Nothing like taking a trip down Memory Lane and looking at the old Metal Massacre<\/i> albums\u2014in particular, the debut release. For every band that made it big (Metallica), there were handfuls who pretty much languished in obscurity. And then, there were those who had limited success.<\/p>\n
One such band in that third category was Black \u2019N Blue \u2013 otherwise known as where Tommy Thayer cut his chops before taking over Ace Frehley\u2019s greasepaint in KISS. Their 1984 self-titled debut album featured the track \u201cChains Around Heaven,\u201d which had made the cut onto Metal Massacre<\/i> in 1982, and contained their only charting single with \u201cHold On To 18.\u201d<\/p>\n
Were they a fantastic band? No. Were they formulaic for their time? Yes. Is this still worth a listen? Surprisingly, the answer is \u201cyes.\u201d<\/p>\n
Make no mistake, all the hair metal cliches are present and accounted for. Jaime St. James occasionally pulls off the patented Jim Gillette scream, though he does prove to be a competent vocalist. Lyrically, it\u2019s your typical machismo cock-rock\u2014right from the get-go on \u201cThe Strong Will Rock,\u201d it\u2019s there. \u201cGot a pounding fever, got a pounding beat \/ Gonna pound my heat into your meat.\u201d Give me a fuckin\u2019 break.<\/p>\n
Yet there is something about Black \u2019N Blue<\/i> that does cause it to rise above similar albums of its ilk from that time period. The rhythm section of guitarist Jeff \u201cWoop\u201d Warner, bassist Patrick Young and drummer Pete Holmes provide a solid backbone to the material, and Thayer\u2019s guitar work is fairly exceptional.<\/p>\n
As for the songwriting? Yes, it\u2019s similar to dozens of hair metal bands from the \u201980s. But one can\u2019t help cracking a smile listening to tracks like \u201cShow Me The Night,\u201d \u201cAutoblast\u201d and \u201cOne For The Money.\u201d Yeah, you\u2019ve heard this hundreds of times\u2026 but, somehow, Black \u2019N Blue make it sound a little fresher than before. Throw in a solid cover of Sweet\u2019s \u201cAction,\u201d and you\u2019ve got a fairly decent debut effort.<\/p>\n
I can\u2019t say that Black \u2019N Blue<\/i> is the kind of album that would be getting constant rotation on the turntable in my man-cave. But it does show that the hair metal genre had some things going right for it, and while this disc does occasionally fall prey to the stereotypical traps that swept away lesser bands of the time, it\u2019s not a half-bad first effort.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":34543,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[10752],"rating":[5612],"class_list":["post-46389","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-black-n-blue","rating-rating-b-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/46389","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46389"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/46389\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34543"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46389"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=46389"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=46389"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}