format: 7"
year: 1981
country: Australia
label: Metal For Melbourne
#: [tba]
info: Also released on BULLET RECORDS on 12" with different Cover! Rarity: 2
style: Heavy Metal
Tracks
1) Breakout
2) Lady
1) Tired Of You
2) The Cellar
TAIPAN was a rocking outfit from Down Under who released this stone-cold killer of an EP as a 7” back in 1981. In 1984 it was rereleased as a 12” on the Bullet Records imprint with a new sleeve featuring a distinctive image of a green monster’s face exploding (or something like that), which is the version most people are familiar with. I’ve owned this title since the early 1990s and it’s arguably my favorite Metal EP of all time.
The EP features a slightly echoey production that gives the tracks a very edgy feel; the songs feel like they’re literally about to explode just like the red-eyed creature on the cover. It’s not the best sounding production, but it works well with these songs. ‘Breakout’ starts off with some cannons firing as the guitars start hitting you with an incredible hook. Then the bruising rhythm section comes rumbling in, taking names and kicking ass. The shouted vocals add yet another layer of pure energy to the formula, and if you’re not grabbing your nearest air guitar within the first 30 seconds as you bang yer head to this pounder then you really should check your pulse. ‘Lady’ starts with another killer, ringing guitar line that winds itself up perfectly before exploding into another flat-out screamer. ‘Tired of You’ keeps things firing on all eight. Closer ‘The Cellar’ is a more mid-tempo track, trading velocity for weight as it chugs along relentlessly. Four tracks, four absolute gems that deserve mention with the most energetic releases from the NWOBHM and early 1980s Euro metal scenes such as JAGUAR, CRUCIFIXION, and SWEET SAVAGE.
I have always been surprised that this EP doesn’t get brought up more often when people chat about great early 1980s Metal EPs. The 7”probably had little circulation in 1981, and by the time of the 1984 reissue the NWOBHM was past its prime and folks were trending towards the Slayers, Metallicas, and Motley Crues of the world. Another factor that may keep ‘Breakout’ from getting its due is that the Bullet print run must have been pretty large because it’s never been too hard to track down. That lack of rarity may have caused some people to assume that it’s just another run of the mill release.
There are a few other recordings from 1981, but they don’t really convey the same, raw, wild energy as the EP’s contents. The intro to ‘Stonewithch’, for example, heavily channels MANILLA ROAD’s ‘Far Side of the Sun’. A live recording from 1982 captures the band in fine form, however, as they blaze through three of the songs from the EP plus some other original material and a YARDBIRDS cover.
The band did record another EP, ‘1770’, in 1985 on Cleopatra Records. Sadly it sounds nothing like ‘Breakout’. One glance at the cover, which appears to have been done in Crayola in about 5 minutes (did the company forget that they needed a sleeve to put the record into until the night before the shipping truck was leaving the pressing plant?), tells you something is amiss. The music is terribly schmaltzy mid 1980s radio rock. It sounds like a completely different band, and while I’ve never seen a photo of the group form this era, if they weren’t wearing brightly colored blazers and sporting perms I’ll eat Lemmy’s bass strap. The band was resurrected around 2007 and put out four albums, but they didn’t quite recapture the magic of their original EP.
If you’re a fan of pounding, high-octane true Metal from the early 1980s, you can’t go wrong with ‘Breakout’.
Awesome Australian rarity! With the NWOBHM in full swing overseas the Australians were holding up their end with bands such as Taipan. This debut release will please the ear of Metal purists the world over. Breakout starts out with raw abandon and that classic indie pre thrash era metal sound & the rockers Lady & Tired Of You could almost fit on an LA Guns release. The Cellar lends its ear to borderline Metallica style riffage but when you understand this that this little slab of plastic precedes Kill 'Em All by a year or so you will realize these guys were defiantly onto their game. It's unfortunate that Taipan didn't break out huge from the Aussie scene, in retrospect one would guess they were maybe too ahead of their time for the local music industry big wigs to digest. Either way this piece of metallic history will want to find its place in your collection if you manage to hunt it out of obscurity.