By JAY ROBERTS

The Cassette Chronicles is a continuing series of mini reviews and reflections on albums from the 1980’s and 1990’s. The aim of this series is to highlight both known and underappreciated albums from rock, pop and metal genres from this time period through the cassette editions of their releases. Some of the albums I have known about and loved for years, while others are new to me and were music I’ve always wanted to hear. There will be some review analysis and my own personal stories about my connection with various albums. These opinions are strictly my own and do not reflect the views of anyone else at Limelight Magazine.

REVEREND – REVEREND (1989)

For those that don’t know or perhaps have forgotten, the story behind the formation of Reverend is a bit of musical chair theater. When singer David Wayne left Metal Church in the late 80’s, he was eventually replaced by singer Mike Howe.

Before joining up with Metal Church, Howe was the frontman for the band Heretic. They released an excellent album called The Breaking Point in 1988 just before Howe left and the band split up.

But as luck would have it, the other ex-members of Heretic ended up asking David Wayne to check out their material and after some initial hemming and hawing Wayne signed on with them and thus came the newly formed Reverend.

Calling the process by which Metal Church and Heretic essentially swapped singers a bit incestuous might be a little too much like an episode of Game of Thrones but it certainly was a bit odd when it first happened.

Reverend’s self-titled debut EP contained just four songs but it laid the foundation for what was to come on the band’s first two full length albums.

The band’s sound is one of classic heavy metal power and thunder. Wayne’s vocals were still powerful and intensely delivered. Musically the band delivered the goods as well.

With only four songs, there’s a definite feel that this is just a sampling for listeners. The songs are all pretty fast paced here.

At first listen, I was somewhat unimpressed with the first two songs on the album. “Powers of Persuasion” didn’t persuade and “Dimensional Confusion” provided plenty of that second word. But that was more due to me being unfamiliar with the music rather than the actual quality of the tracks. After I listened to the songs a couple more times, I started realizing the songs had more going for it than I realized the first time around.

Still, the last two tracks were my favorite. “Wretched Excess” was the most vocally aggressive song. David Wayne’s vocals were at times spit out like machine gun fire which made me think of the same time of song construction that Overkill does on some of their material (I’m thinking of songs like “E.N.D.” from that band’s album The Years Of Decay.

As for the closing song “Ritual”, that is what I would call the band’s first GREAT song. The song craft is amazing as the music and lyrics merge perfectly. It’s a song that makes the EP for me and makes the release that much stronger for its inclusion.

Pure heavy metal played straight up fast and furious is the best way to describe Reverend the band and the EP. It certainly whets the appetite for seeking out the band’s two full-length albums World Won’t Miss You (1990) and Play God (1991).

NOTES OF INTEREST – David Wayne died after a car crash in 2005. 

Reverend guitarist Brian Korban, who was a member the original lineup of Heretic, reformed Heretic in 2011. They’ve released two albums, A Time Of Crisis (2012) and A Game You Cannot Win (2017).

By JAY ROBERTS

The Cassette Chronicles is a continuing series of mini reviews and reflections on albums from the 1980’s and 1990’s. The aim of this series is to highlight both known and underappreciated albums from rock, pop and metal genres from this time period through the cassette editions of their releases. Some of the albums I have known about and loved for years, while others are new to me and were music I’ve always wanted to hear. There will be some review analysis and my own personal stories about my connection with various albums. These opinions are strictly my own and do not reflect the views of anyone else at Limelight Magazine.

U.D.O. – ANIMAL HOUSE (1987)

Normally when I choose which albums to write about in this series, I try to avoid using any particular artist in back to back weeks. This week, however, I am purposely repeating an artist choice because I have seen my admiration grow and grow for singer Udo Dirkschneider. 

I would say that a good part of that increasing admiration stems from seeing him live for the first time. He delivered such an amazing performance that it might just end up being my favorite concert of 2018.

So, when I remembered that I had a copy of the first U.D.O. album Animal House, I had thought to hold off a week. But then I said to heck with that! I didn’t want to wait to listen and write up my thoughts about the album.

This is the first “solo” album for Dirkschneider, but when I was reading the liner notes I had to wonder just how much of a solo album it really was. All the music is credited to “Accept and Deaffy” and while it doesn’t say it in the liner notes, the Wikipedia page for the album says the song “Lay Down The Law” credits its performance to Accept and U.D.O.

Don’t get me wrong, I actually quite enjoyed this album but it did strike me a bit odd for an album that was Udo’s declaration of independence after leaving (or was it a firing?) Accept that they’d write an album FOR him.

As for the music, I thought the first side of the album was a bit of a mix. The title track opens the album and a creepy opening piece is used before the song launches into a faster paced rocker. Meanwhile the song “They Want War” has a big keyboard sound as well as the use of a children and youths choir to fill out the finished product. It seemed a bit weird at first but it actually worked in the end.

Otherwise, the first side of the album rocked hard with “Go Back To Hell” and “Black Widow” then closed out with the ballad “In The Darkness”, which thankfully was pretty enjoyable.

Side two was much more of a full on metal slobberknocker. That “Lay Down The Law” song explodes in your ear like a few dozen sticks of dynamite. There’s little subtly in the title of “We Want It Loud” but that’s fine because it’s an energetically paced rocker. 

The band downshifts a little on “Warrior” but the song still manages to be rather heavy. “Coming Home” is blazing with Udo’s vocals fueling the fieryness of the song.

I really like when an album closes out with a fast-paced cut, leaving you at an adrenaline high point as it takes its leave from you. But “Run For Cover” was far slower than that. It straddles the line between a ballad feel and a more anthemic sound. I’d be lying if I told you if I was disappointed in the song as a closing track though. It actually turned out rather well.

So, while I do wonder how much of a solo album you can really call this one, Animal House was a no doubt smashing way to introduce U.D.O. upon the world. 31 years later, the band is still going strong and this album laid the foundation for all that came after it.

NOTES OF INTEREST: Guitarist Peter Szigeti and bassist Frank Rittel were only a part of the band for the Animal House album, but they each played on the first three studio albums from Warlock (Burning The Witches, Hellbound and True As Steel).

The CD edition of the album had a bonus track called “Hot Tonight”. In 2013, Animal House was among the albums given anniversary edition reissues. It included four live bonus tracks and the video for the song “Go Back To Hell”.

By JAY ROBERTS

The Cassette Chronicles is a continuing series of mini reviews and reflections on albums from the 1980’s and 1990’s. The aim of this series is to highlight both known and underappreciated albums from rock, pop and metal genres from this time period through the cassette editions of their releases. Some of the albums I have known about and loved for years, while others are new to me and were music I’ve always wanted to hear. There will be some review analysis and my own personal stories about my connection with various albums. These opinions are strictly my own and do not reflect the views of anyone else at Limelight Magazine.

U.D.O. – FACELESS WORLD (1990)

It’s a funny thing to me that despite the fact that I’m a really big fan of Udo Dirkschneider’s solo band U.D.O., I never once bothered to pick up one of their albums until 2004’s Thunderball which was the band’s 9th studio release.

Earlier this year, I was able to see the Dirkschneider band live in concert. It’s basically the U.D.O. lineup but they played an entire set of songs from Udo’s time in the band Accept. This was due to it being a two year world tour where he was playing the songs live for the last time before retiring them from his set list.

The show was simply freaking amazing and while I’ve picked up all the albums post-Thunderball, it lit a fire under me to go back and get the earlier material as well. I grabbed four CDs from the merchandise table at the show, but I also had picked up the cassette edition of this album, the band’s 3rd studio release, on one of my music buying excursions.

The first thing I noted upon listening to Faceless World is that the material has a much more considered and measured feel to it. According the Wikipedia post about the album, it has far lighter feel than the two albums that preceded it or any of the ones that came after it. At times, it feels more like a rock and roll album that one of the band’s more go-for-broke metal offerings.

In fact, I’d be hard pressed to call “Trip To Nowhere” anything other than a straightforward rock and roll song. Yes, there’s more of an edge to it because of Udo’s instantly identifiable vocal style but there’s really not a whole lot of metal aggression to the track. However, you will find that whether rock or metal, it is a very cool sounding song. I found that “Restricted Area”, while a fast moving rocker, also had a strong rhythmic feel to it as well.

The album opening “Heart of Gold” is a decent track but the way the vocals alternate within each verse from soft to hard felt a bit weird. Luckily, the song’s chorus was really good and helped give an overall lift to cut. Speaking of songs with stand out choruses, “Blitz of Lightning” has a very lyrically impressive one.

For the majority of the material on Faceless World, the songs range from mid-to-uptempo with a few songs really earning more of a sense of the all out aggression metal feel. But as is the case, there’s always a ballad track. Unfortunately, “Unspoken Words” was more than a bit hard to get into. There’s been a number of strong ballads in the course of the U.D.O. discography but this one pales in comparison. Also, the title track…totally flat and lifeless!

Of course, if you want to really stick your head into the speakers to make your ears explode with metal goodness, you would need to do it on the songs “Born To Run” and “Can’t Get Enough”. Both are intense pieces of music with the latter song being the most fiery example of pure metal. Lyrically strong, each of them is just over three minutes long. They get in, rock you into next week, and then blaze their way out again.

I’d have to say that I liked this album overall, despite the seeming attempt to be more reined in with the songwriting. There’s only a couple of down tracks out of the 12 on the cassette and honestly, it’s extremely hard to go wrong with any of the music that features the inimitable Udo Dirkschneider.

NOTES OF INTEREST: There was an anniversary edition of the album released on CD in 2013 that included two live bonus tracks and the video for “Heart of Gold”.