CLOVEN HOOF - A Sultan's Ransom (1989), upon further review

A Sultan's Ransom is kind of a tale of two records.  Or at least, Cloven Hoof sound like they're being pulled in a few different directions whilst they try to provide a variety plate of '80s metal.

One version of this post would have fervently wished that the whole record sounded like "Astral Rider," although I won't go quite that far given how the other songs grew on me.  Still, "Astral Rider" is something special and goes to heights above and beyond the rest of the record.  On this track they demonstrate that having killer basic song components don't keep one from throwing in other elements to keep things interesting.  We've covered some great bands from this era who usually stop once they have a riff, maybe a big prechorus to offset what's about to come, and a big chorus (and musicians with the chops to pull off the solo).  "Astral Rider" already has those things, and didn't inherently "need" to repeat the title phrase in a different key at the end of the chorus, or to change speeds during the solo/bridge to have the instruments convey first galloping, then rising.  The band here displays an incredible innate sense of how to make a good track into an absolute classic.

    

Cloven Hoof either can't keep up that momentum, which would've made them the ultimate "yes, and" band, or just choose not to.  The rest of the record certainly has highlights, though.  My attention is still mostly drawn by Russ, who delivers a top-tier vocal performance.  He does most things well, but I want to especially highlight his ability to melodically yell at a low pitch.  That allows songs with faster riffs and slower vocals to rock hard, burning with intensity - in particular, Russ is the reason the chorus of "Silver Surfer" works so well.  Everyone's playing along with him at a high level, and maybe having the bassist write so many songs helps ensure very selective use of fancy fills/runs in the bass and drums - always in service of the song.  I like the way "Forgotten Heroes" is cleverly melancholy musically as well as lyrically, instantly communicating the context of its soaring chorus to the listener.  Mid-record highlight "1001 Nights" has a bunch of different parts all flowing together into a unified whole - let me especially call out the way the vaguely "Arabian" intro feeds into a full-on thrashy riff.  Oh, yeah, and the way the song about the frame story to end all frame stories is structured as a frame story!  *chef's kiss*

Then there are the frequent times at which Cloven Hoof are just not quite there for me.  Sometimes it's a song construction thing.  Something like "D.V.R." is structured as a straight-ahead chug without the tempo changes and twists we're seeing elsewhere.  It's a decent track, but where's the cosmic significance that the opener gave us, and that the lyrics seem to be trying for.   "Jekyll & Hyde," "Highlander," short little one-riff songs that... again, they're not bad at all, but they sound like paint-by-numbers metal instead of ambitious metal.  There, CH aren't doing anything that Thundersteel-era Riot couldn't, and Riot would do it with more energy and a catchier hook.  To be clear, I like Thundersteel a lot, I just happen to think that Cloven Hoof are at their best on this record when they go mystical, and, well, something bigger than most of the metal world.  (Big ideas are also where their lyrics are strongest, whereas the words of songs based on other media don't tend to convey much beyond "Hunchback was the last thing we read in my college* French Lit course before I dropped out to join a band").  

A few late tracks that deserve special mention.  One is "Mistress Of The Forest" just for the way it's the record in a nutshell.  One of those controlled-chaos sort of tracks that's moving from thing to thing, with the galloping riffs come in and out.  The wordless chorus is a great choice here... oh, no, wait, I guess this dumb "bad luck woman" part is the chorus, ugh.  At least the outro is good.  Tale of two records, but I hear the good one more often than the meh one.

As also noted in the first post, the track that sticks out like a sore thumb is the designated pop single, "Mad Mad World."  Regardless of whether or not it's right for this record, as a song I've actually gotten fond of MMW, with its ringing-bell percussion and finely tuned catchy cynicism.  Seems fitting that the very title "Mad Mad World" is one repeated word away from being a Tears For Fears song, because MMW decorates its '70s-inspired FM rock with enough synths to recall that pleasantly sad '80s new-wave flavor of pop.  I find it an interesting experiment for this band to go full single-chasing, and I'm just kind of generally interested in the way so many bands of this era attempted one "Lost And Lonely Days."  Some can pull that off. 

Overall, this was an enjoyable diversion.  I'm not surprised at all that I hadn't heard of Cloven Hoof before, especially since they followed up this record that pointed to a few different potential musical paths for them by... breaking up for the second time, and not releasing anything else until well into the 21st century.  "Minor hidden gem" seems like exactly the right status for A Sultan's Ransom.

Other thoughts:

- I always forget how much I love it when a band drops straight from chorus into second verse without a break 

 

- Despite my attempts to dabble extensively in the first-wave power metal of the '80s, I have gotten no better at explaining whether and why something of this speedy and energetic ilk is closer to power metal or to one of its neighboring subgenres.  '80s Cloven Hoof in general** and A Sultan's Ransom in particular sometimes get called PM and sometimes don't; most often they're classified as "heavy/power."  The record doesn't particularly read as PM to me, and 90% of it is that when there are these borderline cases, I expect power metal to be played and sung faster than this.  The speedier songs tend to be either something like "Notre Dame" at which time they sound more like they're doing their best Maiden than anything else, or blues-rock drenched like "D.V.R.," at which time they sound like they started playing Deep Purple's "Highway Star" at a faster tempo.  I alluded in the last post to this record anticipating stoner metal, but maybe that's just an artifact of its incorporation of riffy '70s rock elements.  Well, whatever.

- Getting back to why I'm writing about Cloven Hoof in a series built off a list of power metal records, though, it's because, along with Riot's Thundersteel, A Sultan's Ransom was another also-recommended for fans of Helloween's Keeper duology.  Those who love that era of Helloween definitely seem to like Thundersteel, and I think they would certainly appreciate Ransom too.  Where Riot were effectively a '70s act that modernized by embracing the metal of the '80s, Helloween and Cloven Hoof come from roughly the NWOBHM era, and both clearly want to play loud and fast without being afraid to incorporate some pop hooks and some of the ambitions that the rock/metal of the '70s.  In short, in both records' cases, this is metal that's not boxed in by excluding too much of the history of mainstream rock.  The fact that the three records in this paragraph sound pretty distinct from each other speaks to the versatility of the power metal of this era... when in the hands of a few select bands, anyway.

Favorite track:  "Astral Riders"

Runner up:  "1001 Nights"

Least favorite track:  "Highlander"

Rating:  4/5

Coming up:  Back to the Metalstorm list for slow speed dating with some '90s acts, whenever I get around to it!

*Or possibly, given that they're British, "uni." 

**"Cloven Hoof," the song, from the record Cloven Hoof, the debut full-length from Cloven Hoof, the band***, sounds closer to straight metal, except for the "echo echo" part that's either thrash or power depending on my mood, and the subsequent solo with background effects that sound like a direct influence on Irae Melanox.  Ransom's immediate precursor from the preceding year is Dominator, which in my limited listening sounds more USPM to my ears than either the self-titled or Ransom, both with the grooves that it settles into and its more limited (mostly in the intros and bridges) diversions.

***Cloven Hoof then did that thing where you break up and then one guy keeps the name and recruits a whole new band a few years later.