TNT-Knights of the new thunder, 1984

Probably one of those many bands that only I seem to like, but I certainly enjoy them. In the summer of 1985 I was listening to a local radio show called Midnight Metal and they played an hour of all metal songs. One of the songs was Deadly Metal by the TNT. I liked it a lot and had to find the album it came from. This album like all of their early albums has a mix of styles on it. Although I would say that this may be the heaviest album they did. This was the band's second release and the first to feature American vocalist Tony Harnell (actually credited as Tony Hansen on this album). The rest of the band is from Norway. From the opener "Seven Seas" we can right away hear the vocal of Mr. Harnell. However I am even more impressed with the playing of guitarist Ronnie LeTekro. I feel that he is one of the most underrated players I know of. It's not just the solos either because he has his own style when he plays his rhythms too. His style is a little subtle, but very effective. As for the overall sound, I said it's mixed because we get some solid metal songs like "Deadly Metal" and "USA", we get more melodic songs like Ready to leave and Without your love and we get songs like "Last Summer's evil" and "Knights of the thunder" that may be somewhere between those two above categories. I had this on vinyl for years and just got it on cd like a year or so ago. Now I knew that the cd had a bonus track, but it always throws me off when they stick a bonus track in the middle rather than at the end. I was so used to the album going a certain way and now all of a sudden there is this different song in the middle. However, the bonus track "Tor with the hammer" is probably one of my favorites on the cd. Now I do have to add that the lyrcics are bad, okay they are very bad. Songs about of metal being a cause and sappy love songs. Still the music and vocals are good enough to make up for that. Still a CD I reach for fairly often.