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KILLERS

In 1980, British band Iron Maiden released their debut album Iron Maiden. The album

was very successful for a debut album, hitting 4 on the UK charts. After a world tour

supporting the likes of Kiss and Judas Priest, the band returned to the studio to record

their second full length release, Killers.

With Killers, Iron Maiden continued their rise in popularity. Though it wasn’t as

successful in the charts, Killers sold four times as much as the self titled album. With

Killers, the band retained their NWOBHM sound, except this time combined it with the

production of legendary produced Martin Birch. The result is a clearer, much more

enjoyable album. Also worth mentioning is Iron Maiden’s new guitarist. Due to musical

differences, the band and Dennis Stratton parted ways and Maiden was left without a

second guitarist. However, not long later, they contacted Dave Murray’s childhood

friend, Adrian Smith, who joined the band right away.

The albums opening track is The Ides of March. At 1:44, it is the shortest song the

band has ever recorded. However, it is a brilliant track in its own right, with two great

solos from newcomer Adrian Smith and Dave Murray. An extra two or three minutes

onto this track would have done it wonders.

Up next is the album’s recognizable track and concert staple, Wrathchild. Starting off 

with a memorable bass intro, Wrathchild features some cool lead parts from Dave and

Adrian, Di Anno's trademark vocal style, as well as angsty lyrics. Clive Burr’s

drumming is top notch and Dave’s solo is satisfactory. Unfortunately, the song is too

repetitive and at 2:54, too short to be considered a classic. The song is great live,

however.

A clean riff starts off the next song, Murders in the Rue Morgue. Nearly 30 seconds

in, distorted guitars take their place a little later, the song bursts into overdrive.

Murders in the Rue Morgue is one of the albums best songs off the album and another

forgotten classic from the Di Anno era. The song has some great harmonies, as well as

catchy choruses. Paul is at his best here, and his memorable vocals make the song

stick out in your mind long after you’ve been listening to it. Clive’s drumming is also

fantastic throughout the song and adds to the song’s fugitive themes. Murders in the

Rue Morgue is one of the album’s best song and goes neck to neck with the title track

for the album’s best song. 

The album’s fourth track, Another Life, starts off with a cool intro from Clive, before

the other instruments start up. Notable about the song is its lyrics, which consists of 3

of the same verses. Songwriter, Steve Harris must have hit a metal block while writing

the lyrics of this song. Despite the rather poor lyrics, the song still has excellent

harmonies from Dave and Adrian. Steve Harris’ frantic bass attack is also very audible,

which is always great to hear. Another Life is an average song, but a listen every once

and awhile will do you no harm.

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Following up Another Life is the album’s second instrumental, Genghis Khan.

Originally written as a filler track, Genghis Khan is one of the album’s finest moments.

Adrian Smith proves that he can replace Dennis Stratton without messing with the

band’s chemistry. Among the highlights of this song is the time change two minutes in.

Each musician effortlessly changes his pace on a dime and it adds to the overall

excitement of the song. The harmonized riffs are superb, and very well pulled off. Agreat all around song, and the third best, after Killers and Murders in the Rue Morgue.

The next song, Innocent Exile, starts off with a catchy bass intro, followed by

distorted guitars from Adrian and Dave. Clive’s drumming stands out here, especially

during the pre-verses. Paul’s vocal lines are satisfactory, but they could have used

some more work. The later part of the song speeds up the pass, and makes for an

exciting finish to the song. Not a classic, but keeps the expectations high, and the

experience enjoyable.

Next up is Killers, the album’s title track. Starting off with an eerie bass line from

Steve, the title track implies a frightening atmosphere that makes one feel as if theywere actually being tailed by a serial killer as the first verse of the song describes.

Killers is up there with Phantom of the Opera, Strange World, and Murders of the Rue

Morgue as some of the best songs from the Di Anno era. Paul delivers some of his best

vocals on this song, and his vocal lines combined with the lyrics are very catchy. Clive

Burr’s drumming is very well done and helps Steve provide a solid rhythm for the

song. It’ s hard to point out a weak moment in the song, as Killers is about as close to

perfect as the album is going to get. Killers is among Iron Maiden’s best songs of all

time and easily top 15.

You can count the number of acoustic Iron Maiden songs on one hand. The seventh

song of the album, Prodigal Son, is one of these songs, though it is not fully acoustic.This song has lighter mood than many of the other songs on this album, but it still

retains the Killers sound that the band has displayed thus far. Prodigal Son features a

beautiful instrumental half way through the song with mellower, yet amazing solos

from the guitarists. The lyrics are somewhat strange and finding a deeper meaning is

difficult, but Paul delivers them very well. Quite the relaxing song, Prodigal Son is a

refreshing change from some of the heavier songs.

After a break from the usual Maiden formula, we have Purgatory, one of the fastest

songs on the album. The song explodes seconds after it begins with all the musicians

racing along. Di Anno joins in, singing as fast as he can, yet still maintaining some sort

of vocal melody. Every second of the song is played in overdrive, and the result is acatchy, top notch song that is very memorable.

Up until the Piece of Mind album, the European release of Iron Maiden albums was

always lacking one track that was found on the North American version. On Killers,

that song wasTwilight Zone. A fun little rocker, but this song is definitely not the

highest point of the album. Nothing in Twilight Zone really sticks out, and the song

seems like a filler track. At 2:31 it is one of the shortest songs on the album, which is

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slightly disappointing, but at the same time is acceptable, because the song doesn’t

really take off. Twilight Zone is the album’s skip-able track.

The last song on the album is Drifter, a fitting end to the album. Drifter was the last

song that vocalist Paul Di Anno sang for Maiden, as he was fired after the Killers World

Tour. Paul does a good job with the vocals, which is the highlight of the song alongwith Adrian Smith’s guitar solo. The lyrics aren’t that special, and judging by later

releases, you wouldn’t think Steve Harris wrote them. The song has a nice groove to it

and is another ‘rocker’ type song ala Twilight Zone. The song ends with Paul shouting

"Yeah, I'm a drifter, drifting on and on and on" Can you say foreshadowing? Drifter

isn’t the best Iron Maiden offering, but is pretty good if you listen to it every once and

awhile.

Killers was the end of the first era of Iron Maiden’s storied career. As mentioned

before, the band parted ways with Paul Di Anno and hired Bruce Dickinson as their new

vocalist, changing the band forever. However, Killers is still an enjoyable album to

listen to, and is home to excellent material such as the title track, Murders in the RueMorgue, Genghis Khan, and Purgatory. A definite recommendation to any fan of 

NWOBHM or traditional metal.

BRITISH STEEL

Predating Metallica's self-titled blockbuster by 11 years, Judas Priest's British Steel was

a similarly pitched landmark boasting many of the same accomplishments. It

streamlined and simplified the progressive intricacies of a band fresh off of 

revolutionizing the entire heavy metal genre; it brought an aggressive, underground

metal subgenre crashing into the mainstream (in Priest's case, the NWOBHM; in

Metallica's, thrash); and it greatly expanded the possibilities for heavy metal's

commercial viability as a whole. Of course, British Steel was nowhere near the sales

 juggernaut that Metallica was, but in catapulting Judas Priest to the status of stadium

headliners, it was the first salvo fired in heavy metal's ultimate takeover of the hard

rock landscape during the 1980s. Packed with strong melodic hooks, British Steel is a

deliberate commercial move, forsaking the complexity of the band's early work in favor

of a robust, AC/DC-flavored groove. It's a convincing transformation, as Priest prove

equally adept at opening up their arrangements to let the rhythms breathe

(something Iron Maiden, for all their virtues, never did master). The album is built

around the classic singles "Breaking the Law" and "Living After Midnight," both big hits

in the U.K., which openly posit Priest as a party band for the first time. But British

Steel is hardly a complete break from the band's past. There are still uptempo slices of 

metallic mayhem bookending the album in "Rapid Fire" and "Steeler," plus effective

moodier pieces in "Metal Gods" (ostensibly about gods literally made of metal, though

you know full well the band wanted a nickname) and the crawling menace of "The

Rage," which features arguably the best Rob Halford vocal on the album. Not

everything on British Steel quite holds up today -- the British hit "United" is a simplistic

(not just simplified) football-chant anthem in the unfortunate tradition of "Take on the

World," while "You Don't Have to Be OId to Be Wise" wallows in the sort of "eff your

parents, man!" sentiments that are currently used to market kids' breakfast cereals.

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These bits of blatant pandering can leave more than a whiff of unease about the band's

commercial calculations, and foreshadow the temporary creative slip on the follow-

up, Point of Entry. Still, on the whole, British Steel is too important an album to have

its historical stature diluted by minor inconsistencies. Rather, it sealed Judas Priest's

status as genre icons, and kick-started heavy metal's glory days of the 1980s. It went

Top Five in the U.K. and became their first Top 40 album in the U.S., going platinum inthe process and paving the way for countless imitators and innovators alike.

BLACK SABBATH

Black Sabbath's debut album is the birth of heavy metal as we now know it.

Compatriots like Blue Cheer,Led Zeppelin, and Deep Purple were already setting new

standards for volume and heaviness in the realms of psychedelia, blues-rock, and prog

rock. Yet of these metal pioneers, Sabbath are the only one whose sound today

remains instantly recognizable as heavy metal, even after decades of evolution in the

genre. Circumstance certainly played some role in the birth of this musical revolution -

- the sonic ugliness reflecting the bleak industrial nightmare of Birmingham;

guitarist Tony Iommi's loss of two fingertips, which required him to play slower and toslacken the strings by tuning his guitar down, thus creating Sabbath's signature style.

These qualities set the band apart, but they weren't wholly why this debut album

transcends its clear roots in blues-rock and psychedelia to become something

more.Sabbath's genius was finding the hidden malevolence in the blues, and then

bludgeoning the listener over the head with it. Take the legendary album-opening title

cut. The standard pentatonic blues scale always added the tritone, or flatted fifth, as

the so-called "blues note"; Sabbath simply extracted it and came up with one of the

simplest yet most definitive heavy metal riffs of all time. Thematically, most of heavy

metal's great lyrical obsessions are not only here, they're all crammed onto side one.

"Black Sabbath," "The Wizard," "Behind the Wall of Sleep," and "N.I.B." evoke visions

of evil, paganism, and the occult as filtered through horror films and the writings of 

J.R.R. Tolkien, H.P. Lovecraft, and Dennis Wheatley. Even if the album ended here, it

would still be essential listening. Unfortunately, much of side two is given over to loose

blues-rock jamming learned through Cream, which plays squarely into the band's

limitations. For all his stylistic innovations and strengths as a composer, Iommi isn't a

hugely accomplished soloist. By the end of the murky, meandering, ten-minute cover

of the Aynsley Dunbar Retaliation's "Warning," you can already hear him recycling

some of the same simple blues licks he used on side one (plus, the word "warn" never

even appears in the song, because Ozzy Osbourne misheard the original lyrics). (The

British release included another cover, a version of Crow's "Evil Woman" that doesn't

quite pack the muscle of the band's originals; the American version substituted

"Wicked World," which is much preferred by fans.) But even if the seams are still

showing on this quickly recorded document, Black Sabbath is nonetheless a

revolutionary debut whose distinctive ideas merely await a bit more focus and

development. Henceforth Black Sabbath would forge ahead with a vision that was

wholly theirs.