It was shortly after I had gotten into Twisted Sister around 1984 when I was at Camelot Music in Randhurst Mall. I was browsing through the vinyl when I saw Under The Blade<\/i>\u2013an album from Dee Snider and crew I never had known about. My mom ended up getting it for me as a St. Nicholas Day gift; I remember putting it on as I was getting dressed for school\u2026<\/p>\n
…and finding myself wondering just what I was listening to. This sure didn\u2019t sound like the same band that had kicked my ass with Stay Hungry<\/i>. The sound was sludgy, the songs didn\u2019t have the same poppy hooks (something you\u2019d never normally associate with a hard rock album)\u2026 it just let me down.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s been 43 years since Snider and crew burst onto the UK scene with this album\u2013it didn\u2019t see a formal US release until 1985 in a heavily remixed version, the less said about which, the better\u2013and it\u2019s been 41 years since that first spin on my turntable. The murky production by Pete Way is still there, but the AC\/DC and Judas Priest influences can clearly be heard in the material\u2013and, while it\u2019s still not their best work, it does show signs of what was to come.<\/p>\n
If we\u2019re completely honest with ourselves, the opening salvo of \u201cWhat You Don\u2019t Know (Sure Can Hurt You)\u201d and \u201cBad Boys (Of Rock \u2018N\u2019 Roll)\u201d wouldn\u2019t have made anyone think that they were listening to a band that in just two short years would be superstars in the hard rock\/heavy metal world. Way\u2019s production work on \u201cWhat You Don\u2019t Know (Sure Can Hurt You)\u201d actually does<\/i> hurt Twisted Sister; sounding like they put the loudspeakers in mud puddles doesn\u2019t make one think that the rest of the album will bode well.<\/p>\n
But something shifted with Under The Blade<\/i> in terms of the songwriting. \u201cRun For Your Life\u201d feels like it could have been an outtake from a \u201870s-era Judas Priest album, albeit without the high-pitched vocals. Following it up with \u201cSin After Sin\u201d was a solid move as well; one of the best songs on the disc, it showcased the power that Twisted Sister had.<\/p>\n
The remainder of Under The Blade<\/i> is a bit hit or miss, though it leans stronger on the \u201chit\u201d side. Tracks like \u201cTear It Loose\u201d (the other track I\u2019d have pegged as the best material on the album) and the title track make the listener sit up and pay attention to what they\u2019re listening to, while tracks like \u201cDay Of The Rocker\u201d and \u201cDestroyer\u201d just feel a bit too plodding.<\/p>\n
The twin guitar attack of Jay Jay French and Eddie \u201cFingers\u201d Ojeda is decent enough, though one would be hard pressed to have called any of the solos groundbreaking. Bassist Mark \u201cThe Animal\u201d Mendoza and drummer A.J. Pero provide a solid backbeat to Snider\u2019s vocals\u2013though even Snider seems a bit more controlled in his delivery than on later albums, where his vocal power was allowed to shine forth.<\/p>\n
Is Under The Blade<\/i> a breakthrough album? No\u2026 but time has proven it was hardly a failure either. This album provided enough evidence that Twisted Sister was going to be a name to reckon with\u2013though no one could have expected that reckoning to last such a short time. I might not have appreciated this one in my teenage years, and I\u2019ll admit it\u2019s still not one I\u2019d find myself going back to repeatedly. But Twisted Sister\u2019s first foray into the studio was hardly a failure, and has enough to justify adding it to one\u2019s collection.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":35489,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[6312],"rating":[5614],"class_list":["post-47386","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-twisted-sister","rating-rating-c-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/47386","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=47386"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/47386\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35489"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47386"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47386"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=47386"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=47386"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}