Enter Sadmen: The Hard Rock & Heavy Metal Hall of Fame

Episode 63 - Humans Being (ft. Coney Hatch, Spinal Tap & Metallica)

Human biology is the theme of the 63rd instalment of the lads' quest to compile the ultimate 'best of' list of hard rock and heavy metal albums. It's also an episode that sees debut appearances for two bands, along with the fourth of the six Metallica albums that are eligible for consideration under the pod's strict 1970-1995 (okay, 1996) parameters.

The task was straightforward: parts of the human body. Steve went for 'hand'. Check. Mark went for 'spine'. Check. Richard went for ejaculate, blood, and urine. Hmmm. And not for the first time.

Enter, then, Outa Hand, the second album from Coney Hatch, the Canadian wing of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal, released in 1984; another sophomore release, this time from Spinal Tap with Break Like The Wind, the follow-up to 1984's seminal (that's seminal, not semen-al) This Is Spinal Tap; and last but not least Metallica's last properly decent album (in our humble opinion) Load.

 

Episode 62 - All About That Bass (ft. Iron Maiden, Mötley Crüe & Megadeth)

So often pilloried and made to be the punchline of heavy metal jokes (Q: Where's the best place to hear a bass solo? A: In the bar/bog), this episode of the Enter Sadmen podcast celebrates the 4-string virtuosos without whom much of the music we love would either not exist at all, or be significantly poorer.

The lads were tasked with finding three bass players who each personified their band's sound. It was a remarkably difficult choice, with Geezer Butler, Lemmy, Geddy Lee, Phil Kennemore, JPJ, and Roger Glover all in contention.

But in the end, our threesome narrowed the field to an eclectic, but influential trio (whilst also vowing to return to this much-maligned instrument before too much time could pass).

Mark kicks off proceedings in 1980 with Iron Maiden's guvnor and chief songwriter, Steve Harris, and the band's self-titled debut; Steve followed suit with Mötley Crüe counterpart Nikki Sixx and their debut, Too Fast For Love; and Richard served up Dave Ellefson, whose effortless genius helped Megadeth to 1990s superstardom courtesy of '92's Countdown To Extinction..

Episode 61 - 1974 (ft. Epitaph, Blue Ӧyster Cult & Sweet)

For their latest journey down the time tunnel of hard rock and heavy metal the lads fired up the Tico Torres Tombola of Topics and Themes and found themselves transported back to 1974, where they discovered just how broad this church of hard rock and heavy metal really was.

First up - and not for the first time on the pod - a bunch of German musicians who had hitched their wagon to that of an English vocalist. Epitaph's Outside The Law reflects a broad tapestry of influences that range from Southern Rock to prog to jazz and funk. A case, then, of 'so far, so early 1970s'.

For the second time in the pod's history Rich and Steve rebuffed Mark's attempt to bring The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway into the Hall of Fame and sent him away to try again. Which was probably for the best, since it opened the door for a true classic in the shape of Blue Ӧyster Cult's Secret Treaties - a record fans and critics widely regard as the band's best release. Mark, on the other hand, prefers Fire Of Unknown Origin. Or does he?

And finally, if you thought Sweet were just another early Seventies UK glam pop-rock band from the same stable as Mud, The Glitter Band, and Wizzard, think again. Desolation Boulevard features on more rock 'Best' lists than you can shake a stick at. Which was enough to convince Richard it deserved an airing on the pod.

 

Episode 60 - Supernatural (ft. Black Sabbath, White Spirit & Fates Warning)

The latest edition of the Enter Sadmen podcast heads off in search of hard rock and heavy metal band names, album titles, or cover art with a distinctly spooky flavour to them.

Richard manages to push the envelope (again) by picking Sabbath's fifth outing, Sabbath Bloody Sabbath from 1973, on the basis that the images on the front and back of the cover depict a man being watched over by demons and angels respectively. Oh, and the whole shebang was recorded in a haunted castle. But when you're dealing with cuts as epic as the title track, A National Acrobat and Sabbra Cadabra, who's going to argue?

Mark offers up the overlooked White Spirit with their self-titled 1980 debut, also their only release after the band imploded shortly after the departure of guitarist Jannick Gers to Gillan (and thence to Maiden). The band were lazily categorised as NWOBHM, but did their roots really lie back in the mid-70s and hard rock prog?

And Steve sticks with the prog theme to bring in Fates Warning, a band once considered one of the so-called 'Big 3' that also included Dream Theater and Queensrÿche. In the spotlight, their 1991 release Parallels. 

With the Hall of Fame now approaching 200 albums, where would the three land in the list of best hard rock and heavy metal albums of all time?

Episode 58 - Angels & Towers (ft. Angel, Angel Witch, & Death Angel)

The latest episode of the Enter Sadmen Podcast turns its attention to three albums that feature either either angels or towers, or (in two cases) both.

First up is the ambitious 1975 self-titled debut from American progressive band Angel, famous for both their white and outrageously angelic stagewear and for having Greg Guiffra as a member. 

We then spin forward 5 years to the birth of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal (at least in its recorded form) and one of its most influential releases - the self-titled debut from London outfit Angel Witch.

Finally, we bridge a 17-year gap to the third and final debut release of the show - Death Angel's 1987 release The Ultra-Violence, which is notable for the fact that at the time it hit record stores every member of the band was under the age of 20, and their drummer was out Philthy-ing Phil Taylor at the tender age of just 14 ...

Episode 57 - Symptoms Of The Universe (ft. Deep Purple, Hawkwind & Monster Magnet)

The lads head into outer space for the latest trip down hard rock and heavy metal's Memory Lane as they investigate and appraise the merits - or otherwise - of three very different albums boasting some sort of connection, however tenuous, to the worlds beyond our own.

First up is Deep Purple with Fireball from 1971, the staging post between the previous year's In Rock and the genre defining Machine Head released in 1972. The band have since confessed to not being particularly enamoured with it; so how would it fare under the Sadmen spotlight?

Next up, an album where you can almost taste and smell the drugs that went into making it as rock's ultimate beatniks, Hawkwind, serve up a sprawling space rock epic in Hall Of The Mountain Grill from 1974, released less than a year before their bassist, one Ian Kilmister Esq, was given his marching orders in what would turn out to be one of rock's most famous blessings in disguise.

Having started at one end of the 25-year epoch that reflects the music that's covered by the Enter Sadmen podcast, Richard takes us all to the other, with Monster Magnet's Dopes To Infinity, released in 1995.

Episode 56 - The Weapon (ft. Twisted Sister, Magnum & L.A. Guns)

The Enter Sadmen podcast is on a relentless, merciless mission to identify the ultimate list of the best Hard Rock & Heavy Metal albums (yes, and prog, and Grunge, and AOR, and thrash) released between 1970 and 1995 by rating them ... track by track.

Hard rocking fans and critics, Richard, Steve and Mark have so far admitted 165 records to the Hall of Fame and the next to queue up at its gilded doors like Charlie Bucket and his grandpa brandishing their golden tickets outside the Wonka Factory are an assorted motley crew of releases from the USA and the UK.

First up, that band of much-loved Noo Yoik mascara merchants Twisted 'Fuckin' Sister with their 1982 release Under The Blade, Tony 'The Hat' Clarkin and the boys from Magnum with On A Storyteller's Night from 1985, and L.A. glam (or maybe sleaze?) outfit L..A. Guns showing the boys from G 'N' R how the other half lived with their own self-titled debut from 1988.

Episode 55 - The Black Albums (ft. AC/DC, Scorpions & Y&T)

Well, it was only a matter of time. After swerving Back In Black for 162 albums, the hand of fate intervened as the Tico Torres Tombola of Topics and Themes spat out the ball that correlated to a theme simply called "Black". 

With most of hard rock and heavy metal's behemoths already admitted to the Enter Sadmen Hall of Fame only four albums have occupied the #1 slot in the list - Priest's British Steel, reviewed in Episode 1, spent a week there before being toppled following Episode 2 by Moving Pictures from Rush, which itself occupied the slot for just a week before it was casually usurped by Zeppelin's IV.

For 39 weeks it seemed that no matter what the boys threw at it, Page, Plant, Bonham and Jones were never going to be overtaken. And then the unstoppable force of IV met the immovable object of Ride The Lightning in Episode 42 and it all changed.

But, faithful followers, we all knew that somewhere round the corner lurked a grown man in a school uniform brandishing a Gibson SG, four of his mates and the blackest of all the Black albums.

Given the theme, the lads could hardly justify sidestepping it again, and so Mark duly deferred to moral obligation.

Joining the 31 million seller on the show were two albums that, even in such austere company, would have every right to expect to be challenging for a place in the Top 10.

Both released in 1982, the episode rounds out with the Scorpions' Blackout and Y&T's Black Tiger - two albums that in the hands of most other bands might reasonably be considered the undisputed high watermarks.

But the boys tackle both juggernauts knowing that their predecessors, Lovedrive and Earthshaker respectively, cast long shadows ...

Episode 54 - Come On, Feel The Alloys (ft. Chrome Molly, Sword & Metal Church)

With more than a half a century of episodes under their belts, the most surprising thing for the Sadmen was that they hadn't yet been given an episode theme that centred on the word 'metal'. That all changed for this episode as the Tico Torres Tombola of Topics & Themes finally did the decent thing and spat out the magic ball.

But with two thirds of the eligible Metallica releases already housed in the Hard Rock & Heavy Metal Hall of Fame, the field boasting the bleedin' obvious had narrowed considerably.

What we got instead were three releases that all hit the shelves of Our Price, Andy's Records and Shades (among thousands of others) within 18 months of one another.

Mark kicks off proceedings with You Can't Have It All ... Or Can You? - the debut album from Leicester's Chrome Molly, who were at vanguard of NWOBHM's post-'84 Second Invasion.

Richard returned from a voyage of discovery with Metalized from Canadian power metal outfit Sword - an album he thought neither of his co-hosts would know, only to discover the band had featured prominently on a mixtape that Mark had given Steve back in late 1986.

And while Steve didn't quite go for the bleedin' obvious, it was close enough as he rocked up to the recording with a dog-eared copy of Metal Church's The Dark under one arm.

Episode 53 - 1977 (Ft. Yes, Queen & Blue Öyster Cult

The Seventies are often lampooned as the decade that fashion and music forgot. Admittedly, it was rich on Gilbert O'Sullivan The Carpenters and The New Seekers, but it also brought us Sabbath and the golden eras of both Zeppelin and Purple, so it wasn't all bad.

in fact, as the snot-nosed belligerence of punk prepared to make its invective-rich entrance, the world of rock music - and especially progressive rock music - was an interesting one to inhabit.

This episode features three albums from 1977 - all, coincidentally, marking each band's second appearance on the podcast - but given the releases the lads chose the theme might just as well have been Prog Bands, because all three are high on eclectic experimentation.

First up was the unapologetic tilt at commercial acceptance from Yes, with their chart-bothering 5-tracker Going For The One marking a distinct departure from its often-impenetrable though never mediocre predecessors like Fragile, Tales From Topographic Oceans and Relayer.

Next comes Queen's News Of The World which is notable for many things, not least the realisation that there was a time in history when the world had never heard of either We Will Rock You or We Are The Champions.

And finally, but by no means least, comes Blue Öyster Cult with Spectres, which gave fans the track that has become their second most-played concert tune of all time (behind ... Reaper, obviously) - Godzilla.

Make way for mellotrons, more pianos than you can shake a stick at, and a glut of cowbell.