RECORDS

RECORDS

AC/DC

Fly On The Wall

(Atlantic)

For the intelligent among us, AC/DC is a guilty pleasure.

Anyone with brains knows this is a band you should hate. The Australian quintet’s outlook on life is irrevocably sexist; take “Big Balls” from the best-selling Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap album, or “Sink The Pink” and “Playing With Girls” from the new Fly On The Wall. Then there’s humor, something AC/DC has never been short on, as repulsive as the aforementioned “Big Balls” is to a sober mind, a couple beers and a rowdy disposition—and, preferably, a lack of women in the same room—turn it into a guiltless howl of base level double entendre, the kind of jokes made with your teenage friends when you all first figured out what sex was but hadn’t had it yet.

Then there’s the music, each lick and riff derivative of classic American or British rock. And Brian Johnson’s throaty squeals at best are a garage version of Robert Plant.

But then the rock ’n’ roll heart intervenes, and it becomes hard to take AC/DC off the turntable or to switch it off the radio when a scorcher like “Highway To Hell” or “Back In Black” comes on—a troubling effect, to be sure.

Perhaps it’s because brothers Angus and Malcolm Young choose to steal only the best guitar licks from the past, borrowing from the Rolling Stones, the Who, the Kinks, Eddie Cochran, Led Zeppelin, ZZ Top and any other band that knows how to write a toe-tapping hook. Put the basic thunder of bassist Cliff Williams and drummer Simon Wright behind it, and you have a listening experience that—while hardly new—is comfortably familiar.

Fly On The Wall has a few yuks, too, often of the same adolescent nature. In “Danger,” for instance, Johnson screeches: “I was just raisin’ hell/I wasn’t doin’ no harm/The cops could not appreciate/My natural charm” (bad rhymes—hopefully intentional—are good for chuckles, too).

Despite all these virtues, however, Fly On The Wall is a take-it-or-leave-it affair. AC/DC’s biggest problem is that they haven’t changed their approach from album to album, meaning if you own one record, you own 'em all. And, frankly, Back In Black or For Those About to Rock, We Salute You are better efforts.

Fly On The Wall has its stirring moments; Angus comes up with a nice jig-style guitar riff on “First Blood,” and Johnson manages his first passable Plant imitation on “Playing With Girls.” There’s also more of a Southern flavor—Lynyrd Skynyrd Southern, that is—on “Back In Business” and “Sink The Pink.”

Otherwise, it’s the usual series of bigbeat anthems and tomes to the good life according to AC/DC. If that turns you on, enjoy it.

But if you’ve got brains, you won’t tell anybody.

Gary Graff

OMEN

Warning Of Danger

(Metal Blade/Enigma)

It took me a long time to write this review. Not because I can’t write, mind you; it was more involved than that. You see, I couldn’t seem to locate the new Omen album. No, Omen isn’t one of those hard-to-find import groups...it had to do with the album cover itself. I filed the thing in my mega-collection of 200 or so HM albums—all the Keel’s, Exciter’s, Savatage’s, Venom’s, etc. And, when my Ed. said, “Joe, it’s time to do the Omen review,” I got real excited. (I’ve been waiting anxiously to write this thing for quite a while now.) But, what I discovered in searching for it was that all my heavy metal albums look exactly alike. Not to mention sound alike. Notice that lately? Man, it took me two hours to find the damn record. But, finally, there it was, all shiny and new—and the shrinkwrap was still on it. Yipee!

Anyway, Omen’s logo and album cover design is no exception to the Metal Art Concept. It has the usual ultra-airbrushed-look, the customary symbol of some sort (i.e., devils, monsters, blood, skeletons, knives, swords, Nazi signs, etc.) all in addition to the same old gothic lettering. Only problem with the lettering is that you can’t decipher it, so what’s a guy supposed to do?

On this, their second LP, Omen went in for the snake-and-skull variety—the coiled snake being predominant and the skulls being background props. And the title: Warning Of Danger. Do you think Omen’s trying to tell us something? Anything? Do you suppose the PMRC will smile at the warning? It’s almost as if Omen has become the first metal band to forthrightly title their album after the HM dilemma. It’s sad to report, though, that even if this gesture was meant to be sincere, the cover design really stinks.

But, what the hell—let’s open up the album anyway, and throw it on the ol’ dusty turntable. (My metalbanging friend told me if I leave the plastic on too long it’ll wreck the album and I wouldn’t want to do that to my precious metal.) And, the reason my turntable’s dusty is ’cause I more often than not play my scratch-free CD player. Besides, the new Omen LP isn’t available on CD—yet.

A-ha. Evidence. A lyric sheet. Time to analyze some heavy words. Now we’re in business. Side one: the title track is OK; in fact, it’s probably the best track on the LP, except the guy’s voice sounds a bit peculiar. He sounds like Lemmy! Only Lemmy’s a whole lot better! The following song, however, falls short of my high HM expectations. “Red Horizon” is “dedicated to the people of Poland.” I’m sure the Polish people will be impressed and flattered and all that, but c’mon guys, there’s not even one single mention of

Lech Walesa or Solidarity. Oversight? Maybe so.

On “Ruby Eyes,” Omen take a different approach. Gone are sentimental touches displayed earlier; instead, we’re faced with this: “Cut out the hearts of the children/Watch their life’s blood slowly fade away/Drain off every ounce of power/And lead every one of them astray.” I’ll tell ya, Omen really know how to write impressionable lyrics. Yeah, right.

But, without a doubt, the best thing about the lyric sheet is the “Thanx” list. It includes: Jamie “Butt Mange” Sutton (hmmm), Dick Dog (hmmmmm) and Bitch. Why, they even thank Lizzy Borden (a METAL favorite!) and “all those we’ve forgotten.” You mean these guys actually have more friends than this? It only proves that Omen’s definitely got taste. Looking further down the credits, though, they get downright nasty. See for yourself.

As for the dynamic “Omen Sound,” it travels the usual route: lead guitar, lead guitar, lead guitar, drums, drums, screaming vocals, and a little bass. In other words, the S.O.S. On the other hand, Kenny Powell, the guitarist—boy, can this guy play fast! Maybe he’s trying to get the song over with quickly. And you can’t blame him, really.

Influences? Early Black Sabbath are here. And I gotta admit, they pull it off OK. Would that make it a good Omen or a bad Omen?

Guess I’ll go ask my metal pals, Hal, Martin & Jesse.

Joe D. Matteo

220 VOLT

Electric Messengers

(Epic)

Heavy metal is a lot like leprosy. It can’t be controlled but, it can be arrested.

Case in point: 220 Volt, the best metal band ever from the snowy slopes of Ostersund...let’s make that Sweden’s most outstanding contribution to HM since...aw, what the heck, THE GREATEST METAL ACT IN THE HISTORY OF SCANDINAVIAN MUSIC! And that’s counting Iron Meatball.

Here’s the story. Five young Svenska metalheads from far northern Ostersund wanted to express their love of bambam while also becoming so huge they could move to Stockholm.

That doesn’t plump your pillows yet? Well, there’s more—the Volt colts made it, not only to Stockholm, but big enough to release three European LPs in 1983-4-5. I know, about as big a deal as making your motor idle better.

Here’s the punch line. Somehow, in a bizarre twist of serendipitous cosmic importance highly reminiscent of my favorite episode of Superfriends—you know, the one where they’re put on trial for Crimes Against The Spirit World—one of the gang’s demo tapes found its way to an obscure New Jersey radio station, where it became the most-requested tune. EpicUSA calls CBS-Sweden and finds out— yumpin yiminy!—they’ve got three whole albums to choose from. So they headcheesed the 10 best tracks down to Electric Messengers and whipped it out over here.

220 Volt tackle their influences in a manner not unlike a certain young, unknown English group by the name of Def Leppard did in their early days. They don’t impersonate their idols, but instead take their engineer’s hammers and pound the hell out of AC/DC, Deep Purple and Black Sabbath (c. Ozzy) until they can fit the sleekest, fastest and shiniest components into a single vehicle of stomp.

They’re pretty goshdarn relentless about it too. Their pick-to-click, “Firefall,” kicks in like early Sabs done boogie-style, if you can imagine. Vocalist Joachim Lundholm really sounds like Mr. Osbourne, though not so squealy as to induce miscarriages in sheep the way the Ooze at his bleatiest can. This cut also introduces the superb lead guitar work of Mats Karlsson, who can cluster-honk with the best of ’em.

In the same vein are uttbay-ickin’kay cobblers like “Mistreated Eyes,” with a catchy chorus even Bon Jovi would be proud of, an incredibly fast blaster called “The Tower” that boasts still more of Karlsson’s six-string chrome headers, and the title cut, a Purplish-sounding tale of rivetbrains-as-outlaws.

Other flashpoints include the pleasingly plump poundage of “Mind Over Muscle,” some early Iron Maiden moves in “Airborne Fighter” and the deadly “Power Games,” which is so heavy, Angus Young could break his knee on it.

I’m also pleased to announce that all of you Accept, Scoprions and, yep, Abba fans of fragmentary, phonetic English lyrics will have lots of fun too. “It really was a party we went to last night,” they announce in “Mistreated Eyes,” “I met a girl, what a dame!” Talk about your immortal couplets! Or how about “Whiter Than White”’s menacing opener, “Man, I don’t need your statistics”? Pretty scary stuff.

Electric Messengers demonstrates that even tundra tykes can rock out. Played loudly in the immediate vicinity of...oh, say the impressionable teenage daughters of high-ranking military officials, it could very well lead to indiscriminate aperturalappendage conjugation. What more do you need to know?

Rick Johnson

LOVERBOY

Lovin’ Every Minute Of It

(Columbia)

It must be great to be macho. It means you’re ultra-masculine, wear tight blue jeans, drink lots of beer while watching sports, and the girls all love you. The music you listen to is radio’s Top 40 which includes Journey, REO, and the subject of this review, Loverboy. It’s very safe and very middle-of-the-road to be macho.

Lovin’ Every Minute Of It, Loverboy’s latest venture, revels in the glory of what it’s like to be a real man. The famed Canadians create a world of pure sexism—where all the girls are lonely maidens waiting for love, while all the boys are out partying after a hard day of work.

Actually, the album is a pretty straightforward rocker, marred only by one sappy ballad partly penned by Journey’s Jonathan Cain. Each song follows the same formula: tight threeto four-minute rockers with good melodies and fine musicianship.

The title tune is the first track and single, a song of manly conceit. The lyrics, short and direct, are easy to remember, thus inviting the audience to sing along. The only holes are the annoying “whoa”’s, breaking up the smooth consistency to the song, but it’s easily their best to date. Loverboy seems to have gotten better at writing good commercial songs. But they aren’t making rock ’n’ roll history.

What’s apparent is that they really don’t want to. They’re just five, fun-loving macho guys making music that threatens; if they were ever challenged, though, you can bet they’d back down wimpering. Unless the competition was Huey Lewis.

The competition comes from everywhere. “Friday Night’’ is a selfexplanatory title for this party song. “I’ve been bidin’ my time, listen to the Boss man scream/ Workin’ 40 hours payin’ for this dream machine/...I’m going to find me a woman—head out on the Old Highway” explains the young stud on his way to a three day party. This is Loverboy’s macho version of Bruce Springsteen’s “Out In The Streets.” Their “Too Much Too Soon” is easily beaten by Van Halen’s “Panama.”

Every macho guy has a rival, but there’s plenty of chicks to go around. Loverboy sums it all up in “Lead A Double Life”: “I had a champagne milkshake for breakfast/But I don’t know where I’ll sleep tonight/l’ve got a blue-eyed earthquake—she’s lyin’ in my bed/Ain’t it a wonderful life?”

Yes, indeed. It must be great to be macho.

Sharon Harrow

ANTHRAX

Spreading The Disease

(Megaforce Worldwide)

LIZZY BORDEN Love You To Pieces

(Metal Blade/Enigma)

MARTIN: OK! Today we’re going to review the brand new album by a band called Lizzy Borden. They’re from Los Angeles and they’re on Enigma Records. No, wait—they’re on Metal Blade Records.

HAL: Great! That’s even greater! MARTIN: Marketed by Enigma.

JESSE: Isn’t she the one that gave her mother 40 wacks? And when she was done she gave her father 42?

HAL: That’s the Lizzy Borden of historicity.

HAL: This is the L.A.-based hard metal band.

MARTIN: I think we should point out a few things. We should point out that their logo looks like a combination of a bat and a hatchet blade.

HAL: I think that’s kind of imaginative. It looks like Batman!

MARTIN: And also that there’s a beautiful young thing on the front cover wearing her undies! Hal and I were wondering if she was indeed a member of the band, so we actually had to open up the record and pull out the insert to find out that although there is a band member named Lizzy Borden, it’s a guy!

JESSE: He’p! HAL: He’s the singer.

MARTIN: Well, I don’t know about you guys, but, uh, looking at this record and looking at that insert that has a picture of the five guys—they’re kind of posing in the sort of metal-lifestyle way, with long hair, leopard-type stuff, studs. Tony Matuzak, the guitarist, has one of those eyepatches covering his left eye, apparently in homage to the Hathaway shirt commercials.

HAL: I think they look like they’re burntout. And they probably don’t care so much about their lives so far, because their lives haven’t been very memorable. In fact, I’ll bet when they look back they can’t even remember what they did yesterday. It was something dull, you know what I mean? They went to the store, got a bag of chips, maybe barbecue chips. Or something.

MARTIN: I think something that could be really fun would be to look at each one of these band members and imagine the life they’ve led that has brought them to being Lizzy Borden today. You guys think that would be a smart thing to do?

HAL: I think that’s an excellent idea! JESSE: I don’t think that would be bad at all!!

MARTIN: OK, let’s consider: what was Mike Davis doing before he was a member of Lizzy Borden? Hal?

HAL: I think he worked for a potato chip company, that would be my guess. If I just had to guess outright. And I’ll bet he was probably one of the people that had to put all the chips in the bag, and make sure that—you know, ’cause you can’t cheat people—there has to be a certain number of chips...

MARTIN: Do they count the chips? HAL: I don’t know if they count ’em or weigh ’em, but I’ll bet Mike Davis knows—because I’ll bet he worked for a prominent potato chip company! A good one! Not a bad one!

MARTIN: Any specific brand? Do you think?

HAL: I don’t know all the Los Angeles brands. Is Better Made a national brand? MARTIN: No, I think that’s just a local Detroit one.

JESSE: I think we should put in a plug for Better Made! ’Cause they really do make a good potato chip!

HAL: Well, let’s put it this way: I’ll bet he worked for a company that would be like the Better Made of the West Coast. JESSE: OK! I’ll buy that. Inform our readers that if they ever make it to Michigan, they should try to get a bag of those Red-Hot Better Made potato chips, because those are the greatest! MARTIN: Those are exceptional... JESSE: They’re crunchy und dandy! HAL: OK! Who’s next?

MARTIN: Joey Scott Harges is the drummer.

HAL: What do you think he’s been doing with his life, Jesse? I mean if you looked at his picture, what do you think? Where’s this man been?

JESSE: Well, let me see.

HAL: What’s brought him here to this impasse?

JESSE: I don’t know, it’s hard to say. He probably wasn’t a popular kid when he was young. He probably had a pizza face. HAL: Do you think it scarred him? JESSE: It probably scarred him for a long time.

HAL: Psychologically, I mean.

JESSE: Probably.

MARTIN: Perhaps once he was in bed with the woman of his dreams, and just at the moment of climax, so to speak, at that very second, the girl moaned, “I want a pepperoni pizza!”—and at that point his life went downhill.

HAL: I think it’s very likely that scenario—or something quite like it—happened.

MARTIN: OK! Tony Matuzak—first of all, he’s missing a left eye.

JESSE: The name sounds like something off of the Taxi TV show, doesn’t it? MARTIN: I don’t know, I never watch television. I’m too cool.

HAL: I don’t even own a TV. I’m even cooler.

MARTIN: I’ll bet he doesn’t watch TV, and if he does, probably the left part of the screen is black.

JESSE: So you guys have been missing Solid Gold?

MARTIN: I don’t know what that is. HAL: What are you talking about? We are the triumvirate of metal wisdom! MARTIN: I think Tony Matuzak, when he was really small, was probably the kind of kid that would do mean things. He’d throw eggs at nuns’ mailboxes. He’d blow them up with firecrackers, M80’s and the like. And once he and his friend, Biff, decided to go out in the woods where there was a railroad track running by. And they thought for kicks they’d stick coins in the railroad tracks...

HAL: Lots of kids do that!

MARTIN: Well, I know / did that as a child. HAL: I did, too!

MARTIN: I think what happened to Tony was, once he had too much fun doing it and maybe he took a complete roll of pennies and laid all 50 of them out on the tracks and when the train came speeding by, one, just a coincidence, one...

HAL: Duck,Tony, duck!

MARTIN: One came and punctured his eye! It went all the way to the back of his brain! It actually caused significant damage to both his face and his guitarplaying ability! Urn, that could have happened.

HAL: Either that, or he probably tried to cut open a golf ball. That could’ve happened, too. MARTIN: Oh, that stuff happens. Either rubber bands come and poke your eye out, or, of course the acid inside or the mini-explosion caused by the opening of the golf ball...

MARTIN: That could’ve happened. HAL: Do you think we could agree that whatever Tony did back then, he probably regrets it now and he would like to warn kids not to do whatever it was he did that... JESSE: I think they might be trying to hint at it a little on some of the titles, about his eye damage. With “American Metal,” you know, he could have gotten a piece of metal in his eye.

HAL: American metal!

JESSE: “Flesh Eater.” Somebody might’ve tried to eat his eye.

MARTIN: Oh, that’s disgusting!

JESSE: “Warfare.” He might’ve lost it in the war. “Godiva”...

MARTIN: Maybe he saw Lady Godiva and if his eye offended thee, he plucked it out. HAL: He might be a religious guy, you know?

JESSE: And of course, the last one, “Rod Of Iron,”...

MARTIN & HAL: (Groan)

MARTIN: I don’t want to discuss that one. JESSE: “Love You To Pieces.” “Red Rum,” he probably drank some... MARTIN: He was so drunk, he probably...missed his mouth.

JESSE: “Save Me.” He probably started screaming “Save Me!” ’cause he thought he was dying.

HAL: I’ll bet he would say that, yeah. Or something like that.

MARTIN: Maybe it was the eye itself talking!

JESSE: Then there’s “Psychopath,” which is what happens when... MARTIN: When you lose your eye, yeah. In The Book Of Eye Loss that I recently bought, there’s about five different methods, and they’re actually all in there. Surprisingly. Next is Gene Allen. He plays guitar.

HAL: You think he wanted to be in the movies when he was younger, but he didn’t make it so, you know, he ended up in kinda like a low-level metal band? MARTIN: That could be. Or maybe when he was young he took biology and he realized that he had some problems with chromosome damage, and decided to just, you know, kind of let everybody know. “Gene”—G-E-N-E. Say it loud, say it proud. His genes are distorted, bad, wrong. He has bad genes. He probably should be put to death, purely on the basis of his genealogy.

HAL: But what age do you think he came to grips with this DNA problem that he has? And that he carries with him? And that he will pass on to his children, should he be fortunate enough to sire any? MARTIN: I would say, between 11 or 12. HAL: Eleven and 12?

MARTIN: A disturbing time.

HAL: Well, let’s get on to Lizzy himself. MARTIN: I think Lizzy is so important we should have a few theories about how Lizzy, what his life was...

JESSE: Do you think his parents were really so cruel as to name him Lizzy Borden?

HAL: I think his dad was a milkman that drove around, except he didn’t deliver milk. He delivered potato chips. MARTIN: That could be! There’s a link there that we shouldn’t overlook. I have two theories, do you care to hear them? HAL: Well, yeah, but we haven’t heard about the mom yet. I hope you can include her.

MARTIN: His mom will be a member. OK, first of all, as you probably noticed, Lizzy is short for the word “lizard.” Correct? HAL: Sure.

MARTIN: OK. I’m theorizing that Lizzy’s mother, incredibly enough, was from another planet. A planet of lizards. And—

now here’s where the link comes all together—his father was, indeed, the milkman Hal spoke of, and...

JESSE: But he delivered potato chips! MARTIN: No. Here’s where you guys messed up. He delivered milk. Borden’s milk.

HAL: Borden’s milk. WOW!

MARTIN: So I think that comes together, there.

HAL: Martin, you really got metal insight.

I kind of envy you for that.

MARTIN: There’s one other thing... JESSE: OK, but do you think that he grew up hating his parents, and he killed them with an ax?

MARTIN: Nope. Well, that could be. HAL: Plus, we’ve got a genetic problem here. The mating between a human being milkman and a lizard from another planet.

MARTIN: Yes. It seems incomprehensible. Unless something else were to happen. Now I refer you to something someone once told me was on TV, which I, of course, didn’t see. I never watch TV. I’m sure everyone would remember that Elizabeth Montgomery portrayed Lizzy Borden in a filmed TV drama of some

repute. Let s forget that she’s E-LIZ-abeth Montgomery, and let’s remember that she was on a TV show called Bewitched. She had powers far beyond that of mortal men. Powers such that she could cause a lizard and a human milkman that delivered Borden’s milk to consummate a relationship and actually result in a birth of a metal genius who would call himself Lizzy Borden and rule the world before his tongue was cut off in a horrible accident! HAL: Incredible. But it all hangs together so well! I think we’re 99 percent sure that these theories are, in fact, correct. MARTIN: Now that we’ve discussed the band, let’s talk about all three of our impressions of the record—which we listened to prior to doing this review. I’d like to say, first of all, that it’s the best heavy metal album I’ve ever heard in my entire life. What would you like to say?

HAL: I’d like to say that it really, really...can I say “sucks”? It really, really does suck. And I see no reason to not put them to death, in the slowest and most painful way.

MARTIN: Jesse, do you have any opinion?

JESSE: I think we should go have some potato chips!

MARTIN: OK, then we’re all agreed . We've all got the same feeling about the record—and we’re strong in our feelings. HAL: It’s good that we get along like this! JESSE: Yeah. So I guess that’s it, huh? MARTIN: Nope. Not quite.

JESSE: What do you mean?

HAL: What about Anthrax?

JESSE: Oh yeah.

MARTIN: Anthrax are new and hip! According to this bio, which was, of course, mailed to the triumvirate of heavy metal wisdom, “Anthrax was formed in July 1981 by five musicians drawn together by their mutual love for hardcore and heavy metal.”

HAL: Utterly fascinating!

JESSE: Have you listened to it yet? MARTIN: No. I was scared to, because of what else the bio says!

JESSE: What?

MARTIN: It says, “They’re Anthrax, and after one listen, your head will never be the same.”

HAL: Wow!

JESSE: No!

MARTIN: It’s true!

HAL: Let de fish fry p’oceed!

(album is played)

MARTIN: Good lord, Hal—you now have the head of a goldfish!

HAL: Blub, blub!

JESSE: Martin, you look like a cigarette lighter!

HAL: Blub, blub!

MARTIN: Jesse, look at you! (Jesse looks in mirror) You look like a turnip!

JESSE: Oh no! They were right!

HAL: Blub, blub!

MARTIN: Oh God!

Martin Dio, Hal Jordan & Jesse Grace