Axe Attack | Loppylugs

Submitted by Jon Taylor on 16 February 2013 - 10:27pm

Cover:

Artist:

Various

album-ID:

a_65

Nationality:

Various

Year:

1 980

Release-year:

0000

Num-of-tracks:

Track-listing:

All Night Long (Rainbow)*Running White Face City Boy (Gillan)*Breaking The Law (Judas Priest)*Cat Scratch Fever (Ted Nugent)*Make It Real (Scorpions)*Race With The Devil (Girlschool)*Doctor Doctor (UFO)*Highway To Hell (AC/DC)*Ready And Willing (Whitesnake)*Running Free (Iron Maiden)*You Got Living (Frank Marino & Mahogany Rush)*Sweet Emotion (Aerosmith)*Paranoid (Black Sabbath)*Bomber (Motorhead)

Length-in-mins:

Nominator:

Bean

meeting-ID:

m_25

Now-num:

Short-title:

axeAttack

nominator-ID:

u_3

Meeting-date:

Tuesday, 5 January 2010

Discogs-URL:

Various-Axe-Attack/release/1252466

Allmusic-URL:

axe-attack-mw0000203623

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reviewers-IDs data

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67

reviewed by

Glyn Lewis

Don't know about your brain / but you look alright

6-7-12-13

2-4-5-9-11

It's easy to criticise Heavy Metal music, so it would feel like a real missed opportunity not to. This is a funny old collection that is nearly an album-full of big name tracks from turn of the decade NWOBHM but which also throws in a few famous and a few not so famous other choices which don't quite fit. The songs generally have very simple constructions, you can hear all the elements that make them up – this might often be a good thing if one of these elements was strong, for example an interesting vocalist, some unusual instrumentation or clever lyrics, but largely on this album that is not the case.

I did quite like the guitar lines used on Race With the Devil, Highway to Hell has a great powerful direct sound, Running Free had some lively glam-rock style drumming, Doctor Doctor is good old tune and other bits and pieces were quite enjoyable. Somehow, however, the lumpen, clichéd bits do wear you down after a while. Paranoid and Bomber are highlights of the genre but by the time I'd got to these metal fatigue had set in. There just isn't enough variety and invention, it's music that feels like it isn't comfortable wandering too far from its standard approach and when it does it doesn't seem to work anyway.

The lyrics are dreadful and formulaic – from a limited range of dumb themes: death, fantasy, leather, crappy sexual innuendo blah blah, largely delivered tongue-not-in-cheek. Some people can see the funny side of this stuff but it's not meant that way and I don't see it that like that.

Having said that, the directness of the sound was quite refreshing and it was easy to pick up the main themes over a car stereo, so in certain situations and in the right frame of mind a short blast of this might do you good. As an album, not so sure.
66

reviewed by

Richard Norbury

A fair selection from those times. Tracks by the few american bands don't seem to fit in at all.
22

reviewed by

Neil Hornsey

Spinal Tap did it better.

I spent my entire childhood avoiding this type of music and anyone associated with it, so it was doubtful that my views were going to change now!

If anything, I was disappointed... I was expecting some heavy rock, but what I got was rather weak, middle of the road rock songs, which all seemed a bit immature. This style of music had it's place and time, and I'd prefer to leave it there.