This time around I am only bringing in some of the newest reissues from Metal Mind. I got tons more in storage but is hard to keep up with this label's frenetic output. This Polish label keeps churning reissues out as if it was easy.  On the downside, most of these reissues no longer feature the extensive liner notes of the Nuclear Blast and Roadrunner reissues, but the bonus tracks alone justify their price. Read on and spread the word.

Daniel Ekeroth makes frequent mention of Silver Mountain in his brilliant book Swedish Death Metal. So when I first heard their third full-length Roses & Champagne (Hex, 1988) a couple of weeks back  and was bathed by the dated sounds of 80’s cock rock I was more disappointed than the time my dog Chu Chu got run over by a semi. No kidding. That album sounds like it was recorded by Britny Fox. Or even worse, it comes off as a less flashy Pretty Boy Floyd. I sure as hell wasn’t expecting that type of glam crap.  Whatever happened between 1988 and 2001 is beyond me, because on Silver Mountain’s last opus Breakin’ Chains (Hex, 2001) these Swedes sound like Rainbow worshippers. And it ain’t half bad. Sure, vocalist / guitarist Jonas Hansson had his hands full trying to emulate Ritchie Blackmore and Dio all at once and the strain shows. But this is quality classic metal with all the neo classical influences they could muster. Sadly, after this brief return to the European metal scene, Silver Mountain would disband after the recording of this album.

Polish people are known for their kielbasas and their indiscriminate intake of astonishing quantities of alcoholic beverages. So it is no surprise that one of Poland’s best known thrash metal bands is called Acid Drinkers. I mean, had they called themselves Beer Drinkers they would have come off as pussies, right? In a way Acid Drinkers is to Poland as Tankard is to Germany. In the same sense that Tankard is fairly unknown in the US, Acid Drinkers are less recognizable than a Prada handbag from Canal Street. Anyway, Acid Drinkers have been in the game of thrash since 1986 and Dirty Money, Dirty Tricks (Under One Flag, 1991) is their second full-length.  With the whole intent of sounding like a funny bunch but not being a joke band the songs this quartet writes come off as subpar leftovers from a horrible Crumbsuckers album. The Acid Drinkers even have the nerve of turning Deep Purple’s “Smoke On the Water” into an unfunny thrash metal number. I’ve seen funnier moments in that movie Bio Dome, and that was like the worst movie ever.  

Birmingham’s Cerebral Fix (pictured above) released a great second album titled Tower of Spite (Roadrunner) back in 1990. Somehow its follow up, Bastards (Roadrunner, 1991) failed to keep the interest of their fanbase.  1992 would bring Death Erotica, their fourth and last recording of the millennium.  By then, it was sure that people stopped paying attention.  The thing with Death Erotica is that it is packed with solid mid tempo songs, but their joke has no punchline, their aural beating is void of a lethal blow.  As a result, there is no memorability to any of the tunes. They are a good listen but that’s about it.  That said, this album is not without its duds, “Too Drunk To Funk” proves its title right. At the time of this recording these dudes were probably too drunk to metal too. Death Erotica officially ends with a totally pathetic cover of Judas Priest’s “Livin’ After Midnight”. Why is it that all thrash metal bands have to include the audience in their stupid attempts at humor?. This Metal Mind reissue includes nine bonus tracks which feature appearances by members of Napalm Death, Marshall Law and Pop Will Eat Itself.

It’s been over a decade since the last time I listened to Satan’s classic Court in the Act. Checking  Metal Mind’s remastered reissue brings me right back to my brother’s room, where I used to go digging for metal. Court in the Act (Roadrunner, 1983) was one of the few tapes that I could listen to time and time again and never get sick of. Satan were a heavy metal band of the first order and Court in the Act is one of the most criminally overlooked highlights of the NWOBHM. Then again, some metalheads will argue that Satan’s prominence is good enough. Hear me loud and clear; this is a lesson in metal. Few albums capture this genre in the 80’s so clearly and gloriously. The guitars of Russ Tippins and Steve Ramsey provide musical lessons that would inform the work of more extreme musicians. Listening to the furious instrumental “Dark Side of Innocence” is like listening to a clearer vocal-free version of Possessed; albeit as helmed by Yngwie Malmsteen and produced by someone who knew the difference between tone and mud. After the release of this album Satan would change its name to Blind Fury only to claim it back for a 1986 effort titled Suspended Sentence. Unfortunately, that release fails to capture the brilliance so clearly recorded in Court in the Act.

As standard middle of the road death metal albums go, Serpent Temptation (Brutal, 1988) by Louisiana’s Opprobrium gets the whole fucking bakery. This sounds like melodic death metal minus the chops. Initially released in the 80’s when the band was still going under the Incubus moniker and subsequently reissued by Nuclear Blast in 1996 after the band changed its moniker to Opprobrium, this album sounds just like death metal sounded back in the day; simple, straight forward, primitive and kind of dull.  The artwork of this MM reissue is much better than the artwork of the original release. Metal Mind’s digipack includes the artwork from the original release and I got to say that you must see it to believe it. It’s a leaf-less tree with two skeletons by its sides and a stupid looking asymmetrical snake ‘tempting around’, get it? Opprobrium is a Christian band, but let’s not hold that anything against them. Even if this album is as important as the thirteenth apostle.

I may be sinning of nostalgia, but listening to Tank’s 1982 debut Filth Hounds of Hades (Kamaflage, 1982) I can only wonder why is it that no matter how nostalgic and revival-ready the current generation is they can’t produce music that sounds quite as authentic as this. Is it the production? Perhaps partly. Filth Hounds of Hades was produced by no other than Motorhead’s ‘Fast’ Eddie Clarke, a man not strange to creating a steamrolling sound.  And Tank’s first foray into the rock and roll world is a no frills in your face rock and metal affair.  This still active London based band (by then a trio) is usually lumped with the NWOBHM, and though not entirely inaccurate, one could say that Tank were more primitive kind of new wavers. Their tough musical attack does not feature the tandem guitar acrobatics of say Iron Maiden nor the levels of pussiness of Def Leppard. What it’s got is some fist pumping blood boiling metal tunes about nothing else but  alcohol, violence and women. This Metal Mind reissue does not include liner notes, but it adds eight bonus tracks, among them live cuts and alternate versions of tracks from the same album.

Twenty years later and Tank is still a band. Now a quartet, they sound trapped in time, freezing a style that came of age over a decade ago.  But that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Still at War (Spiritual Beast) was released in 2002 and even though it is laudable that the band is battling not to become a nostalgia act, listening to Still at War kinda makes you wish they had. Say what you will, but there is something about protecting someone’s legacy by leaving it intact. It’s not that Still at War is terrible. Some of the songs indeed rock by way of the incendiary leads of Cliff Evans and Mick Trucker but the songwriting itself is so geared towards an audience that the last time it had a boner was when Rick Allen still had two arms is not even funny. Still, this album gets extra points for its raw, gritty and crude sound. A wise move on the part of former Tank bassist Algy Ward.