RIOT - Thundersteel (1988), early impressions

Note about the different post formats:  The records from the "main" Metalstorm list I'll have already heard at least the songs on my sampler, and may well already know the whole thing, so those get a track-by-track dissection.  Whereas the records that come from the "also recommended" area of the list are more likely to be totally new to me, so those albums get the "early reaction"/"upon further review" two-post format.  Clear?  Well, just trust me, it makes sense if you happen to be me.

 

 

First impression of Thundersteel, the record, is "Thundersteel," the song.  First of all, it definitely rocks. Second is how much I still think the vocals shape the feel of a song.  The riff is pretty straight ahead thrash stuff, even more so than with a band like Jag Panzer.  Then Tony Moore starts singing, and at first it's the kind of rasp-singing that fits the fiery verse riff, but then there's the chorus - not just the way he sings but the cadence and pattern - talking about something that has the word "thunder" in it, and we're in familiar territory with the sort of music from this era that I've been blogging about.  Tony ensures we can't mistake that it's a song about a hero with a sword.

Tony makes a good impression for the most part.  His highs get a little rough and unpleasant on "Sign Of The Crimson Storm," but most of the time they're good enough for metal.  As is so often the case, I prefer when a song gives him the chance to settle into a mid-range pitch - he's great on "Fight Or Fall" and "Flight Of The Warrior."  This is the correct vocalist to be chanting at us about never surrendering!  On the other hand, I wish his vocal on "Buried Alive" weren't so restrained - that one really ought to be more histrionic than it is.  Overall, though, the record rocks, and as a vocal melody guy I go back to the singer to explain why.  Obviously it's not a one-person band, of course.  Guitarist and sole permanent band member Mark Reale seems to be Riot's real mastermind from the info I'm seeing.  Yet most of the songs here are credited to at least three band members, and sometimes ("Johnny's Back" in particular) the songs seem specifically built to give bassist Don Van Stavern and drummer Bobby Jarzombek theri chance to do some cool things.

With more listening, the other main impressions I get of the record are that it's full of hooks, and that it's thoroughly '80s.  And yes, that does get me back to my usual hesitancy to embrace it.  We've gone over this ground multiple times already on this blog, but since I know I use "'80s" as a shorthand a lot, let's summarize one more time.  When talking about metal, by that term, I mean a particular combination of sounds that instantly date a song to that period.  Heavily distorted squealing guitars will be involved, as will a production that's bass-heavy but thin.  A singer who's gruff, shrieky, or both, will deliver lyrics that focus on hedonism, violence, or heartbreak, always in a self-aggrandizing manner.  The overall vibe will be an attempt to project hypermasculinity.  That's the best I can do to summarize what "'80s sound" means to me.  That's the basic thing I've never really learned to enjoy unreservedly.  To be clear, that applies even after putting aside the stuff that I don't like.  I do actually tend to enjoy what I hear from, say, Def Leppard. or Ratt, but I will never actively seek out a band of that ilk to listen to.  Just not my sound.

Where I'm going with this is just to say that Thundersteel comes very much from that era, and thus starts at a disadvantage when trying to become a Benjamin favorite.  I'm going to make a comparison of initial reactions with a record that's not really a close peer but is similarly '80s drenched: Running Wild's Death Or Glory.  Death is one of my favorite power metal records that I discovered while doing this blog.  It too embodies '80s metal, for better or for worse, and it too stays within one basic sound.  It too had to "work" a bit, so to speak, to convince me of its merits.  By the time of my first post about Death Or Glory, though, I knew the record was special, despite still having my usual misgivings.  It was immediately clear that those were some tightly crafted songs, that Running Wild were at the absolute peak of their one trick and doing that type of trad-metal-heavy power metal better than almost anyone else; lyrics were more interesting than the standard too.  I'm not there yet with Thundersteel.  These songs rock, where Running Wild's songs were near-perfect.  RW gave me better-than-metal-average lyrics about non-standard topics like pirates, facism, history, and so on, while Riot are here rhyming "season" with "reason."   RW instantly sounded like themselves; Riot sound like a bunch of other things.  On the other hand, the main thing Riot have going for themselves is the diversity in tempo; their fastest songs get way, way, faster than their slowest songs, so there's a pretty wide range to keep things interesting.

As I keep listening, I expect that Thundersteel will be one of those records where just how catchy it can get will be the big thing that moves the needle one way or the other between a classic and just one of a pile of pretty good records of its ilk.  Have I mentioned ten times yet that the record rocks?  It kicks ass, and it's got hooks; sometimes that's all you need.  On second listen I was starting to get a good feeling when the earlier tracks made me think "ooh, this is better than I remembered," track after track, but I did get quite impatient whenever the record gave me a bog-standard metal track that doesn't distinguish itself, like "On The Wings Of Eagles" or "Run For Your Life."  So, we'll see.

I've been vacillating about how much to pontificate on where Riot - and Thundersteel, specifically - fits in with the evolution of power metal, and I'm thinking I should wait until the second post, once I know the record better, to try to articulate any big themes there.  But for now, let it be known that the amalgamation of all strains of '80s metal definitely stands out.  When I noticed that "Sign Of The Crimson Storm" was reminding me of Maiden in one part of the song, Manowar in another, and Van Halen in still another, it sort of came together for me that Thundersteel is most of the different things that were happening in metal at the time, rolled into one record.  The guys in Riot were a bit older than most of the first wave of power metal, so they either had a deeper well of resources on which to draw or were trend-chasers, your call.

Miscellaneous thoughts:

- My early standout favorite is clearly "Flight Of The Warrior."  The harmonics on the verse paired with the single-step progression of the main chorus hook, in the service of a song that has more of a sense of a narrative (or at least setting a scene) - that's the niche where this record and especially this song click most for me.

- Not all of the influences are from the '80s.  The song that seems like the biggest departure is "Johnny's Back," just because with the pulsating guitar riff combined with the wordy chorus first made my mind go not to Priest et al but to see it as more of a very fun metaled-up take on Thin Lizzy.*  Maybe I'm swayed some by the lyrics that seem to almost be actively seeking comparisons to TL's biggest hit.  This song could almost be called "One Particular Boy Is Back In Town."**  

- The song that should be a bigger departure than it is is "Buried Alive (Tell-Tale Heart)," which despite its length is basically a regular song played slower and with an extended intro including a cool instrumental part and an extended outro.  Why exactly it includes portentous recitations of lines from a Poe story that's not "The Tell-Tale Heart" and why exactly the outro is all film sounds and what seems to be a tinny instrumental version of "We'll Meet Again"*** is not clear to me yet.

Favorite track:  "Flight Of The Warrior"

Runner up:  "Fight Or Fall"

Least favorite track:  "On Wings Of Eagles"

Preliminary rating:  3.5/5

Coming up:  More on Thundersteel, whenever I get around to it!

*Despite the fact that there's a different song on Thundersteel that shares a title with a Thin Lizzy song.

**"Johnny" probably refers to the band's record-cover mascot, making the song a bit of self-mythologizing for Mark as a musician, not just the song's narrator.  But I can't help but notice that the only named Boy in "The Boys Are Back In Town" is also called "Johnny."  Coincidence?

***Either that, or the theme song from the Winnie The Pooh cartoon.