I decided to kick off Canada Rocks week with the third album from this band. Back in 1983 Exciter's debut Heavy Metal Maniac was considered one of three important speed metal debuts to come that year. The other two were Metallica's Kill 'em all and Slayer's Show no mercy. Yes, I kid you not that in 1983 these guys were mentioned in the same breath with those other two. History now shows us that by 1986 Metallica and Slayer were on their way to the big time and Exciter were beginning to slide. However between 1983 and 1986 Exciter recorded four lps and an ep. I think each of the first three albums saw the band improving and working towards a peak. The peak was this album because it saw the band playing with a power and confidence that they only showed in places on their other album. The band at this point was a trio with the drummer handling vocal duties. A rare thing for metal bands it seems. The band plays early style, straight forward speed metal. The album opens with a big thick instrumental called Fall Out which ties right into the title track which is good fast song. The next four tracks are fairly fast and they just go right ahead with little build-up, but lots of nice clean, heavy riffs and screaming vocals. After that we have Born to die which has a very different sound to the guitar. Much more fuzzy and muted during the medium paced part and then the song speeds up. The last track Born to die is fairly slow, but the band squeezes everything they can out of it. Exciter had a fairly unique sound to be honest or at least at this point in their career they did. If you like Anthrax or Judas Priest then I think you might very well like them. They never got to be that big and this may have had to do with their style,where they were from or the fact they changed record labels frequently. However I think they made an impact and their prime albums still hold up. Not every speed metal band from the 1980's can say that. After 1985 the band went through several line-up changes and eventually broke up in the 90's. However the original guitarist later resurrected the band and they continue pushing on today releasing an album every few years and playing shows.
***Canada Rocks week will continue with another album review on Monday (I hope). Likely it will be Triumph's Thunder Seven if I get a chance to listen to side of the album by then.
I'm not gonna be around much of the week, so I will sadly miss most of Canada week. But I'l eagerly look back and read your reviews of 2112 and Never, Neverland, probably my favorite albums from Rush and Annihilator, respectively.
ReplyDelete-- david
ALL HAIL EXCITER!!!!
ReplyDeleteLong Live the Loud was a KILLER album. I had it on tape (oh so many years ago), and actually got the CD about 4 months ago. I just happened across it at the closing of Media Play. Got it for $8. What a steal...:)
David-The posts will be here if you want to read back to catch up.
ReplyDeleteskeptic-I am glad that someone else has heard this one. The new version of the cd is great because it has the Feel the knife ep on it. I remember hearing Feel the knife on a late night metal radion show in 1985 and being like "whoa, who is that?".
I haven't heard this album in a long time. Never got it on CD proper, I had a dubbed cassette copy back in the day.
ReplyDeleteI remember that VIOLENCE AND FORCE got a lot of play with the people I hung out with. Exciter seemed to fall off the map after LONG LIVE THE LOUD. They were good but didn't get that major push like the Big 4 did.
I love that you did this theme, Mark. I need to get with you and leaf through some of your Exciter stuff when I go to do the interview. Exciter is on the Bang Your Head 2005 Festival DVD I just reviewed. I don't know who was singing on that one, but he's a little weird, yet Exciter were great overall on that footage.
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