THUNDERMUG — Strikes (Canadian) (review)

THUNDERMUG — Strikes (Canadian) album cover

Album · 1972 · Hard Rock

4/5 · 2015-04-04
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Thundermug's debut "Thundermug Strikes" from 1972 was reissued not long ago by Greg Hambleton's Axe Records, along with their third album "Ta-Daa". I had been trying to track down a CD ever since I stumbled across the band while searching for 1970's hard rock and heavy metal, so once I saw the reissue was available for a reasonable price and included bonus tracks I ordered a copy and received it from Canada within a week or so.

And was I ever impressed! What I had heard on YouTube was enough to make me want to buy the album, but then again I have bought a lot of stuff just because I am a kind of proto-metal junkie. Especially in late 2013 and again over the last two months I have been scrounging the Net for more proto-metal bands of all flavours and as a result I have been building up a pretty broad understanding of the heavy guitar rock scene between 1969 and 1973 (my target years). And as I said, Thundermug really impressed me.

The thing to say about the music on this album is that it is hard rock, very upbeat mostly, but it doesn't sound like almost anything else I have heard from 1972. I might say it resembles in a couple of parts "Toys in the Attic / Rocks" Aerosmith for the maturity and tightness of playing and song writing. Or perhaps in a part or two Blue Oyster Cult comes to mind for the relatively high technical playing of good, fun hard rock. But more than that, Thundermug's music here in 1972 seems to portent the kind of rock / hard rock that would soon be making its way up the Canadian music charts with homegrown talent like April Wine, Trooper, and Prism. But in a way, this album also seems to provide a stepping stone between these bands who achieved great success in the mid to late seventies for their hard rock songs and the closer-to-metal sound of early eighties Canadian bands like Helix and Kick Axe. That is to say, Thundermug have the tightness and musical skill of Aerosmith and Blue Oyster Cult at their most successful 70's period, the heaviness of early eighties bands Helix and Kick Axe, and the commercial appeal of April Wine and Trooper.

This makes for a pretty remarkable hard rock album from four Canucks in 1972. What's even more remarkable is that after getting a few hits on the Canadian charts, the band fizzled out. It's as if they told the others, "Here's how to make really good hard rock and get in the charts" and then somehow got lost.

The reissue comes with three extra tracks that didn't make the original release due to time constraints. The tracklist is as follows: Africa, And They Danced, You Really Got Me, Page 125 / What Would You Do / Help Father Sun, The Investigator, Fortunes Umbrella, Jane "J" James, Alex, It's Coming Loose, Will They Ever, Where Am I

Let me tell you, there are no acoustic ballads here, no strings. This is electric guitar, some times poppy and early 70's commercial but mostly with a really thick and rich distortion sound. The drums play a simple steady beat only for the cover of "You Really Got Me". The rest of the time the sticks just keep flying rhythmically. The bass player is no slouch either. His playing on "Africa" is like a herd of zebras stampeding. There's no much to hear from the keyboards on this album. It seems the band preferred to keep the guitars front and centre.

Special mention has to go to the vocals of Joe de Angelis. Is it Trooper? Is it Kick Axe? Damn, but this guy has a real hirsute hard rock vocal style. He would have done so well in 1977. He has all the great vocalizations and emphasis of a hard rock singer. The guy should have been a star.

Alright, so keep in mind this is not heavy metal. There is no doom here, and the music is mostly too light to be heavy. But they rock. And this is not just your typical three chord, 4/4 beat band. Rush said of their music that when they did "Permanent Waves" they took what they'd learned as a prog band and tried to work that into shorter songs. I won't go suggesting that Thundermug are prog; however, they pack a lot of interesting stuff into their music that puts them ahead of your standard blues-based hard rockers from 1972.

After receiving this impressive collection of music, I sent a message to Greg Hambleton and said it was a pity that "Orbit" was not available. He replied that he was planning to reissue that one in a few months' time (later in 2015). A reviewer back in the day said that "Orbit" was where the band really hit their high mark, and from what I heard on YouTube that album could be even better than this one. I'll be waiting...