Dream Death-Journey into mystery

I am pretty sure it was around Christmas of 1987 that I bought this one on cassette. Now keep in mind at this time I was living on a steady diet of thrash, hardcore and crossover so just mainly fast stuff. That was true for most of the time between about 1986 an 1989. That night I wanted to buy something I hadn't heard before and I settled on Pittsburgh's Dream Death just because they were on New Renaissance. They were home of thrash acts I liked then including Executioner, Blood Feast and At War. I got the cassette home, stuck into the player and plopped into my bed waiting for the speed to overpower me. Wait, this wasn't thrash, it was heavy but not fast enough. The vocals were rough, but not as harsh as what I was used to. My immediate response was that I had wasted my money on something that wasn't thrash and therefore I was not going to listen to it. Yes, my tasted really were even more limited back then and they have not opened up all that much over the years. I was living for stuff like Slayer, Kreator, Sodom, Death, Dark Angel and the like. Anyways over the next year or so I played it every once in a while and liked it some. Part of that was because my appreciation for doom was growing although that genre was really kind of small back then. Then maybe around late 88/early 89 my Dream Death tape snapped. Quite honestly I forgot all about this band until a few years ago when I stumbled upon a review of it referring to it as a classic. I searched around and discovered that others felt the same way. Another quick search showed that "Journey into mystery" had now come out on CD. Every once in a while I would take a look and see how much it was going for, but I never bought it. Then a few weeks ago I came upon and auction ending soon and picked it up for around $7. When I got it was actually different, but better than I remembered. A number of the songs were of a heaviness pace level comparable to early Celtic Frost. The vocals were cleaner than that though. The music did at times dip to a slower pace too, but they always held on to this heavy barrage of tight, chugging riffs. The production was also well above the normal New Renaissance records' standard. Normally many albums I heard and liked back in the 80's and then heard again in recent years after a long gap tended to sound not as heavy or fast as I remembered them. However I really missed out on this one. Classic? That's not a label I like to throw around easily. I will say that this is a darn good metal album for the time and it holds up well. They probably were slightly ahead of their time and I am sure that a number of doom bands who popped up over the last say twenty years have heard this one and been influenced by it.

List with a long name

This list is "Ten hard rock/metal albums from the 1980’s that you may not have heard, but really need to". Not any mega-rarities although a few have never been released on CD and some are out of print. Still these are all very good to great albums that I think more people should hear.

10- Blind Illusion-The sane asylum (1988)
Bay Area speed metal band’s only release and it took them several years and numerous line-up changes to get to this point. It’s very much a speed metal release of the time and the place but far more creative and they took some gambles that largely work.
9-Tigertailz-Young and crazy (1987)
A lot of the glam bands of the day started to all look and sound a like after awhile. Yet the vocals of Steevi Jaimz and the slightly less pop sound of Tigertailz debut pulled me in 21 years ago and it still works for me.
8-Whiplash-Power and pain (1986)
This New Jersey trio actually knocked out several good albums, but none of them matched the intensity or the originality of their whopping debut.
7-Witchfinder General-Friends of hell (1983)
Many NWOBHM bands were trying various different approaches, but these guys reached back to the 1970’s took a page out of Sabbath’s book and added on to out with surprisingly solid results.
6-Artillery-Fear of tomorrow (1985)
Criminally overlooked early speed metal outfit from Denmark. I am not as big on the vocals as I am on the music, but this is a killer. It’s very possible that these guys actually influenced Slayer, Sodom and others.
5-Pentagram-Day of Reckoning (1987)
Perhaps the only doom band that ran parallel to Black Sabbath rather than running behind them. They were knocking some great metal in the 70’s, but most of us didn’t get to hear it until much later. This was a later version of the band that played a much more grim, focused still style of doom and it just further managed to establish this band as one of the best of their genre.
4-Cirith Ungol-King of the dead (1984)
Actually and of their three albums from the 80’s could be on the list, but I think this might be their most consistant effort. A good mix of 70’s and 80 metal plus they combined doom and classic styled metal while making it all look rather easy.
3-Executioner-In the name of metal (1986)
The worst produced album on the list and the lyrics may not be a whole better. Doesn’t matter because they combined early speed metal with a NWOBHM metal sound. Their energy and the raw sound actually helped quite a bit.
2-Zoetrope-Amnesty (1985)
Chicago band who created their own style that pulled in elements of thrash, classic metal and even punk rock. More than anything sounded very comfortable with what they were doing.
1-Medieval-Medieval Kills (1987)
If there was one band who could have changed metal for the better it was this trio who certainly didn’t look like your typical metal band with their short and clean cut image. Yet the music was gritty, heavy, rough and they were probably several years ahead of their time. Unfortunately their label hit a snag and this album didn’t get distributed like it should and many people never had the pleasure of hearing them.



***So there you go.