ass laughing after hearing the first time, but would never even consider listening all the way through. Why should you? One minute and you've basically heard the whole album. Hey! This must be what Black Metal sounds like to mom & dad! It even comes with a lyric sheet - "Satane, Satane, Dabel s vami, Dabel s vami, Psycho, Psycho...", "Napalm, Crucifix, Crucifix, Satansky Mag, Kultovni Svaty Vincent". God I wish I could read Czechoslovakian... One side of this record is recorded live, and the audience actually cheer them. Now that's scary. Should you buy it if you see it? Well, knowing how the metal collector's market works, this one's awful enough to be worth a fortue in a couple of years, so sure, make an investment and do like mr Vincent & co. does: Cash in on the suckers!
Note: Monitor also released the 1st MASTER'S HAMMER album, one of the best Black Metal albums of this decade, so they weren't all about metalploitation.

DELIVERANCE (UK) - "devil's meat" LP 87 (Metalworks)
Although the main reason this album qualify as a Metalploitation album is the sound, I gotta start off by telling U about the cover. I don't usually hang record covers on my wall coz they tend to get skewed, but I made an exception with this one. It's really outrageous, no fancy graphics, not even a band logo, just a photo of a young girl age 7-10 on a white background, wearing a red piece of cloth, an old metal necklace, dead stare, blood trail from the mouth and the title "devil's meat" written in blood on her forehead. As genious as it is simple. And the music? MY GOD! Who are these people?!!? It's like a bunch of ol' geezers heard of "this new hep thang cal' Dev'l Met'l" and tried to do it on their own without even one hint of how to produce a metal record, it's like CELTIC FROST played by inbred rednecks brought up on crap-NWOBHM like RAVEN and DIAMOND HEAD, it's BRILLIANT!!!. Unintentional originality - don't U just love it?

ORIGINAL SIN - "sin will find you out" LP 86 (Grudge Records)
There's nothing in particular that would make U suspect this is a full fledged Metalploitation-record. OK, O.S. is a novelty - they're one of the very few all-girl metal bands (no, VIXEN and ROCK GODDES does NOT count as Metal!) to have released an album. "Great! show 'em, grrrls!" HA! you wish... ORIGINAL SIN turned out to be nothing but a marketing ploy. Aparently Grudge thought a female Speed Metal band would increase the cashflow and hired the kid sister of VIRGIN STEELE-vocalist Whats-his-name to lay down the vox, while the rest of V S recorded the music. There's 4 "womyn" posing on the back cover, but if they ever came close to form or work as a band I don't know. Now, I wouldn't waste any bytes on this album if it wann't for the fact that "Sin..." is a KILLER Speed Metal platter. Full speed ahead, double bass drum, never-slowing-down Speed, not Thrash, and the production, esp. the guitarsound is downright EVIL. They definitely piss all over the lame-assed VIRGIN STEEL. "Conjuration of the watcher" is an undisputed highlight in the genre. The cover of the female torso halfway through undressing would lure U into dissin' it as a glam-record, but don't be fooled, False Metal rarely get's any better than this.