WITCHFINDER GENERAL Friends of Hell (February 1st 1983)

No, not the Vincent Price movie.

I enjoy a lot of bands who were influenced by Witchfinder General and I've heard songs by them but I've never sat down and listened to an album in full.

It kicks off with "Love on Smack" and the structure and main riff sound like something I'd hear on a punk record or something. It breaks down into a more doomy style and I'm liking it. For some reason I had it in my head that these guys had a "hate it or love it" kind of vocal style but it's pretty standard stuff.

"Last Chance" is more like what I expected going into this. Classic NWOBHM riff. Catchy stuff but two songs in and I'm feeling like I'm going to have a bunch of competent yet unspectacular songs.

"Music" starts off with a nice doomy riff and I'm liking the slight pitch change in the vocals as each line pans between the right and left speaker.  Another song that while not bad, fails to impress.

The title track gets my head moving and is one of the strongest on the record. I'm a huge Pagan Altar fan and I could see them doing the main riff, so I might be biased, otherwise it's nothing to write home about. The breakdown in the middle of this track is just way too long. I was hoping it would pick up and take the song up into a different level and it did, but it was still way too long.

For the record, I rarely notice drums but I really don't like the drums on this album.

Another thing is that they don't seem to know how to end a song. A couple have already just kind of faded out which is a pet peeve of mine.

"Requiem For Youth" has another standard style NWOBHM riff and is that audible bass I hear? Indeed it is. Ok I get it now. The vocals are beginning to grate on me a little bit, so I'm pretty sure I was right on about "love it or hate it" style vocals. Love hearing the bass though.

"Shadowed Images" is straight up Sabbath worship.

Next up is a ballad "I Lost You" and I've heard this before. Not sure where, not sure how and I had no idea that it was Witchfinder General. Short little acoustic track. Nothing terrible, nothing memorable.

"Quietus" is more Sabbath worship but it probably contains the best riff of the record. The solo at the end is placed inexplicably low in the mix. Kind of strange. The song fades out and comes back for about 10 seconds for no good reason at all.

When all is said and done, this is an average record. Overly long and reptitive, I wish the whole album was Doom instead of Doom sprinkled with NWOBHM as they are much better as a Doom band.

NEXT UP...

SAXON Power and The Glory

And thus starts the downfall of the mighty Saxon and their slow crawl into hard rock/glam metal territory. At least until 1997.

The title track kicks off the album and it a tease because it's a damn good Saxon heavy metal song. Nice riffs, a cool little drum intro and one of the best choruses of their career. Nice little typical Saxon battle hymn.

"Redline" is just an uninspired, unimaginative, paint by the numbers Saxon motorcycle track but I still dig it. I like familiar. Deal with it.

"Warrior" reminds me of something that I can't place. Running theme in my reviews it seems. It's one of the better tracks on the album but the vocals are not my favorite. Love the opening.

"Nightmare" is just terrible. Terrible for Saxon standards, terrible by commercial radio standards. And make no mistake, this was made for the radio. At least the video is hilarious.

Ok. When compared to "This Town Rocks", maybe "Nightmare" isn't that bad. This song probably sounds just as generic as you would figure a song titled "This Town Rocks" would. Everything about this song encapsulates all of the nonsense that was commercial radio metal at the time. Unbearable.

"Watching The Sky" is about a little kid seeing UFO's in the sky. Yep. Regardless of the terribly straight forward lyrics and weird subject matter (for Saxon), I enjoy this song. It's nothing special but after the last 2 abominations it stands out as a good track. Enjoyed the guitar solo mid song.

"Midas Touch" is a nice little track. Good mix of slow and heavy parts.

"The Eagle Has Landed" is very different than anything else on the record. Some definite prog influence on this one that I dig. I really wish they would have gone in this direction instead of the commercial hard rock direction. I'm sure this was hated at the time and maybe it still is but this is far and away the best song on the album.

Power and The Glory is not a bad album. It's a decent album with some bad songs. There's some decent stuff on here too. The problem is that this is the album that began a very long, very below average time for the band until 1997's Unleash The Beast and they've been fairly solid ever since.

Hahaha... that WWF video is fucking gold! GOLD, Jerry!