Phantom Lord

They say that imitation is the greatest form of flattery, and by the dawn of the mid-80s it was fair to say that the recording industry was getting immersed in the business of imitating one of principle forerunners of thrash metal, namely Metallica. As record would have it, Dutch East Records took such a keen interest in the emerging craze that they commissioned guitar shred extraordinaire Jack Starr to produce three albums on a shoe-string budget with himself, drummer and multi-instrumentalist Joe Hasselvander and bassist Ned Meloni as principle musicians and flying under the assumedly fictitious label Pentagram Records, which also fielded the 1985 debut album of the famed doom metal pioneers of the same name. Though each of these three projects were within the purview of heavy metal traditionalism, the specific project of Phantom Lord (named for the Metallica song and drawing inspiration from the same creative well) would veer the closest to the emerging thrash metal sound and prove the only effort of the three with a degree of staying power.

Everything about this project's rustic 1985 debut just screams German speed metal, in spite of the band's name pointing to it being a Metallica tribute act cropping up pretty early in the game. Each of the three commissioned musicians, along with recruited front man and rhythm guitarist Steve Price (perhaps best known for his work with Thor), take it to the point of adopting German pseudonyms and proceed embody just about every trope of the corresponding scene from the streamlined riffing style to the gritty, quasi-growled vocals. Truth be told, the only thing that really separates this from being easily mistaken for something that would have been put out by Grave Digger or Iron Angel at the time is the extremely rough mixing job, which can be credited to this album (along with the other 2 commissioned by Dutch East) being fully recorded and mixed within a mere 12 hours, naturally a credit to all of those involved given its power in spite of the David Wood-like conditions in which it was conceived.

Though this album presents a competent demonstration of speed metal mayhem by all involved, it's pretty clear that Jack Starr is the chief attraction here. The most distinctive feature of these songs it the near relentless display of lead guitar mayhem that peppers nearly every moment that Price isn't singing, dwarfing even the overt showboating that Kirk Hammett was trotting out "Hit The Lights" and "No Remorse". It's pretty clear judging just on the Judas Priest-infused cooker and opener "Live Fast, Rock Hard" that Starr is trying to figure out how many notes he can jam into four and a half minutes, and to his credit, it does serve to mask the song's extremely basic structure. Other offerings like "Mad Bash" and "Mach 10" have more distinctive riff sets and could function without all of the improvisatory chaos that Starr indulges us in, but again, along with even slower and chunkier offerings like "Fight The Thunder" it all manages to add more charm to what is almost along the lines of a demo quality recording.

The biggest drawback to this otherwise impressive emulation of the German sound by a New York-based project is that the sonic quality just feels so utterly kneecapped and incomplete. Those who may be in possession of the original 12" release and heard it in context back in the day may not have experienced the same thing, but the 2018 Skol digital version reveals pretty much every shortcoming that the original recording process had from a logistics standpoint. A year later many of these songs would end up being rerecorded under Jack Starr's flagship project Burning Starr with Mike Tirelli bringing a much more polished approach to the vocals, but there is a certain mystique to the versions that appear on this release, a sort of working class charm that would make it worth a listen, especially for those who live and die by the laws of old school metal.