format: Mini-LP
year: 1985
country: UK
label: Conquest Records
#: QUEST 5
info: -
style: Heavy Metal, NWOBHM
Side A:
Just feckin' LOOK AT THAT SLEEVE! If there ever was cover art that screamed "COLLECT ME!" it's this one. For us fans and collectors of lost 80's Steel it just won't get any closer to perfection than the sword Excalibur risen from the lake during a lightning storm ...plus also knight!
Obviously there has to be some rather strong reasons why this isn't a more hyped and talked-about release and to cast further suspicions to its name it turns out it wasn't properly rereleased until 2021(!) What gives?
No, it doesn't suck. It's quite alright but it has at least one flaw that I think could be a major reason this mini hasn't topped all those want lists through the decades and that is that the track order is completely ass-backwards. For some unfathomable reason the band decided it was a good idea to open up the album with the 2 generic fillers and end it with their most accomplished track. It's utterly confusing, so let's get into detail:
Both
"I'm Telling You" and "Devil In Disguise" sound like a mid-league US mid-stream HM band with vague NWOBHM influences and for a UK act that's kind of a bad review from me, even if the songs doesn't outright blow chunks or anything. With the title track ending side A things do start to pick up and by "Only Time Can Tell" they've almost completely dropped the spandex and adorned themselves in some proper British sackcloth and ashes, now shaking hands and rubbing shoulders with countrymen like Dark Heart and Demon. You'd think a track called "Come On And Rock" would be a falling back to US FM HM but while certainly the catchiest of the 6 songs it's actually a rather powerful Heavy rocker with a bit of a Scandinavian flavour. And so comes the great "Haunted By The Shadows". Now this is how you'd want to make a first impression! It may not be the speedy Power Metal opener you'd expect from a US release with a similar sleeve but it's fairly epic one with some exquisit riffing and breaks somewhere along the lines of Elixir or Satan. Ass. Backwards.
A possible 2nd reason this EP has been rather ignored is that the band later had the audacity to (shock! horror!) pursue a modicum of commercial success. Joking aside, they were fairly decent on subsequent releases as far as diverse, mainstream HM/HR goes - think
a somewhat lesser Pretty Maids or TNT - but the swords, the lightning and the knights had long faded from their aura by then. Still, I know for a fact you own worse records in your collection you just bought for the artwork so you might just add this one to the list too. At least this time you'll get a few great tunes as a sweet bonus.