...One Take No Dubs...

“…I made you laugh when I tried to dance…”

Well, the title pretty much spells it out for us as Neat hands us four single take, studio-live songs from as many bands, all of whom are naturally British and hail from the label’s extensive gallery of cuddly misfit NWOBHM groups. Love these weird little releases.

Cutting to the chase…okay, Alien’s third gear cruiser, “Could Have Done Better”, could’ve stolen the show at side and song one if most of the rest of the material here wasn't so friggin’ nifty. Regardless, some all around cool lives here both rhythmically and in the chorus, shedding light on a band that had absolutely nothing going on prior to this and sadly nothing to write home about after.

In any case, stand tall they should, ‘cos that minority percentage of ‘most of the rest of the material’ comes with the rather commonplace chug of Avenger’s opus. While not really a bad song, when compared to Alien’s whirling spacecraft (and the other tracks), “Hot ‘N’ Heavy Express” is only merely warm, middle weight, and just isn't too smoothly nimble of a ride.

It’s hard to keep from getting knocked out by Black Rose’s “Knocked Out”, a turbulent bruiser that’s as furiously fast as it is virulent and immediately raises the disk’s bar pretty far above side one’s contenders. Wish more of their stuff could bend iron with a smile like this, meanwhile Alien’s haughty stance shudders in this thing’s amped up wake.

But low and behold, snortin’ in a full-on charge with heat vision dead set on frying Black Rose’s high jump record is Hellanbach’s “All Systems Go (Full Scale Emergency)” – jeez, this song wasn't born for that title or anything. I sit here with nothing better to do but translate the language of these two evenly-matched tracks into boxing adversaries. It’s a doozy of a fight alright, at least until about the tenth round where Hellanbach’s bootlace is pulled loose by this stupid Donna Summer/get-up-n-dance whistle charge that admittedly almost works if this wasn't, um, METAL. That slight stumble is the unfortunate ring breaker here and the decision goes to existing champ'een Black Rose. Alien trudge back to the locker room still with a bit of confidence in their stride. Avenger abandoned ship during round two, but they’d be back in a year or so stronger than ever.

One Take No Dubs is one of those luckless disks that went unnoticed despite all of its clanging bells, and all save Alien/“Could Have Done Better” would lace up again for a future match. But those of us who tripped over it somewhere down the line and gave it two cents worth of attention are way richer for the effort, and hardly anyone outside the immediate ‘know’ could have predicted that some of the most exciting early metal sounds would build homesteads in the grooves of this thing.

But am I ever happy? Nope. There’s the evil scientist in me that wonders if a parallel reality exists where Avenger is devoured by Jaguar and “Hot ‘N’ Heavy Express” is derailed and chopped to bits by the nearly inhuman-for-‘82 “Axe Crazy”. Flee Alien, flee!