220 VOLT — 220 Volt (review)

Album · 1983 · Heavy Metal

5/5 · 2010-06-30
Certif1ed

Turn it up loud, enjoy with beer, then do a double-take at the year of release!

With their first album, 220 Volt attempted to refine the raw power metal style that they were pioneering on their earlier full-length demo.

This is a tale of fortunately, unfortunately...

Fortunately the quality of performance not only remains, but is taken up a notch.

Unfortunately, this is at the expense of the quality of attitude and the raw edge which really made the early demo for me.

Fortunately the mix is much better, and the drums do not threaten to kick all the other instruments off the soundstage.

Unfortunately, the mix is tailored to sound like other, more famous band's mixes, and the influences shine through much harder than they did on the original demo, losing some of the band's brilliant originality - focussing too hard on the gloss and not enough on the attitude, too hard on the market and not enough on the emerging talents.

Fortunately, this is an absloutely awesome album for 1983, and should be considered among the best of metal releases in that year, easily rubbing shoulders comfortably with Metallica's Kill 'Em All, Dio's Holy Diver, Iron Maiden's Piece of Mind, Def Leppard's Pyromania, Ozzy's Bark at the Moon and Raven's All For One. Yup. THAT good.

Technically speaking, better than all of them.

Lonely Nights kicks off the album in muscular style, with monster power metal riffs. The backing for the verse is quite obviously blatantly stolen from UFO's Doctor Doctor, but given the treatment that 220 Volt give it - like a kind of slowed-down Helloween - it's quite forgiveable. The quite brilliant, melodic and overtly Schenker-styled solo is an absolute treat. The vocals (vastly improved from 220 Volt's early demo) are pretty bearable too. This is a song written by a band who should have been destined for bigger things.

The tempo is raised a notch and the excitement mounts through the obviously Ozzy-inspired intro to No Return, with its understated thrashing in the rhythm guitar part, and wide variations in tempo invoking the Scorpions playing "I Don't Know" mashed up with Rainbow's "Eyes of the World" and the Scorp's "Always Somewhere".

This creates an odd mix of almost mechanical precision and Classic Rock organic-ness - a kind of missing link between the best of 1970s and 1980s metal/hard rock. The instrumental breakdown is superb, if a little clunky, with a great pre-solo, and some of the most fluid soloing outside Ritchie Blackmore.

The next piece begins with an intro that heralds Yngwie Malmsteen's Rising Force in terms of creamy guitar tone and quasi-classical styling, but generally feels plodding and a little forced - despite the gorgeous production and perfect balance between instrument tones, the rhythm guitars feel over produced and lose bite as a consequence.

That niggle aside, this is still ground breaking metal for the time, and again, the solo will bring a smile to any metalhead's face - especially the sumptuous minor harmonic melodies and frantic shredding, which should surely also bring blisters to your fingers and an ache in the back of your neck.

A solid crunch kicks off the more original sounding Gypsy Queen, the NWoBHM chunker you always wanted to hear - but most bands only got close. Here, 220 Volt go the whole 9 yards, with twin guitar meat hooks blazing from both barrels. I say original - the Scorps are clearly the main influence here, but that's all much of a muchness as personally, I'd like to hear more Scorps influenced bands - everyone else from this time seems to sound like either Maiden or Priest.

The quality continues with Nightwinds - a ballad, with a different vocalist, squeaky backing vocals, plinky guitars and, gasp, keys. Fortunately, the keys are strongly Hammond sounding, so no problems there. Metal + Hammonds. YUM! As with the other tracks from the early demos, I do prefer the originals, but there's no real problems with these new, polished interpretations - except, perhaps, the demonically 1980s sounding snare.

The quality of the tune and spine-chilling harmony arrangements, liquid smooth and speedy guitar soloing outweigh all of this. I'm just being picky really.

4 more tracks of metal magic round off this superb LP - 2 from the original demo, the satisfyingly frantic, Sweet/Priest inspired Child of The Night and the full-blown thrash/power metal masterpiece, Woman in White, both of which I would say exactly the same as before, that the originals have power, edge and in-yer-face rawness, which I really miss in these slick, oiled mechanised deliveries.

Of the two remaining new tracks, Stop and Look Back is merely interesting in comparison to the older material, evoking Europe more than Dragonforce, with the emphasis more on songwriting and super-slick style than musical arrangement and boundary-pushing.

Prisoner of War sounds like it's by a completely different band that just happens to have the same Power Metal approach and (for the time) awesome technical abilities, and is more satisfyingly raw and experimental in nature, with strong hints of Di'Anno/Maiden, even in the vocals and some blistering guitar work.

The sheer quality of songwriting and technical excellence in performance and production on display here makes this album a virtually comulsory purchase for anyone who considers themselves a metal fan. You're unlikely to find a copy of the demo cassette, so must content to gorge your ears on the more readily available LP - which is a MUST for any Power Metal fan, and should be considered by everyone else in the whole world really, particularly fans of Helloween and Dragonforce.

While I'm tempted to dock a point for the obvious flaws, I'm going to stick up for the unsung heroes and go all the way. 5 full Masterpiece points.