RECORDS

RECORDS

WILL O’ THE W.A.S.P.

W.A.S.P.

(Capitol)

It would be fine, indeed, to report that W.A.S.P.—the debut album of W.A.S.P.—is strikingly original, both in concept and execution. To note, for example, that Blackie Lawless’s uncanny knack for an anthem (e.g., "I Wanna Be Somebody,” “School Daze” and—especially—“Hellion") is a sufficient reason to regard this band as heavyweight talents with a guaranteed future.

More splendid, perhaps, would be to propose that W.A.S.P.’s outre image is light-years removed from cornball and that the band’s (previously staged) mock-slaughter of women, tossing of raw meat to the audience and Blackie’s wearing of circular saw blades on his arms has translated to vinyl in a fashion most would consider spectacular. And it would be even better to pummel (what the hell, perhaps even kill) anyone who suggests otherwise.

Then it would really be something to come right out and say that W.A.S.P. have digested the best of Crue, Twisted, et. al.—both musically and visually—into a whole that is greater than the sum of everything else in the world. On that note, it might also be rewarding to mention that the aforementioned “School Daze”—which starts with the voices of little kids reciting the Pledge of Allegiance—is way, way better than Alice Cooper’s “School’s Out,” which it was stolen from.

Critically speaking, it would even be a joy to get into the album’s artwork, and infer that the astonishingly cheap and gaudy package was calculated genius on the part of Blackie, or perhaps even the collective wisdom of W.A.S.P. Yes, that would be some fun.

Then—to wrap it up—a grand time might be had by endorsing W.A.S.P. with no hesitation or qualifications. It would be interesting, at the very least, to comment on Blackie’s sage lyrics in "Hellion"—lyrics Blackie himself put on the back of the LP—“The gods you worship are steel/At the altar of rock and roll you kneel”— perhaps to go on and on about what an unbelievably cool thing that is and how there’s no way anybody ever said anything like it, and (even if they did) that they sure as heck didn’t say it better than Blackie, ’cause he’s the best.

It’d be great to be able to say all that stuff. But then my pants be catchin’ on fire, you betcha.

J. Kordosh

MOTORHEAD No Remorse

(Bronze)

MARTIN: OK, the review starts here.

HAL: I’d like to say that you guys really shouldn’t be reviewing this record. Because my opinion about it is really strong, and also correct.

MARTIN: Can you explain that?

HAL: Well, it’s probably the finest record I've heard in a long time. I was real, real surprised—even, you might say, astonished.

I was shocked. It was weird. What a feeling. MARTIN: I think you’re understating the case. HAL: I was elevated. I was spiritually lifted, really.

MARTIN: You're not saying enough about how good this record is. Let’s consider a few things: Motorhead are, of course, the best band that will ever exist. Second of all, this is a double record set. Third of all, it's a double record set with their greatest hits. That’s like saying, “This is God’s God’s God.”

HAL: You can look at the liner notes... JESSE: Shut up. Shut up. Shut up.

HAL: No, let me handle this. There’s quotes from Lemmy, where he introduces the song and says stuff like “Jesus Christ.” I mean, it’s really cool— notes to introduce this stuff. JESSE: You guys are overrating this a little bit.

I mean...

MARTIN: Get lost! You’re wrong! What do ya mean, “overrating”?

JESSE: You’re overrating a little bit, I think. I mean, there’s better bands than Motorhead. MARTIN: Name one!

JESSE: Belfegore!

MARTIN: Well, aside from Belfegore. Name another one.

JESSE: The Beatles.

MARTIN: Absolutely wrong! Spoken like the wimp that you are! I don’t think there’s any question—do you guys?—that this is the greatest album that ever existed.

JESSE: I demur.

HAL: Well, I’ll have to say...you mean, up ’til now?

MARTIN: No. Albums that will ever possibly come out by anybody.

HAL: I can’t speak for eternity. Up ’til now, yeah, granted...

MARTIN: You are not making a strong enough commitment. I can speak for eternity—it is the greatest album that will ever exist.

JESSE: You know what’s the greatest thing about the album? One of the best songs on this is the newest song, a brand new song. MARTIN: So? You mean, “Killed By Death?” That’s really good, but...

HAL: But “Ace Of Spades” is quintessential Motorhead. It sounds better, even better than early Stooges. Fuck the early Stooges...cuz this be better! This be the hotter record—and you even admit, Mr. Beatle-wimp critic, that it sounds like the Stooges!

JESSE: I don’t think he sings as good as Iggy did, though.

HAL: Yeah he does.

JESSE: / don’t think so.

MARTIN: You’re forgetting the vital point—Iggy never played anything when he sang with the Stooges. Lemmy is such an incredible singer tha he can not only sing, but play those bass runs like no other bassist before.

JESSE: And on top of that...

MARTIN: Paul McCartney included.

JESSE: On top of that, they’re kind of sexist. That song “Jailbait,” read the lyrics...

HAL: That’s what’s so good about them! What do ya mean, “kind of sexist”?

MARTIN: What’s wrong with sexism?

HAL: No Remorse, that’s the title—they got "no remorse” about being sexist or anything else.

MARTIN: Look, consider the fact that this record is...

JESSE: Oh, it’s real hip to cover “Louie Louie.” HAL: Cover? They wrote it!

MARTIN: Consider the fact that...this record is the best record ever! If they condone sexism, then there’s no question—it’s OK!

HAL: In other words, we can all learn a lesson for our personal life from this record. MARTIN: Many lessons. You’ve heard of the food of the gods? This is the disc of the gods! JESSE: (Points to the LP cover) What’re the dots over the “O” supposed to mean? MARTIN: Those are umlauts, like the Nazis— isn’t that neat? (laughs)

HAL: That’s like Nazi-type Germanic script. Plus that’s German-type writing, which is also ultra-cool.

MARTIN: I think you’ll agree that most metal is based on cool images, like metal, Nazis, SS and loud, loud volume—painful volume.

HAL: But Motorhead does it so well. Plus, no one’s mentioned that this album is available in leather. We should mention it, for the consumers.

JESSE: Why don’t you guys just admit it— Motorhead are pretty good at what they do because deep down low, they’ve got a lot of intelligence. And it’s all tongue in cheek. Motorhead’s like...

HAL: Are you trying to sneak those comments into this review? Is that what you’re trying to do?

JESSE: Yes. They’re like a better version of Spinal Tap. That’s what Motorhead are. MARTIN: Totally incorrect. You just don’t get it. You think it’s a joke, but the joke is you. Your taste and your life. You don’t appreciate Motorhead, and you shouldn’t be in this room with us—because we know about Motorhead, and you simply never will. I HATE YOU! Martin Dio, Hal Jordan and Jesse Grace

BELFEGORE

(Elektra)

This is one terrific record! Belfegore are a trio of guys (one from West Germany, one from the Bronx, one from Canada [!!]) who’ve produced what may be the best metallic drone to hit vinyl since the Velvet Underground’s White Light/White Heat. Like that Velvets’ classic, Belfegore create some nifty melodies out of their minimal chord structures, not to mention perfectly capturing urban paranoia and human despair in a lot of their songs (i.e., “Wake Up With Sirens”)—even if three-fourths of their lyrics are indecipherible! Actually, that’s part of their charm, and it’s real neat trying to determine whether the guy is singing “It’s only love with yourself” or “It’s only love that you sell” on the manic-depressive “Love.” Either way, it’s still great stuff.

Belfegore manage to merge some of the best elements of recent rock into their unique sound. Reference points would include hardcore, heavy metal, power pop chords (I mean, we’re almost talking Ramones or Raspberries here at times), noise, sound effects, screeching guitars (like, say, Eddie Van Halen—since he’s the easiest comparison these days), funk, electronic music (synthesizers, drum machines), and they even include a self-titled track that’s ambient music for the suicidally insane. People I’ve played this for have heard various influences in Belfegore—Joy Division, Can, Iggy & The Stooges and Killing Joke (if that band’s music had matched its vision) are just a few that have been mentioned—but, in the end, they really don’t sound like anyone else making music today.

And from a metal standpoint, it’s nice to hear a metal-based band singing about things other than their pants being the home of the Whopper or how the bitch is a devil because she dumped him. Nope, Belfegore’s lyrics occasionally jump out at you (those you can understand), and they never fail to intrigue, like when they describe the world as a “comic with rats.” How’s that for an existential image? Great stuff. But don’t get me wrong. Belfegore are dark, but they also manage to transform gloom & doom into something exhilirating. This is the perfect “mood’’ LP to listen to when you’re angry at everything—and since that seems to be 99 percent of the time for a lot of people these days, Belfegore just might be the album of the year.

When things really begin to resemble a mental institution at CREEM, we just throw this record on in the editorial department and we feel great! In fact, would you believe that all the CREEM editors voted for Belfegore as one of their Top 10 albums of '84 in a recent critic’s poll? Even Billy Altman—and he lives in New York! And when I play Belfegore at home, the old woman who lives in the apartment below me beats on the ceiling with a broom. Which is really kinda refreshing since the only other record to receive that distinction was the Ramones’ debut.

Yeah, you can classify them as metal, but— that being the case—Belfegore is one of the best metal LPs you’ll hear in the ’80s. Just compare the incredible “All That I Wanted” (or the video of the same—which will actually make you dizzy) to anything by Twisted Ratt or Motley Riot, and you’ll hear what I mean.

Belfegore is great! Buy it today! Just for kicks!

Bill Holdship

STRYPER

The Yellow And Black Attack

(Enigma)

Stryper is currently at the forefront of the “Metal For Jesus” movement—a fact any critical examination of The Yellow And Black Attack cannot ignore. (The band’s name is evidently culled from Isaiah 53:5: “By His stripes we are healed.”) Fortunately, I am not only a critic of music. I am a theologian of considerable repute, making me extraordinarily able to comment on Stryper in both milieus. For this, I am grateful.

For the album—actually an extended EP, totalling 24:42 playing time—I am not so grateful. The cover of the album is disquieting, picturing striped missies (monogrammed with the musicians’ initials) ready to blast a striped Earth, guided by a rather large hand. The rather large hand, we safely presume, belongs to the Being glorified in Randy Newman’s cheerful ‘‘God’s Song.” Whether this artwork foreshadows the Apocalypse or simply a proselytizing mission is unclear; in either case, it’s heavy-handed and offensive. The back of the jacket is loud, too: Stryper thanks (by my count) 98 people and a variety of businesses for making the record an actuality. Topping the list, I scarcely need add, is “Jesus Christ (The Boss Man).” (Stryper shows no evidence of having any musical recollection of Jimmy Reed, the boozy blues genius who sanguinely noted that his big boss man—who never heard him when he called—wasn’t so big. “You just tall, that’s all.”)

As it is with Jimmy’s Boss Man, so it is with Stryper’s album. Musically, they’re OK, which—believe me—is a compliment. Michael Sweet’s singing is good, especially on “You Know What To Do," the album’s stand-out. (Sweet can also hit the vogueish squeal, as witnessed by “From Wrong To Right,” but it sounds gratuitous and isn’t—thankfullypursued.) His guitar work is also tasteful; the best example here being a vaguely-Queenish break on "Loving You." On the other hand, Oz Fox—the titular lead player—doesn’t fare nearly as well, delivering triplets dreary enough to drive a man to Gnosticism. Most annoying, though, are Robert Sweet’s drums, which are not only over-busy but muffled by the production.

The music being undistinguished, we turn to the songs. They are also undistinguished. At worst, they showcase some truly stilted arrangements (“You Won’t Be Lonely”, “Loving You”); at best they’re acceptable uptempo modern metal. (To be fair, the end of “Loud N Clear”—a blast of descending minors—is excellent and perhaps the type of thing Stryper could develop to their advantage.)

Which leaves the lyrics. Stryper straightforwardly proclaims their Christian message with a frequency inversely proportional to their imagination. Some examples: “Least we can say we love doin’ what we do/And we’re here to say you can have salvation, too.” "I’ve always praised His name/And If you believe you’ve got to do the same.” “The devil’s not your friend/Truth is not a lie.” We can all agree these are nice ideas, but we must admit—were Stryper secular—Wham! wouldn’t be in a whole lot of trouble.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of Stryper’s lyrics is that they’re at their best when they forego invoking their Savior’s name, as on “You Know What To Do” and “Co’mon Rock.” These are still deep-Christian-value tunes, mind you, but they’re obscure enough to be appealing.

But as metal segues toward Christianity— an exciting trend, I’ll confess—we (and Stryper) must eventually consider how effective the form is for the message. As matters stand, all of Stryper’s good intentions can’t even touch the shrink-wrap on as truly a religious/ foreboding/thought-provoking album as Dylan's John Wesley Harding. Not to mention the horrific Christian visions the Incredible String Band conjured with “Ducks On A Pond.” We must wish Stryper well, but we need go no further than Isaiah 53:6—“All we like sheep”—to ponder the efficacy of metal promoting anything, let alone the Word.

J. Kordosh

STONE FURY Burns Like A Star

(MCA)

HAL: The album’s called Burns Like A Star. And I’d just like to point out that most stars burn no lower than 3,000 degrees Centigrade all the way up to millions of degrees at the surface of the star.

MARTIN: That’s a fascinating point. Could you please hold up the record cover so we could examine it?

HAL: There it is.

JESSE: The band's called Stone Fury??? HAL: Yeah.

MARTIN: That’s right.

JESSE: Oh.

HAL: But the record’s called Burns Like A Star. MARTIN: OK, it says it contains four hits on the cover, and it lists the four hits. But listen to these hits: “Break Down The Wall,” “Life Is Too Lonely,” “Shannon, You Lose” and “I Hate To Sleep Alone.” I don’t know about you guys, but I’ve yet to hear a single tune.

HAL: You mean you haven’t heard them on the radio.

MARTIN: It says “contains the hits,” yet there’s absolutely...

HAL: That’s because no one’s playing them! MARTIN: But it says “contains the hits”! JESSE: What label is it on?

MARTIN: Let’s see. Oh, it’s on MCA. That’s very strange. They usually, uh, get their fair share of hits.

HAL: How many records really have four hits? I mean, that would be really unusual. MARTIN: You remember the theory, don’t you, that every hit on a record will really mean a million in sales?

JESSE: Sure.

MARTIN: So, with four hits, this album should be selling four million copies! And— ironically—I don’t even recognize this album cover. And it’s been out for a couple of weeks. There’s something wrong going on here. HAL: Maybe there’s another edition, with a different cover, that you wouldn’t recognize, you know, if you were seeing it.

MARTIN: Well, I have to admit this is a terrible cover. I mean, no one in the world would know who this band is.

HAL: (looks at cover) Is that an observatory? MARTIN: It’s a phallic symbol, I guess.

HAL: You know what it looks like? It looks like a water tower. But there are observatories in the background.

JESSE: Well, they obviously want to be heavy metal stars...

MARTIN: Yeah. Burns Like A Star.

HAL: Ahh! You mean, like there’s two kinds of stars—the kind of stars that inhabit the galaxies..and the stars that inhabit the stage! MARTIN: That’s clever! OK, that’s a good title. HAL: We didn’t see that right away, either. Almost.

MARTIN: Oh-oh. Looking at the pictures on the back, there’s some trouble here. Uh, I don’t want to be cruel but, uh—three of these are pretty good-looking, but the guy in the back there...he’s a dog!

JESSE: What? The guy on the left?

HAL: He looks kinda—Well yeah, he’s a dog— but the other guy, he looks like he’s...you know—queer.

(Much laughter)

HAL: He’s got a perm.

MARTIN: Which one?

HAL: The guy on the right, in the back. What’s his name?

MARTIN: I don’t know. But ya know? By golly, you are right.

JESSE: Hey, let me see that.

MARTIN: Just one second! Well, Hal may have a point. The last cut, side one: “Mama’s Love” HAL: (Laughs) Say no more! They do look kinda, you know, kinda tough. You know. I mean—if you saw them on the street, you wouldn’t wanna, you know, fuck with them, you know?

JESSE: Compared to somebody like Blackie Lawless or, uh...Nikki Sixx or Mick Mars? HAL: But they look tougher than we do, right? JESSE: This guy looks like a girl!

HAL: And the other guy looks like a queer! MARTIN: And the other guy looks like a dog! HAL: You’re right.

JESSE: (Stares at LP cover in awe) This guy looks like a woman!

(Laughter)

MARTIN: Actually, let’s face facts. They were smart not to put the cover on the picture! HAL: Their picture on the cover!

MARTIN: That’s right. I’m sorry.

JESSE: (Points) This guy’s going for the Presley/Billy Idol look, with his lips.

MARTIN: Or Tom Petty, sort of...

HAL: Yeah.

MARTIN: Well, there’s only one thing to do now.

JESSE: (Still staring at cover) This guy’s going for the Neal Schon look...

HAL: Well, look—we’re making a mistake here. Because we should be talking about the hits rather than what the guys look like. MARTIN: Like women! Yeah. OK, well let’s consider the fact there’s four hits on a record we’ve never heard. Right?

HAL: Right!

JESSE: Right!

MARTIN: Number two: their pictures aren’t on the cover. Right?

HAL: Right!

JESSE: Right!

MARTIN: Three: their actual picture itself proves they’re an ugly band! And their lack of masculinity! Finally, fact number four—it's produced by Andy Johns, a fairly reputable producer. Right?

HAL: Yeah.

JESSE: Look, here’s their names.

HAL: Well, buried somewhere, sure.

JESSE: Listen—“Lenny Wolf,” "Bruce Gowdy,” “Rich Wilson,” “Jody Cortez” MARTIN: I’d be willing to bet I know who the Bruce is.

HAL: “Jody Cortez”? “Jody Cortez’’?

(Much laughter)

JESSE: It’s like you gotta have a Juan Croucier, you gotta have a little ethnicity. HAL: Are you saying this is a formulized band? Are we gonna go that far?

MARTIN: Well, there’s only one thing we can do.

JESSE: I mean, they don’t even play—it’s sort of like the Monkees maybe. Down here they have little asterisks, and on one asterisk it says “George Perilli, drums.” And then they’ve got two asterisks—“Peter Parnegg, bass.” So they don’t even play their own instruments! MARTIN: OK. Let's get down to the final analysis. Should we play this record and even decide if it’s good, or not?

HAL: No. That would be pointless.

MARTIN: You’re right.

JESSE: No. If you wanna listen to heavy metal that looks like women, you might as well listen to Girlschool!

MARTIN: You’re quite right. So, should we listen to it?

HAL, MARTIN & JESSE: (together) NO!

HAL: So say we all.

Hal Jordan, Martin Dio and Jesse Grace