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.

METAL CHURCH – THE DARK (1986)

Nearly four decades ago, the Metal Church album The Dark was my initial entry point with the band. Time has faded exactly how I came to first discover the album but all those passing years has not dimmed my love of their 2nd studio album.

In fact, each time I end up listening to it, I think my love and appreciation of The Dark only grows. The powerhouse lineup of David Wayne on vocals, Kurdt Vanderhoof and Craig Wells on guitar, bassist Duke Erickson and drummer Kirk Arrington slam their way through 10 absolutely electric numbers taking no prisoners and really only slowing the pace down a bit for one song that is still one of the band’s best tracks.

The album’s opening track “Ton of Bricks” is a monster song and is credited as being written by all five members of the band. I love the fade in as the song starts and then the drum lead-in as the song then blows up in full sonic attack mode. There’s a razor sharp fast and viciously delivered vocal turn from Wayne and the guitar work here is phenomenal. As Wayne proclaims “I’ll hit you with a ton of bricks”, you can see why I think this song should always open the band’s live shows and amply demonstrates just the kind of assaulting metal sound Metal Church brings to the table.

The song “Start the Fire” is keyed off a killer guitar line that runs throughout the song. Wayne’s vocals continue to be a perfect distillation of the vicious power he had going for him during this period.

In fact, when I first discovered the album, it was Wayne’s vocals that were the first thing I focused on. I’m a vocalist and lyric guy, so I hadn’t yet matured enough in my musical appreciation to get into songs as a whole. And I just loved the slice-your-throat nature of the vocals.

“I kill for no reason, my heart too stone cold”…the song “Method to Your Madness is a killer track (no pun intended). Fast paced with a cutting vocal line and this softer brief moment in the middle of the song that serves as great counterpoint to the rest of the song while still enhancing the track as a whole.

I mentioned that Metal Church had one song where they weren’t going on a full pedal to the floor rocking style. And that’s of course the song “Watch the Children Pray”. I know it gets described as their power ballad, but that is a woefully inexact term to apply to this song. That’s because while most “power ballads” dealt with themes of love or what have you, “Watch the Children Pray” doesn’t have any of that. As the song opens, the music establishes a feel that has long made me think of it as an opening of a gothic horror movie or book. And there’s certainly no love theme in the lyrics. While the main lyrical passages are a bit slower in delivery, it’s only a matter of degree because as a whole, the song is just freaking HEAVY throughout. I like the way Wayne’s vocals switch back and forth between the more gravelly attacking keen and the cleaner vocal that comes in at certain points to give the song a bit more of a dramatic feel. But still, this is not what I would truly consider a power ballad in the least.

You want an utterly under-appreciated song from Metal Church? I think you can take the Side One closing track “Over My Dead Body”. From the first notes of the song, it is just relentless. If you stood directly in front of a speaker stack as the band played this song, you’d come away feeling like you had been hit by 1,000 fists. The music’s pace never lets up as it continues to hit you with one sonic wave after another and the almost maniacal vocal turn from Wayne only further endears the song to me.

The 2nd side of the album opens with the album’s title cut is DEFINITELY a short version of a horror movie with Wayne embodying someone trapped in a house with some kind of demon. The vocals are just spit out while the hard charging music hits you in the gut. And the lyrics sure do conjure up some scary images in your mind as you listen. I mean, this is a pretty visual set of lyrics, no? – “When I opened up the door /And snapped on the switch /The room was filled with light / Then something black and very fast / Fled upon my sight / What I feared most as a child / Was the coming of the night / Now my horrors have become quite real /My nightmares breathe new life”.

Much like “Over My Dead Body”, the song “Psycho” is just a brutally fast assault. It might even be faster than “Over My Dead Body”. The band just keeps the attack on your senses coming from all five members of the band. And the vocal track is so stunningly evil, that of course I love it. That always makes me laugh considering my relative disdain for horror movies but I just love the song.

The subject matter of the song lyrics for The Dark album ranges widely but I liked the way Metal Church took the stuff going on with the country of Libya at the time the album was recorded and gave us yet another killer track with “Line of Death”. The music is yet another exploration of just how fast the band can go, until the mid-section when it takes a breath for a minute, yet maintains an absolute grip on the heavy side of the musical ledger. And then when that breath ends, the music and throat-ripping vocals rev right back up to punch you in the face again.

The song where I think I like the story in the lyrics the most might just be “Burial at Sea”. As the slow fade in gives way to a mind-numbing scream from David Wayne and the story of a doomed ship unfurls. It’s a master class in telling a story in short order. I love the music for this song and the guitar solo is amazing. There’s even a spotlight on the drums as the track gears up for its last lyrical verse that serves the song so perfectly.

The album closes with the song “Western Alliance” and it is another over the top fast paced number that seems to just explode from your speakers. The music seems to be its own beast as it hits your eardrums and Wayne’s vocals once again capture him in peak form as he just tears out his (and yours) throat from start to finish.

It is no secret that I’m a major fan of Metal Church. And I love all the eras of the band (marked by each different singer). But it started with this album and I have never shaken just how much this smoking slab of molten metal made me feel when I first listened to it. It’s a feeling I still get as I listened again in order to write this article. For me, the Metal Church album The Dark is one of the key building blocks for me becoming a heavy metal fan. 

NOTES OF INTEREST – The Dark is dedicated to Metallica’s bassist Cliff Burton. Burton had died a few days before the album had been released.

In support of the album, Metal Church opened Metallica’s Damage, Inc. tour which also had Anthrax as an opener. They would also tour with Megadeth, King Diamond and would open for Anthrax when they did their own tour. Sadly, while I’ve seen Metal Church three times in concert, I never saw this “classic” lineup live.

“Ton of Bricks” was used in the movie No Man’s Land.

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.

D.A.D. – NO FUEL LEFT FOR THE PILGRIMS (1989)

After two albums that were only released in Denmark and not internationally, the band D.A.D. broke through with their third album No Fuel Left for the Pilgrims. Not only did it give the band a profile outside of their native country, it got them played on MTV and touring the US.

While the band was still known as Disneyland After Dark when the album was released in Denmark, the band had to change the name to avoid getting sued by the Walt Disney Company once they started getting notice here in the States. After all, there’s nothing Disney likes more than suing people who can’t possibly defend themselves against the corporate behemoth.

Setting that aside, I bought this album when it came out solely on the strength of the first of the album’s two minor hits, “Sleeping My Day Away”. But a funny thing happened when I listened to the album. I just didn’t really like it all that much. In fact, since I first listened to it, I don’t think I’ve ever heard the full album in the ensuing almost 36 years since. I pretty much remembered nothing about any of the other songs on the album.

And yet, the album was considered one of the best Hair Metal albums of all time by Rolling Stone in 2019. (Not that Rolling Stone has much credibility anymore but still.) Plus, any time the album came up in conversation, Roger from Purchase Street Records would rave about just how much he loved the album. So when I saw a copy of the album on his store shelves a couple weeks back, I decided it was time to give it another shot. I had completely dismissed the album and almost totally erased it from my memory, so what would I think of it now?

Well, I have to be honest here…I’m an idiot. Well, maybe not a COMPLETE idiot but after listening to No Fuel Left for the Pilgrims in the here and now, I have shake my head and for the most part wonder what was wrong with me back in 1989.

“Sleeping My Day Away” opens up the album and it still has that great hook and catchy chorus that made it break on MTV and with listeners back in the day. I did notice that I had a bit of a hard time fully understanding singer Jesper Binzer as the album and song got underway but I think that’s basically because I hadn’t listened to D.A.D. in so long.

As I said, I don’t really remember much about the rest of the album so it was almost like a totally brand new listening experience for me. So as I listened to the gritty and fast moving “Jihad”, I was just getting more and more amped up. The music was giving me a feeling of exhilaration. By the way, the album title comes from a lyric in this song.

On the song “Point of View”, not only did I like what I was hearing in the mid-to-uptempo song, but the lyrics are amazingly on point for how things are going in modern day. I doubt the band could’ve seen that coming but it does give them a bit more standing in my mind. The line I loved most was “See, I’d like to share your point of view / As long as it’s my view too”. Tell me that doesn’t sum up the majority of discourse these days, right?

There’s a heavy and deliberate thump to the otherwise hard charging track “Rim of Hell”. The song was the other minor hit from the release. The song has a cool sounding chorus and really landed well with me this time around.

Okay, while the song “ZCMI” certainly has an abundance of explosively charged energy coursing through it, for some reason it just fell flat for me. But as the first side of the album comes to a close the rocking “True Believer” gets the album back on track.

Before I talk about the 2nd side of No Fuel Left for the Pilgrims, I should note that despite the fact that I ended up not liking the album back in the day, I did see D.A.D. live in concert. They were opening for Badlands at the Living Room in Providence, RI. Sadly, there’s very little I remember about their set. Heck, I’m not even sure who I was with at the show. But the reason I do remember seeing them was because Badlands was fantastic and I got a great shot of their singer Ray Gillen that came out better than how I took it when the developer screwed up how the final photo turned out. As for D.A.D., the one thing I do remember is that during the Badlands set, I left the main floor because it was way too packed for me and I watched about half the set from the side of the stage. It was during that time that D.A.D. drummer (at the time) Peter L. Jensen came out to watch the show and he was standing next to me for a good part of that time.

As for the second side of the album, it opens with the song “Girl Nation”. It’s got a lively uptempo style and I found that I really quite enjoyed the song’s rhythm.

I wasn’t quite as taken with “Lords of the Atlas” but I liked the guitar playing on “Overmuch”. It has a pretty kicking rhythm and vibe to it. The same can be said for “Siamese Twin”, the guitar playing from Jacob Binzer really soars on the two songs and makes it that much more appealing.

The fiery soundtrack for the track “Wild Talk” was instantly appealing and I think it does another excellent job of showcasing all of the band members at once.

The album closes out with the song “Ill Will”. While it features plenty of fast moving parts, I got the feeling this song was really going for a very heavy in-your-face vibe at the same time. The vocals seem to be more intense with a bit of a growl and musically this one is quite the ass kicker. The guitar playing that ends the song is blazing and despite the song’s short length, D.A.D. packs quite the sonic punch to finish off the album.

Once again an album that got basically deleted from my memory comes back to bite me in the butt! While there’s still a couple of songs on the release that don’t really do anything for me, it’s clear that I’ve been missing out on all the great music No Fuel Left for the Pilgrims has been waiting for me to hear (again) all these decades later. I have a feeling I’m going to end up playing this one a lot in the days and weeks to come because man did my opinion of the album do a reversal. Who knows, it may even lead me into checking out more of what D.A.D. has to offer. And isn’t that what it is all about? I just really loved what I heard this time around.

NOTES OF INTEREST: D.A.D. is still together today and other than a change of drummers from Peter L. Jensen to Laust Sonne, the lineup of Jesper (vocals) and Jacob Binzer (guitar) and bassist Stig Pedersen has remained constant.

For a band that has always struck me as relatively obscure in comparison to other bands from the 80’s Metal Years, D.A.D. has released 13 studio albums, 3 live releases, 8 compilations and an EP. Their most recent album, Speed of Darkness was released in October 2024.

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 under-appreciated 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.

SAVATAGE – STREETS: A ROCK OPERA (1991)

“As darkness falls…so hard…”

With that line, the title track to the 6th studio album from my personal favorite band Savatage, begins to spin its yarn about D.T. Jesus, a New York rock star who rises from a drug dealer to the heights of the music profession, only to then experience another fall.

Like I said, Savatage is my favorite band. The fact that I’ve written about four of their albums already in The Cassette Chronicles would lend credence to that statement. But back in 1991, my fandom was still growing. I’d seen the band on the tour they did for the Gutter Ballet album where I’d gotten to meet four of the guys from the band. Add in that the show was great and my fandom was definitely ascending when Streets: A Rock Opera came out.

While singer Jon Oliva seems to hate the fact that “A Rock Opera” was added to the album title, I’ve always appreciated the extra dose of the dramatic that term added to the release.

The album opens with the “Streets” song. Much like how the album was based on a book that producer Paul O’Neill wrote for a Broadway play, the song serves as a kind of introductory overture for the rest of the album. With Jon Oliva providing his vocals over the music from guitarist Criss Oliva, bassist Johnny Lee Middleton and drummer Steve Wacholz, the track gets you keyed up for what’s to come.

The story gets underway in full with “Jesus Saves”. It introduces you to D.T. Jesus. He’s a drug dealer but he ends up becoming a big rock star…and falls prey to all the vices that would seem to entail. By the end of the song, his star has faded and he’s lost amongst the streets of New York, addled by drugs and on a slow road to nowhere or oblivion. The solo in this song is fantastic, Criss Oliva being on fire.

And that’s just in one song! The funny thing about this song in how I related to the song as someone listening to it. Like a lot of people I would sing along with the track. One day my mother heard me singing the chorus which includes the words “Jesus Saves”. She was a bit taken aback, thinking I was somehow having a religious awakening or something. She asked me, and I laughed as I told her that this particular Jesus was a New York drug dealer. Her response? “Don’t let your grandmother hear you saying that.”

As D.T.’s addictions continue to get the better of him, the song “Tonight He Grins Again” takes you inside the monkey on his back until the next track, entitled “Strange Reality”, shows him beginning to see what’s become of him and the resulting shock to his system. The way Jon Oliva’s vocals become strident without being overbearing is a deft touch as he brings this particular chapter to life.

The piano based ballad “A Little Too Far” has always struck a chord with me. The spare opening of the song with just the piano and what I think is a marvelously beautiful vocal performance from Jon. The song would seem to be showing us D.T. has he gets his act together, getting clear headed and taking a kind of inventory of what he’s done and what he’d like to do now. I also love the way the lyrics work in John Wayne, Captain Kirk and Spock in such an organic way that you can’t imagine any other persons being mentioned in their place.

The dual track “You’re Alive” / Sammy and Tex” has D.T. returning to the stage. “You’re Alive” is about his return to the stage and how everyone reacts to it. As for “Sammy and Tex”, that song whether taken as part of this great story or as a standalone song from the band’s catalog, I think it is one of my favorite songs from the band. It’s a full-tilt metallic assault on the senses with an amazing guitar run through from start to finish, a viciously ripping vocal turn and lyrics that show D.T.’s past coming back to haunt him…and hurt those around him. Just a monster track! I’ve spent all these years listening to the track in such a way that I can actually “see” the fight that is described in the lyrics and the results of said fight. A picture may be worth a thousand words, but it is the lyrics of this song that creates a picture in my mind that sticks with me every time I hear the song.

The first side of Streets: A Rock Opera comes to an end with the showstopping epic “St. Patrick’s”. As D.T. reels from what’s happened, he faces a dilemma. Will he return to the drugs to hide away from his pain…or will he carry on and reclaim his life. And in this song, I guess you could say he sort of ends of having a conversation with a deity in a rather well known church. The first half of the song is geared more towards a slower and more deliberate delivery but you can feel the intensity ramping up as the song goes on and as the second half of the song kicks off…the heavier side of Savatage takes over for a bit before you get a coda of sorts and it is just Jon and a piano as the conversation comes to an end…and I love the last line, “Or give a call, explain it all…I’ll even leave the dime”.

The second side of the album kicks off with “Can You Hear Me Now”, the brief slower opening gives way to a far more intensely driven rock beat, fed by a pretty scorching drum track from Steve Wacholz. The tempo rises and falls for the rest of the track but the two styles blend superbly for an underrated gem of a track. The guitar playing is immense here as well.

D.T. has had his rise, then his fall. Then came his, if not second rise at least a bit of a redemption and now faced with the potential of losing it all again, he’s wandering the streets and we are left to wonder what path he will choose. On “New York City Don’t Mean Nothing”, the song actually feels like the city it mentions. I am not quite sure how better to describe it but that’s the way this particular track has always struck me. There’s something just intrinsically fantastic about how this song develops. You could say the same kind of thing for “Ghost in the Ruins” which has the same kind of gritty edge to it.

The song “If I Go Away” finds D.T. questioning if he should just disappear again, what he would leave behind or if anyone would really miss him. This is more of a power ballad track as the early part of the song which is keyed by the piano gives way to a bigger rock score for a lot of the song as well. And I love the way this song shows off the different vocal styles from Jon Oliva. You get the focused clear vocals in the “ballad” portion of the song but as the song’s tempo picks up, his vocals get more intense and a bit more of an edge or perhaps a rasp comes into play as well.

I like the contrasting styles of the next two songs. On “Agony and Ecstasy”, the tempo and full throttle metal soundtrack reminds you of the way “Sammy and Tex” sounded. But what I like about this one is how the lyrics are from the point of view of D.T.’s addiction calling out to him to return to the addiction’s embrace. It’s a fascinating way of telling this part of the story and it is also a superb track at the same time. Oh, and give a good listen to that guitar solo from Criss Oliva right before the song’s end. The counterpoint to that song is the follow up “Heal My Soul”. Soft and spare with a piano once again accompanying the vocals, it is an amazing song that always gets me a little choked up for what it means to the story.

The album comes to a close with the songs “Somewhere in Time” and “Believe”. The former track starts off a tad slower in pace but it ends up becoming more of a heavy rocker as the story winds down with D.T. finding a measure of peace and redemption from the trials he’s gone through. The song “Believe” has been a rather effective song not only for this album as the exclamation point to the album and story but a line from the song has been used in other material from the band, giving it an extended life of sorts. In fact, the entire set of lyrics for the song are chock full of great lines that really stick with you.

Streets: A Rock Opera may be a fictional story of a rock star’s self-driven ups and downs but for me, it is one of the statement showpiece albums for Savatage. It’s been nearly 34 years since it was released and it still manages to thrill, chill and stun me with its rather astonishing and unequaled delivery of some of the most amazing work I’ve not only heard from Savatage, but from any musical act that I listen to. It is quite simply one of my favorite musical works of all-time!

NOTES OF INTEREST: The CD version of the album has an essay that tells the story of D.T. Jesus and the Subway Messiahs (the band he led) and of D.T.’s life before, during and after his fame, rather than just relying on my own interpretation of the story here for you. 

While the storyline of the album does bear similarity to what was going on in singer Jon Oliva’s life around the same time, it is not about his life according to everything I’ve read online.

Streets: A Rock Opera has been reissued at least four times that I can confirm. The CD edition in 2002 has one bonus track, “Desiree”. I own a copy of that edition as well as my cassette. A funny side note to that CD is that the hype sticker and the track listing on the back of the CD both manage to mistakenly spell “acoustic” as “accoustic”.  The album was reissued again in 2011 with two different bonus tracks. The next reissue came in 2013 and it is sometimes referred to as “the director’s cut” of the album because they worked in narration for the album as well as the bonus track “Larry Elbows”.