Angel Witch - Angel Witch

 

Provenance: The song 'Angel Witch' by Angel Witch appeared on a heavy metal compilation I was gifted during my teen years. Not long afterwards I bought a second hand copy of the album, Angel Witch.

Review: Angel Witch by Angel Witch kicks off with a track called 'Angel Witch', the chorus of which (witch?) goes "You're an angel witch / You're an angel witch." Suffice to say, you're going to see the words 'angel' and 'witch' crop up fairly regularly in this review.

For the uninitiated, Angel Witch fall squarely into the New Wave of British Heavy Metal, who can count as their London-based contemporaries Iron Maiden and Praying Mantis. One of the bands to haunt the Soundhouse in its heyday, Angel Witch released their debut album (this one 'ere) in 1980 and then took their sweet time following up with 1985's Screamin' and Bleedin', by which time the NWOBHM had, bar its big beasts, largely run out of puff. 

Was it this gap between releases that meant Angel Witch were never destined for the big leagues? Within that same span, Saxon managed six albums, Iron Maiden five, and even the largely ponderous Def Leppard managed three. Meanwhile, three-piece Angel Witch managed to sack their drummer, split up, re-form with an entirely different lineup (excepting main man Kevin Heybourne), split up again, re-form with the sacked drummer, finally record the tricky second album - oh, and sack the drummer again. In a scene reasonably infamous for the shifting sands of band membership, Angel Witch seemingly took it upon themselves to show their competitors how to truly meltdown.

A shame, because Angel Witch is a classic of NWOBHM. Never mind that it sounds like it was recorded in the back of a meat truck - never an impediment in the genre - the songs and performances shine through. Or, should I say, Kevin Heybourne's talents shine through; which is no disserve to Kevin Riddles (bass) and P45 addict Dave Hogg (drums), but this album is all about guitar and vocals, which are Heybourne's department. 

There are a few bands who can lay claim to foundations of thrash metal - Judas Priest, Motorhead and Venom all fed into the sound - but I have rarely heard its precedent articulated so clearly as it is on tracks like 'Angel Witch' (yes, that phrase again), 'Atlantis', 'Sweet Danger' and the outro section of 'Sorcerers' (which sounds a bit like speeding up a cool Uriah Heep track). All of these examples push tempos into the red and are underscored with imaginative lead playing, that frequently breaks off into hot-fingered fret-worrying solos.

Interestingly, you can see the joins - inasmuch as, considering how forward-looking Angel Witch is, the voice of its ancestors ring through loud and clear. I mention Uriah Heep - well, 'Gorgon' (on my version of the album, misprinted as 'Gordon') is essentially the midpoint between 'Easy Livin'' and, say, one of the heavier numbers off Thin Lizzy's Jailbreak. Elsewhere, its possible to make out Rainbow, the Judas Priest of 'Exciter' and 'Hell Bent for Leather' and the Scorpions (the intro to 'Free Man', especially). It's all good though, Angel Witch borrow from the best and synthesize their influences with their own trademark sound. This is, namely, Heybourne's haunted yelp and the superior guitar playing he brings to the party. I don't think there was a better musician in the NWOBHM mix than Heybourne.

Nothing strikes fear into the heart like 'Gordon'

Were Angel Witch able to avoid the tumult that occasioned their frequent implosions, they could have been contenders. Angel Witch is now seen as a classic NWOBHM release, and with its combination of skill, melody and aggression it's not hard to see why. The only oddity is the rather beery, terrace-chant backing vocal on the title track - it almost sounds like, for a brief moment, Cock Sparrer or Sham 69 had gatecrashed the studio. It breaks the spell for a moment, removing you from the atmosphere of darkness and occult mystery that Heybourne so adroitly infuses the rest of the album with. Three years later, Mercyful Fate would release an album - Melissa - which is very similar to Angel Witch, but at no point does it take the listener to the Shed End on a Saturday afternoon.

Maybe I'm reaching, but perhaps here was the seed of discord - the esoteric Heybourne versus his more prosaic bandmates? Nonetheless, an excellent collection of distinctive metal that has weathered the test of time. Now, time to give that 'Gordon' another listen...

Melissa - Mercyful Fate

 

Provenance: This one's easy - as a consequence of hearing the Mercyful Fate medley from Metallica's Garage Inc. album, I really had no choice but to get this bad boy by Denmark's finest.

Review: This whips ass.

Genuinely, I could leave it there and consider it a suitable review. Why expend a bunch of bytes and bloviation on Melissa when anybody with one working lughole could tell you that this smokes?

The album cover is cool; King Diamond (lead screamer) looks like some unholy mashup of Ace Frehley, Rob Halford and Dave Vanian; and a simple rundown of the track listing should give one a flavour as to how motherfucking incredible this platter is going to be: 'Evil', 'Curse of the Pharaohs', 'Into The Coven', 'At The Sound of the Demon Bell'...it goes on, but I could just halt here and let those marinade in your brainbox for a while.

I often have the albums on loud when I'm reviewing them. This one, however, was cranked to distinctly un-neighbourly volumes, and I'm banking on either being taken down by an armed response unit or being worshipped by the locals as the true spawn of Wotan. 

Perhaps you might appreciate some context around this sulphurous little beauty; this is Mercyful Fate's debut album, released in 1983 just around the time that the New Wave of British Heavy Metal was losing momentum. However, this makes Melissa contemporaneous with some important Euro-metal developments, not least of all the release of  German outfit Accept's Balls To The Wall. I highlight this album in particular because Accept shared with Mercyful Fate a sensibility that includes classical influences. This represents something of a break from most NWOBHM bands, who still looked towards the pentatonic-based hard rock of the 1970s for musical cues.

Which isn't to say that Melissa doesn't sound like a NWOBHM release - it absolutely does for the most part. However, unlike the Roundhouse mob, who flirted with demonic imagery without ever really going the whole hog, the Mercyful Fate of Melissa definitively choose the left-hand path, and in doing so would influence bands like Morbid Angel and one of my faves, Death. They're probably just pipped to the post of black metal pioneers by Venom, but as a listening experience Venom suck whilst this slaps, so let's call Mercyful Fate the first good black metal band.

Why? Because they're songs are full of Tonka-truck sized riffs, banshee screams and some inventive soloing from guitarist Hank Sherman. Really, King's vocals cannot be emphasised enough - his mid-range is characterful (and not unlike fellow Scandinavian Tobias Forge of Ghost, tonally speaking) but it's the Halford-esque falsetto that powers these tracks to new heights. There are great King Diamond moments all over the shop, but probably the bit that tickles me most is on 'Black Funeral' where he first sings "Oh, hail Satan" in his chest voice, and then replies to himself with "YES, HAIL SATAN!" in his ghoul-shriek. Stryper never did anything half this fun, and that's why Lucifer, Son of the Morning, is winning the rock 'n' roll stakes.

As mentioned before, the riffage is supreme and each song has about a million great examples. My favourites are probably those that underpin the chorus to 'Into The Coven' (one of the wretched PMRC's so-called 'Filthy Fifteen' songs) and the bit in 'Satan's Fall' where King spits "Bringing the blood of a newborn child!", plus virtually every moment in 'Curse of the Pharaohs' (sample lyric: "Don't touch, never ever steal / Unless, you're in for the kill"), a song that should be the Danish national anthem. (NB: having said that, Denmark's national anthem does have some pretty heavy metal lyrics; don't let "There is a lovely country" fool you, the rest of it rips.)

All this winds up with the strange, chilling tale of the title character, Melissa, who we are told is a witch and it is heavily implied that she's been executed for her eldritch practices. But is she truly gone...? Great business, all told. I can't get enough of this. As it so happens, King Diamond used to own a human skull he named Melissa; par for the course, one could surmise, for guy who also has a microphone stand made from human leg bones. Plus, after leaving Mercyful Fate he did a bonkers track about his "grandmaaaaaa!". Essential heavy metal.

 

Danzig - Danzig

Provenance: For many a year, Glenn Danzig seemed an enigmatic figure, someone who lurked around the periphery of the stuff I enjoyed without ever taking centre stage. Through friends I was dimly aware that his work was worth considering; he cropped up as an influencer in magazine articles; and of course, he was once knocked out cold by the frontman of a support act, which handily for us was caught on video.

This all changed in 2010 when I saw him at Sweden Rock Festival, a performance seared into my memory. Firstly, it should be said that the erstwhile Misfit is a strange looking fellow. Squat, lantern-jawed, top-heavy and bordered by lank, black hair, his general mien is that of a gone-to-seed gothic prop-forward. His arrival on stage was comical - a middle-aged whirling mass of kung-fu kicks and karate chops, performed with such gusto that he was winded throughout the first two songs. Thereafter he recovered his composure and delivered a blistering set.

That being said, the first chord that heralded 'Mother' sent the crowd into a frenzy, to which Danzig responded by reprising his energetic Chuck Norris routine, and thus relegating the vocals to a Vic Reeves 'club singer' rendition. Gloriously funny.

Review: How did Danzig manage to mangle his vocals even further than one night in Norje? Because one of the most striking aspects of this album is that wobbly baritenor of his, like a pissed-up Thursday night Elvis impersonator, utterly unique and instantly identifiable. It really shouldn't work but somehow - somehow - it sounds totally cool.

Another aspect of the sound readily apparent to the attentive listener is the no-frills, unadorned production. Consequently, drums sound like drums, guitars sound like guitars, Danzig sounds like someone who's kicked in the mouth a few times. This is undoubtedly due to Rick Rubin's unfussy recording techniques. The odd instrument is double-tracked here and there and one can discern a slight delay on the snare, but overall Danzig is mercifully free of bells and whistles (opener 'Twist of Cain' aside, which literally does feature a bell).

Looking at both the album artwork and Glenn Danzig himself, I was expecting a skull-crushingly heavy outing bursting with detuned guitar and thrashy drums. Instead, what we're presented with here is a kind of skeletal, melodic hard rock shot through with an anthracite blackness. Lyrically, it's every bit as bad-ass as can be imagined, Satan and his sulphurous crew liberally invoked. It's also catchy as hell, especially the dark strut of 'Twist of Cain' and the Tipper Gore-baiting, face-smashing classic 'Mother'. It is, however, a touch rum to see 'The Hunter' credited solely to Glenn Danzig in the CD liner notes when it is so obviously a re-write of the Albert King song popularised by Free (which was, if memory serves correctly, written by members of Booker T and the MGs. Oh well.)

In fact, nothing on this album sucks. From start to finish, it shines blackly as a tight, conceptually coherent collection of bluesy proto-metallic hell-hymns. What does it sound like? Well, the chugging guitars (all guitars on Danzig are overdriven) and rudimentary production puts one in mind of the better New Wave of British Heavy Metal bands like Angel Witch. However, the idiosyncratic singing that dominates the album pushes it more towards someone like Mercyful Fate - the singing styles are different, but the shock one receives when first exposed to the vocals of either band is comparable.

In summation, Danzig is an top-tier album and listening to it just once will make you feel one thousand percent more diabolical. But you know what, kids? It's all fun and games saying 'hail Satan' and the like, but what's truly elite and cult is sitting down to a good book:



No wonder he's topless - the silly beggar seems to have put his library right next to the swimming pool!