Lightning to the Nations

This is, in my humble opinion, one of the best albums in the whole NWOBHM movement. Not saying that I have heard everything from that era, but it is up there competing with classics such as Satan's Court in the Act, Iron Maiden's self titled debut, Venom's Black Metal and Tygers of Pan Tang's Wild Cat.

As so many before me, I was introduced to most of these songs by Metallica before I finally went into my favorite music store and bought this great 1980 album. Naturally, the songs on here have more of a NWOBHM blues feel than the Metallica covers and the production is less clear. This is not necessarily a bad thing for either Metallica or Diamond Head, they simply have different approaches to the songs. For example Metallica left out bits and pieces of both “The Prince” and “Helpless” and the drum-intro to “Helpless” sounds quite silly in Diamond Head's version. At least Metallica fixed that. Enough with the Metallica comparisons.

Back in the day of its release, Diamond Head was praised with now famous quotes such as “the natural successors to Zeppelin” and “there are more great riffs in one of these songs than on the first five Black Sabbath albums”. But does the album live up to it? Well, they didn't become the new Zeppelins and even though the riffs are plenty and great on this one, it is probably an overstatement in regards to the Black Sabbath comparison. But looking at the hype in a less literal way, then yes, this band had a lot to offer. Comparing them to other bands from Britain in that period, there most definitely was more talent in this band.Which this album is proof of.

The record opens with the awesome title track and maintains the high quality level right to the end. The music is very varied both in tempo and intensity which makes the whole album very interesting. The drums have this pre-thrash groovy feel to them and the guitar work is impressive. Not only the riffs but also the lead work delivered by Brian Tatler is amazing, see e.g. “The Prince” and “Am I Evil” (the solo in “Am I Evil” is almost identical to the one Kirk did in 1984 on their cover). Also the vocals work very well. Sean Harris is no Cronos and comparisons go more in the direction of Paul Di'Anno (imagine he could hit notes) and the great Brian Ross, i.e. less aggression and more singing. He has a great tone and I have always enjoyed his singing and even his moaning on the extended part of “Sucking My Love”, with Tatler's impressive blues solo. The bass has leading parts in several songs, so in conclusion every member really does a good job. Combining this with seven great tracks and you got a really unique and interesting album.

Very recommendable.