Lightning to the Nations

There are a multitude of classic albums, which in my particular taste have not aged well, these are albums and bands that were in the right place at the right time and were lucky and resourceful enough to create a legacy with their name. Diamond Head with Lightning to the Nations is not such an example. This album to this day, 43 years after its release, still sounds authentic and fantastic and still stands as a cornerstone of the NWOBHM and as one of the major influences of early thrash metal.

But what makes this album so special? Far from being a single particular aspect, Lightning to the Nations is composed of a multitude of factors that fit together in a great way to form this final work. This is one of those albums where you can really say that all the songs are anthems of the genre, and this is because each song really has its own personality, they stand out for different aspects and are perfectly memorable. This is surely a consequence of musicians who spent years perfecting their style and when the time came for their debut album they showed the world the best they had. Being a band founded in 1976, the compositions were going around in the heads of the members for quite a long time, but you can also appreciate diverse musical influences from that time and earlier, such as psychedelic rock, progressive and even traces of punk in the music, passing through the clear influences of the heaviest, Black Sabbath, Judas Priest, Deep Purple .... All this forming a mixture with a lot of personality and own presence displayed in each of the songs.

Brian Tatler would sign his immortal legacy on this album simply by the amount of catchy and monstrous riffs created by him that would be readapted and even directly copied to satiety, and although "Am I Evil" has stood out far above the rest of the songs, the truth is that each of them has that same factor. But it is not only that. The composition of the songs is very intelligent and varied, there are songs with a more spectacular cut with a multitude of segments so that at no time you can even lose the attention of what you are listening to, and also there are the short songs with a simpler and easy going cut but that do not renounce to the heaviness and speed, being just as iconic.

All this added to a prodigious performance by Colin Kimberley on bass, which steals the show on many occasions, and also thanks to a performance by Sean Harris, which I began to appreciate much more when listening to the 2020 re-recording of this album, it is simply incredible how well his voice adapts to the music and how charismatic it is, being in many occasions the most vital part of the song. Overall you can't say anything other than this album is so much about the collective effort over the years coinciding with the members being in an absolute state of grace when it comes to recording the songs. Truly a lightning in a bottle.

Classic for a reason, so influential that you've probably listened to most of the album even if you've never listened to it directly just because of the amount of musicians that have appropriated its riffs. Everlasting and timeless, if you've never listened to it I don't know what you're waiting for, and if you have I'm sure you're looking forward to listening to it again.