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Year in review: 1989
28/09/12 || Habakuk
Do you really want to read about what happened in 1989? Well, the Iron Curtain came down. That’s the general history lesson for today. For more info, refer to Wikipedia. “1989 was a historical turning point for the wave of revolutions that swept the Eastern Bloc, starting in Poland.”, it reads. For some reason it however doesn’t list David Hasselhoff or the Scorpions as driving forces. Odd.
Well, in terms of metal history, we can’t really speak of a turning point in the exact sense of the word, but one of the most important developments sure was that a whole new direction was opened up that year: Death metal. Sure, the signs had been there with the likes of Possessed, Death or Massacre butchering away at their instruments in primeval fashion, but let’s be honest – the way bands like Morbid Angel, Pestilence or Obituary approached things suddenly presented the music world with a whole new beast.
It’s not like that is the whole story for our year in question
though. Far from it. So, let it be laid out to you by a guy who lived
through it. To adopt the old Saxon line from “Denim and Leather”, Where were you in Seventy Eighty-Nine, when the dam began to burst? I, for one, was smack dab in the middle of it all.
Plucking flowers.
Yes, that’s me in 1989. Still, I’m gonna be in charge for this one, so you’ll have no choice than to read through what I think made this year one of the greatest for metal as a whole. Don’t worry though, I’ve done my research. On dandelions.
So while I unfortunately cannot provide any of my personal anecdotes from the time, I could however assume today’s perspective and picked only those flowers that scored high on perceived quality rather than sentimentality. The subjective “What made the most impact on me at the time” list would probably have to be topped by big trucks, toy blocks and play-doh. Thus, you can take any single inclusion on this list as a personal recommendation. And it’s going to be quite the bouquet. What a fucken year.
Thrash Metal
Okay, so first off, we naturally have thrash metal still in its absolute prime. It’s hard to say which year the genre’s peak was in, and of course 1986 with “Master of Puppets” and “Reign in blood” can make a strong case for its domination especially in terms of laying out the general direction for years to come – but seriously, 1989 will send any more or less serious thrash fanboy drooling like, well, a three-year old. The list of releases is ridiculously good, and I’m not gonna even try to sort these. Note the absence of the so-called Big Four, and understand why I don’t really give much of a damn about that term. Who really needs Meganthrayerica when we can have these all in one big, chunky year:
Sodom: Agent Orange
By 1989, Sodom had finally matured into a full-fledged thrash beast after their formative years of wandering the valley between black, thrash and retardation, and Agent Orange is probably their absolute magnum opus. It’s impossible to overestimate the importance this album had for the trademark half-time e-string break in thrash metal as a whole, as well as for the band’s career. “Agent Orange” put them on the map as a serious contender for the Teutonic thrash metal throne for good. The musical aspects (and everything else about it) I have discussed here before, but I expect you to a) have heard and b) love this album to bits already anyway. Oh, and since this is my only chance to redeem an old mistake from that review – that “AC47” line in “Magic Dragon” is of course correct, as it refers to the plane, not the gun. My bad.
Sepultura: Beneath the remains
Considered their best album by some, “Beneath the remains” sure as hell is the strongest straight-out thrash record the Brazilians ever put out, before the darker vibes of “Arise” introduced a little change which I personally dig even more. There is absolutely no doubt that this is an absolutely flawless album that combines catchiness, aggression, speed and relentlessly sharp riffing. And as if that wasn’t enough, they even topped it off with on of the best cover artworks to ever grace a metal album. Just because they could. If you don’t have this in your collection, you don’t have one. Essential.
Kreator: Extreme aggression
That title doesn’t leave any questions, I’d say. Like Sodom, it took Kreator some time to mature into a truly respectable band, thus “Extreme Aggression” marks their first consistently awesome attempt at transporting what they wrote on the cover. Countless bad-ass riffs and Mille Petrozza’s vicious performance make this a landmark in thrash metal history, yet still it’s only a precursor to their real masterpiece, Coma of souls. It’s a high base to work off though, and songs like the anthemic “Love us or hate us” have lost nothing of their charm to this very day.
Okay, so with these three albums alone we have a great year already. Yet these are only the usual suspects, and let’s not just scratch the surface here. ’89 had a lot of less canonical thrash albums that, while maybe not as universally recognized, need not in any way shy away from the big names.
Accu§er: Who dominates who?
Don’t trust the internet. This album rips. Trust K instead, for once. This should be listed above the line we just drew there, but for some obscure reason it isn’t. It never is. Maybe because these Germans didn’t have the usual trademarks of German thrash, but just played an awesome, brutal and in-your-face style that is bound to first bash your face in, then groove all around your sorry ass, complete with an awesome, rough vocal delivery in fluent English. Seriously, this is one of the best thrash albums out of my home country, ever. And that is saying something, see above. Do yourself a favor and check it out. There’s not a single bad tune to be found.
Cro-Mags: Best wishes
You’ll probably find more appreciation for these folks among Hardcore fans, but when listening to Best wishes alone, that doesn’t make much sense, as its nothing but a great thrash record through and through. Looking back, it’s quite a comforting thought that hardcore bands actually got inspired to go out and thrash – nowadays, bands just insert Dubstep wobbling if they try and change their style.
And it’s not like these guys were the only hardcore band turning towards thrash, 1989 alone saw the notable release of D.R.I.‘s “Thrashzone” as well as “Brazil” by Ratos De Porão, which both followed a similar direction. And if you like those, well then you can’t go wrong with Wehrmacht’s “Biērmächt” either. So much for the generally known stuff, but on researching a little, I actually found a band you have definitely haven’t heard of: Bombers from Burundi! If any of the above bands sound good to you, then go and check out these guys’ crossover thrash. Extra super bonus points for coming from my hometown of Munich. I’ve never heard a good old school band from Munich. YES!
D.R.I.: Thrash Zone on Grooveshark
Ratos de Porão: Brasil on Grooveshark
Wehrmacht: Biermacht on Grooveshark
Bombers from Burundi: Butcher
MORE THRASH!!!
It’s not like thrash metal needed the new input yet – Many of the
already more established, so-called second tier bands of the genre rose
to new heights in ’89. The year saw the releases of many of those bands’
best efforts yet (Dark Angel’s between the chairs release “Leave
scars” being a not-so-honorable exception) – Nuclear Assault’s riff feast of Handle with care which – thanks to killer 
songs like “Search and seizure” or the insanely infectious “Critical
Mass” – even lasted through the band’s efforts to kill it with pointless
“fun” songs. Coroner’s No more color
which saw the band taking its first big step of evolution to the legend
of dare I say, “intelligent thrash” they are today, and also Exodus’ Fabulous disaster
featuring what’s probably the best song of their entire career, the
legendary mosh anthem “The Toxic Waltz”. And we’re not even half-way
through it all. The list of releases reads like a thrash metal 101 – 
Testament, Overkill , that Holy Moses album K swears by, Annihilator’s “Alice in Hell”, what have you. Well, we have more fucken THRASH
coming from all directions! It’s like all these bands saw the end of
the whole Cold War angst coming and dished out every fucken
post-nuclear, post-biological, post-chemical warfare, mass hysteria
themed album they could come up with. Just look at those classic covers
like Toxic’s “Think this” 
– another one of these albums that you don’t read about too often. Sure, this one alongside Watchtower’s “Control and Resistance”
have those classic squealing metal vocals that could only have made it
on disc in the eighties, but still, damn are those albums great. If you
dig Coroner, then these are two bands that should be on your list. Oh,
and Voivod released “Nothingface”, too. What the hell, ’89? As you can see by the sudden absence of review links, even your 
favorite metal site will have to do some catching up in the “technical
thrash from 1989” department. The good thing is, it’s not like all
these albums are just rehashes of one and the same formula, but identity
was still an option for bands, and weirdly enough, they managed to
actually work off that base. I see no other option than that there must have been something of pretty high quality in the thrash water. Dandelions?
Nuclear Assault: Handle with care on Grooveshark
Coroner: No more color on Grooveshark
Exodus: Toxic Waltz
Testament: Practice what you preach on Grooveshark
Overkill: The years of decay on Grooveshark
Holy Moses: Def Con II
Annihilator: Alice in Hell on Grooveshark
Toxik: Think this on Grooveshark
Watchtower: Control and resistance on Grooveshark
Voivod: Nothingface on Grooveshark
Gammacide: Victims of science
Here’s one example that deserves special mention. Why? Because it is another one that is largely unheard of for no good reason, even worse – unfairly so. And it has its unique qualities. Victims of science is probably one of the best examples of (by now we can probably call it) traditional US thrash metal turning into a more death metal-oriented style, with the incorporation of blast beats, low-end and more intricate grooves, yet keeping it all within the thematic boundaries and general direction of thrash. This is a brutal slab of excellent thrash that you should have heard.
And for those that haven’t had enough of that sort of material,
there is also Evildead‘s blunt force assault “Annihilation of civilization” from 1989 – check out Gone Shooting
for a good idea about these guys’ trade. And when we put “brutal” and
“thrash” in one sentence, no article can of course stay without a
reference to my personal heroes Demolition Hammer whose brilliant Necrology Demo also saw the light of day through the plexiglass of tape deck’s throughout the scene that year.
Evildead: Annihilation of Civilization on Grooveshark
Demolition Hammer: Hydraphobia
Did somebody say THRASH?
And since the list so far has been largely America dominated, I’ll actually take a bit of time here and go into a few more thrash albums that might have stayed under your radar so far. Now this stuff might not be 100 % awesomeness for everybody from start to finish, but let me tell you I included all of it for a reason. So even though they appear at the bottom of the thrash section and might not have reinvented any wheels, these albums will definitely appeal to any thrasher, for it is quality that runs through their veins. And when I put this together, I found that for some reason all this shit comes from the UK or Germany respectively, so it’s been sorted that way. I’ll just start with Britain since they won the war.
Xentrix: Shattered Existence
Why, the fuck I might add, isn’t this talked about more? I’m not sure if I ever heard a better thrash album from the UK. Like, ever. This is an absolutely bad ass record with a stellar, I repeat, stellar sound. Crunchy, with a thick bass backing, clear leads and a singer that actually sounds angry enough to give that bit of extra edge to the already great songs. “Shattered Existence” shows a band that knows exactly what they want to achieve and actually have the means to reach that goal. It is not to do anything out of the ordinary but to THRASH, and it does just that.
Sabbat: Dreamweaver
Sabbat had made themselves a bit of a name with “History of a time to come” already, and what they understood like few other bands was to weave a little atmosphere into their otherwise actually quite ferocious thrashing. Acoustic parts, Celtic Frost-like spoken word passages and the likes serve to illustrate that this band was focused on creating more than just another thrash album, which probably also led to that cover choice that would rather suit a Blind Guardian disc. Keep your fucken mushrooms off my thrash booklets! Still, the only thing that remains of their legacy is their guitarist Andy Sneap producing legions of bands in the exact same – or more favorably, distinct – way today. For shame.
Energetic Krusher: Path to oblivion
In all honesty, it’s actually pretty obvious why most people have never heard of Energetic Krusher: Path to oblivion. That is probably the lamest band name of the whole year. It’s not only that the Crusher gets less ambiguous with a tough “K”, he is in fact also energetic, in case you were expecting a low-energy crushing. That aside though, these guys’ only full-length is a damn enjoyable thrash disc with loud bass and great death metal vocals. In a fair world, these guys would have gotten a thicker production job for their second album and toured the galaxy. In reality you have to find their one single album of greatness on Grooveshark.
Risk: Hell’s animals
Onwards, to Germany! Its thrash underground in ’89, that is. Probably one of Deutschland’s oldest metal bands (and also one nobody has ever heard of) is Risk, formerly known as Faithful breath, who turned towards thrash in 1986, released a fantastic debut under this new moniker and in 1989 came forward with their sophomore release, “Hell’s animals”. If you want to know what Speed Metal with just as much focus on groove as on speed, and with a decidedly thrash-oriented singer sounds like, these guys will definitely be worthy of your attention. Their first album is a little better even, but “Hell’s animals” also is a damn good slice of superdry, riff-centered headbanging material.
Poltergeist: Depression
Originally German, then Switzerland-based, Poltergeist probably are most known (if at all) for their singer André Grieder having a brief intermezzo with Destruction, which I by the way consider one of the most enjoyable releases of said band due to exactly that. Poltergeist’s 1989 album “Depression” gets a little lost sometimes, but is still worth checking out if you’re looking for a dry sound, clearly audible bass, good thrash shouting and enough killer riffing to always get you back on track.
Protector: Urm the mad
And last but not least we have Protector: “Urm the mad”, a low-fi yet groove-heavy sign of what was to come for the band who released their follow-up masterpiece blend of thrash and death metal two years later. It already features the great, hollow death grunts of Martin Missy and the thick wooly guitars, it’s just that the punch and overall conciseness of “A shedding of skin” hasn’t been reached. On that album basically every riff hit home though, and I guess you don’t produce material like that every other year.
Black Metal
Apparently the only thing that happened for black metal in 1989 was related to the imagery, with lasting effects on the second wave of black metal bands. King Diamond had supplied the corpsepaint, the rest started here:
Admittedly, I’m no expert on the genre, but to my research and knowledge ’89 marks a definite gap between the first and second wave of black metal, yet I know of at least one notable album that can probably be considered a part of the “first wave of Black Metal” still, and it’s from – of all places – Italy. Nope, not by Bulldozer, but:
Schizo: Main frame collapse
These guys also are among the first acts to merge thrash and blast beats, yet this time around with decidedly black metal sound to it, and filthy at that. Main frame collapse might not have the thematic focus of later acts, but I’ll be damned if this isn’t one dirty, bad-ass sounding thrash disc foreshadowing what many other bands that later called their style “blackened thrash” would attempt down the road. Plus, those nods to eighties Celtic Frost production definitely makes this listenable to this very day.
Oh, and can I file Milli Vanilli here, too?
Glam Rock
And yes, we were still in the eighties. Glam rock hadn’t died – quite the contrary, two shining examples of the genre deserve mention.
Mötley Crüe: Dr. Feelgood
Having reached a commercial high, the Crüe got themselves a perfect, as in technically perfect, production job. Money talks. This album sounds absolutely awesome, although I wouldn’t say so for all of the song material. “Kickstart my heart” is a definite personal favorite of mine though. And yes, this album needs to be listened to solely based on the production job. Apparently it was a major inspiration to Metallica’s sound for the Black album as well, and the one thing that was good about that was the knob job, which was also done by Bob Rock. Go figure.
Skid Row: Skid Row
Releasing their debut in 1989, these guys were definitely late to the party, yet still made it to somewhat of a household name for the genre. Song-wise, this still sounds a lot hungrier than their bigger brothers (see above), and tunes like “Youth gone wild”, “Big guns” or “Sweet little sister” prove that these guys were at the very height of their game straight from the get-go. If you have but a passing interest in glam, I would not pass on this album. It did definitely not reinvent the wheel or electric hairdryer, but the guys understood (late…) what the game was all about and played it exceptionally well.
Accept: Eat the heat
Nope, this is actually filed correctly. Glam rock. Accept. Just this album. Having gotten a replacement singer for Udo Dirkschneider and having found him in an American called David Reece, Accept turned to a more Americanized sound indeed. The bad thing, traditionalists might argue, is that “Eat the heat” sounds like glam. The good thing is though, it keeps a hard heavy metal edge and thus forms a pretty damn awesome glam album. Too bad if you hate that genre, but I can definitely get some enjoyment out of this.
Death Metal
And now, ladies and gentlemen, we get to the really, really essential stuff. This is a death metal focused site, after all, and if you’ve made it this far, well, here’s your absolute codex of the genre’s very beginnings. It’s almost absurd how mindblowingly packed with LEGENDARY the line-up here is:
Morbid Angel: Altars of madness
Best debut, third best album of the eighties, fifth best growler, best album cover. Is there anything this album hasn’t achieved? Hardly so, and it is probably one of the most defining albums for the entire world of death metal. It’s superfluous to go into more detail here, this has been dissected in glorious fashion on this site in all its aspects. Let me tell you it’s for a good reason, but if you don’t know that yet, you should probably not be reading this but going to your closest store picking up the album. Altars of madness emanates the chaotic menace of death from start to finish.
Pestilence: Consuming impulse
This album came in just behind Morbid Angel’s debut on out best of the eighties list, and while Pestilence did their best to spoil their legacy as an old school death metal act (van Drunen carried on the torch with Asphyx instead), this album rendered those efforts useless. The quality of this, their sophomore release, is undeniable. The album’s sick vocals, catchy riffing and its overall relentless urge forwards are traits that make this one of the best releases that 1989 spewed forth. They could maybe have come up with a better cover, but nobody’s perfect, right?
Obituary: Slowly we rot
While many others were still testing the boundaries in terms of speed, Obituary decidedly took another direction and opened the young genre of death metal for sick, dragging grooves and a big Celtic Frost influence. And while others again tried to get more and more “extreme” topics into metal lyrics, Obituary only at first sight followed that direction (read the song titles), but actually went one step further towards actual nihilism and did the almost logical thing to just scrap lyrics altogether. For some reason, not even they themselves stuck with that approach for too long, but this by all means immature yet in a way uncompromising way of expressing themselves can definitely be seen as a literally “extreme” moment in extreme metal history. So, Slowly we rot sees their very own John Tardy spit his soul out without any direct meaning except for that of sheer transgression of the borders of the acceptable. The vocals serve solely the purpose of groove and flow, and indeed “Slowly we rot” (nomen est omen) shines most when delving into that typical Allen West style, dragging, chromatic riff that sluggishly pounds the listener into submission.
Autopsy: Severed Survival
If you’re looking for the originators of filthy as shit Death metal, look no further. The band around drummer/vocalist Chris Reifert opted out of the blast beat mania of many later bands before the question about it even arose. Driven by a massive bass guitar, “Severed survival” rumbles, crackles and roars on its path through about 40 minutes of primeval death halfway between Mantas and Incantation. And let’s not forget that it grooves like a motherfucker. And while I might not be a fervent fan of Autopsy’s whole discography, this piece still is a must-listen. It does have the dragging grooves as well as speedier parts, it’s nasty but coherent and earthy in tone yet still sporting hooks of sorts. There are absolutely no flaws to this album, as any old schooler will agree.
Sempiternal Deathreign: The Spooky Gloom
…and if you like Autopsy, chances are you should give these Dutchies with the great band name a go. They might not have had the naming thing down to a t (“Creep-o-rama”, “The spooky gloom” – scared yet?), but what they lacked in feel for english, they made up for with dark, in a cheesy b-movie way menacing death/doom with lots of slow open note riffing and a few faster numbers to break things up nicely and (by a year or two) foreshadow what should soon later become a typically “Dutch” sound, think Asphyx, Thanatos and the likes. So yes, this is a definitive originator.
Terrorizer: World Downfall
Ranked #4 on our albums of chaos , and at least a #18 on the best debuts list, this album was the first to merge death metal and grind successfully. To give you an idea of the awesome times we are talking about here – it was a year when you could just put the (outside of tape-trading circles) still unknown Jesse Pintado and Pete Sandoval into a room for a bit of jamming, produce one of the greatest death/grind albums of all time and just get David Vincent (!) in for session bass, who later apparently claimed he didn’t even like the album all that much. Oh well, what else should he have done with his time! Okay, I was exaggerating a bit, these guys actually produced quite a few (may I say excellent, as I have kept whoring them forever) demos, on which they gradually evolved towards the complete beast whose existence culminated with “World downfall” – a legacy best left alone, as we should confirm over 20 years later. This album captured best blending of the ferocious energy of grind and the cold precision of the emerging Floridian Death metal, resulting in calculated outbursts like “Corporation Pull-in”, “Dead shall rise” or the iconic “Fear of napalm”. This album is nothing short of a milestone for death metal and grind alike. Own it.
And when we talk about merging death and grind, there’s more stuff that can’t be quite placed with either one of both genres, the only thing that’s for sure is the awesomeness permeating the following recordings. 1989 served (proto-)grind in spades:
Repulsion: Horrified
If you like grind, well, you will like this album. It’s raw, it’s got the mother of all fuzz bass sounds, and it’s probably impossible to ever recreate. In that, this sits comfortably next to Napalm Death’s early work whose sheer intensity just completely annihilates everything in its path. This is one of the prime examples why shiny production, thought-out arrangements and instrumental prowess are one thing, but spirit is another. If you ever see a top three of essential grindcore releases without this album listed, look for another.
Carcass: Symphonies of sickness
Musically, we’re dealing with an absolute trainwreck here. How a track like “Ruptured in purulence” could ever made it onto a full-length record is beyond me. Those drums are probably the worst thing I’ve ever heard on a studio album. Yet somehow, this album manages to unveil a unique quality under the thick layer of dirt, to show something that certainly had never been done before. And by that I don’t mean raping instruments and recording it.
Bolt Thrower: Realm of chaos
Early Bolt Thrower might be a different story than everything they released post War master , but on Realm of chaos , everything fell into place. Shit was still fucken filthy to the bone, and with a distinct blend of grind influences (the obvious example being blast beats, later dropped by the band entirely) and a primal death metal heaviness, the Bolts made sure no-one made it out alive. The instrumental performances show, let’s put it this way, that the band was definitely going for their limits, decades before the honest and commendable “well, we can’t write any better shit anymore” self-assessment stage they found themselves in post- “Those once loyal”. 1989 was too early for adult shit like that, instead the band ventured into lead guitar hell and the blast beat maelstrom without really knowing exactly what they were doing. And in the same process they just somehow came up with their future trademark “wall of sound”. So, “Realm of chaos” just shows that the ambition to play brutal music didn’t necessarily entitle you to be a perfect musician – yet. Bolt Thrower chose the path of knowledge and mastered their craft later on, but that doesn’t mean their early stuff loses anything of its appeal to me. At all. In fact, I rank this among their best releases.
Righteous Pigs: Live and Learn
This one is definitely an acquired taste. Walking the thin line between greatness and massive suck (the worst vocalists in metal list might give you an idea) this album alongside Stress related has a special place in my collection, yet I happily admit it isn’t for everybody. To save you some time, just listen to “Misconduct” and judge if you like that one. It won’t get better, as they at least could hold a fucken rhythm on this one, more or less. You really have to dig Napalm Death’s Mitch Harris in order to enjoy this, but then it’s a bit of a raw gem.
Defecation: Purity dilution
Another Mitch Harris project released its debut right before he joined Napalm Death, and the general direction is already showing – no wonder, with Napalm’s Mick Harris occupying the drum seat. The guys’ little sideproject of stripped-down blunt aggression definitely gravitated towards death metal a lot more than their earlier works. What can be heard here is basically a precursor to “Harmony Corruption”, Napalm Death’s third, should I say “coming of age” album. So while the main band in the huge bunch of related projects, Napalm Death, kept it rather quiet in ’89 with the exception of the “Mentally murdered” EP, the situation in and around the band was everything but standing still.
Industrial Metal
Godflesh: Streetcleaner
…and speaking of Napalm Death, of course Justin Broadrick’s brainchild Godflesh is one of the most important offspring from their folds. Streetcleaner marks their debut, and compromises were not to be made: “Bleakness” is the word here. Combining death metal heaviness with dehumanized, mechanistic drum computer beats sounds good to you? Well, this album will too.
Ministry: The mind is a terrible thing to taste
One cannot pass on Ministry when talking about Industrial Metal, and if you like your aggression cold, sharp and sample-laden this is an album for you. Part of the whole idea is a certain monotony that you will have to put up with, though. For a 1989 album, this shit sounds pretty damn “modern” if you ask me, and while I’m not a huge fan of this style, you gotta give credit where it’s due.
Rest Metal
So, you think we’re done? Wrong. 1989 had more aces up its sleeve. Let’s round this off nicely and talk traditional metal, doom, power, heavy, prog and whatnot. Rest metal. Doesn’t mean they’re any worse than the stuff above though. Just see / listen for yourself:
Faith no more: The real thing
This is one of those album that just went completely off the rail. Metal wasn’t supposed to groove like a funk album? Yet these folks went with it and basically created the first new metal album – in nineteen eighty-nine. Mike Patton rapped, shouted and sang clean over a bass-centered (huh!?) instrumental base that managed to incorporate piano melody lines just as well as strings and organs while keeping a healthy edge throughout. If all new metal actually sounded this new, the genre possibly would have seen a lot more love. Derivative as it however turned out to sound, it might as well have ended after this very album. If you consider yourself open-minded, here’s one to put that to the test.
Melvins: Ozma
With about one trillion albums on their record, there actually was a time when the Melvins were a somewhat new act, and 1989 saw the release of their second album, “Ozma”, which already made filthy, sludgy sauce ooze from speakers years before the stoner and sludge terms caught on to a larger fanbase. With a ton of relatively short songs, “Ozma” has a collage-like, almost experimental feel to it. The band’s creativity seems to be floating freely from funk to suffocating groove and psychedelic randomness. Less of an album than an outburst of creativity, this album is an early testimony of the spontaneous awesomeness that shaped the Melvins.
Running Wild: Death or glory
Think about Ruminq Wild what you may, but you cannot tell me Death or glory is not an absolutely spectacular heavy metal album. The vocals are ballsy and energetic, and safe for that bass-centered instrumental, all other 9 songs are awesome takes on the anthemic style Running Wild used to be known for, yet all of them with very distinct traits and specialties. If you asked multiple persons for their favorite songs off the album, after three to four guys you might just have the tracklist completed. The one thing all songs do have in common is that they are completely permeated by a special catchiness that (in theory) every classic heavy metal song should be centered around – It’s nothing but a feat to listen through the awesome buildups in “Riding the storm” or “Running blood”, lead work and catchy choruses intertwine perfectly, and a crowdpleaser like “Evilution” works as well as the almost 8 minutes of “The battle of Waterloo”. Everything had been done right for this disc. And hey, they even had a real drummer back then. Breaking news: That helps. To me, Heavy Metal doesn’t get much better than this album, really. To further prove the quality of this recording, I can only encourage you to check out Stormwitch’s “Eye of the storm”. Same year, same formula, same costumes, vast difference in quality. Not everybody can pull this shit of.
Candlemass: Tales of Creation
This whole album is pretentious as shit, but god damn are those riffs badass. If you ever need to teach somebody a lesson on simple, awesome riffing, this disc will be your perfect companion. It is proof that heaviness does work with clean vocals – even Messiah Marcolin’s irritating (on paper) vibrato assault cannot change that this is a damn awesome album. His vocals might just add to it even, but the jury’s still out on that one. They can take their time for that for all I care, as long as Leif Edling and friends can be heard unleashing one behemoth of a riff after another. Whatever they do, it works – even that awesome Helloween-ish instrumental. Yep, the guys were still at the height of their game here.
Fates Warning: Perfect Symmetry
Being not much of a proghead myself, I can still appreciate it when done well. Enter Fates Warning and their 1989 opus “Perfect symmetry”, their fifth album already. Back when wankery was not a mandatory inclusion to be labelled progressive, Fates Warning managed to keep shit engaging by interesting song structures and rhythmic patterns, and in Ray Alder brought a singer to keep it all together, Geoff Tate style. This album might not be particularly heavy, but it retains a good deal of edge to impress on first listen as much as on later exposures when one is able to appreciate the detail work as well.
Black Sabbath: Headless cross
I have to admit I’ve never really looked into Black Sabbath much, apart from the stuff you cannot miss. So, putting together this feature, one of the albums I “discovered” for myself was this one. Yeah, I know.
Look what I found Ma, they’re called Black Sabbath!
Anyway, I’m happy I did, as this totally not what I would have expected from the fathers of doom. Despite the cover, this is decidedly non-occult, but an epic, soulful heavy metal album big on catchiness and tasty solos, although the guitars actually don’t play the main role, which is reserved for Tony Martin. His voice is absolutely perfect for the album, as he easily grabs your attention, but never goes over the top in terms of range, which also means of course that he comes across as absolutely comfortable in everything he does. Great album, hands down. After about three fantastic choruses I stopped counting.
And for those more into the classic heavy way of metal, 1989 served Kind Diamond’s “Conspiracy” that, if you can take his falsetto, is probably one of the better albums by the dude, Stratovarius still sounding a bit thrashier and heavy metal oriented on “Fright night” than what they are now known for, Blind Guardian maturing further into a nerd’s wet dream with “Follow the blind” and of course the fantastic video to Savatage’s “Gutter Ballet”. Who fucken paid for that? All of this stuff will definitely be up anyone’s alley who’s into somewhat ballsy heavy/power metal, but my love ends here. As does this feature.
King Diamond: Conspiracy on Grooveshark
Stratovarius: Fright night on Grooveshark
Blind guardian: Valhalla
Savatage: Gutter ballet on Grooveshark
Phew. In conclusion, 1989 was a year where thrash had been well-defined already, and it was now for the genre’s bands to stretch it in all kinds of directions, from progressive to riff-centered and stripped down – with mostly fantastic outcomes. Yet the real new ground was broken by death metal acts, which took the game one step further. Transitional as it was however, the year also featured some late Eighties gems in glam rock and heavy metal side by side with music that was way ahead of its time incorporating funk or industrial influence into metal. This year had it all. Actually, I’m not sure why we even got more years afterwards.
Now get the fuck out of here.
