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It's the world's loudest podcast as hosts Steve Davies, Richard Napthine and Mark Norman take their collective 120 years of worship at the altar of golden era hard rock and heavy metal (1970-ish to 1996-ish), cut the ribbon on their newly-built Hard Rock Hall of Fame - and debate the albums that have earned their places in its gilded rooms.
Episodes
Monday Mar 07, 2022
Episode 56 - The Weapon (ft. Twisted Sister, Magnum & L.A. Guns)
Monday Mar 07, 2022
Monday Mar 07, 2022
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.
Saturday Mar 05, 2022
Episode 55 - The Black Albums (ft. AC/DC, Scorpions & Y&T)
Saturday Mar 05, 2022
Saturday Mar 05, 2022
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 ...
Tuesday Mar 01, 2022
Episode 54 - Come On, Feel The Alloys (ft. Chrome Molly, Sword & Metal Church)
Tuesday Mar 01, 2022
Tuesday Mar 01, 2022
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.
Tuesday Feb 15, 2022
Episode 53 - 1977 (Ft. Yes, Queen & Blue Öyster Cult
Tuesday Feb 15, 2022
Tuesday Feb 15, 2022
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.
Thursday Jan 13, 2022
Episode 52 - Chris Tsangarides (ft. Quartz, Tygers Of Pan Tang & Anvil)
Thursday Jan 13, 2022
Thursday Jan 13, 2022
The albums reviewed each week on the Enter Sadmen podcast have to meet a theme. These are often tenuous and the lads aren't averse to stretching the elastic quite a long way when it comes to interpreting the episode themes that the Tico Torres Tombola of Topics & Themes spews out. Especially is it means Rich can choose a Rush album.
But among their favourite themes are those that require them to each choose and album relating to a specific producer. The third knob-twiddler to come under the scrutiny of the pod, after Max Norman and Bruce Fairbairn, was Chris Tsangarides - a producer whose work with Y&T and Thin Lizzy already occupied places in the Hall of Fame's top 10 albums.
Lining up for this episode were the Tony Iommi-produced and Tsangarides-engineered 1977 self-titled debut from Quartz, 1981's Spellbound, the second album from North-East band Tygers of Pan Tang, and Canadian rockers Anvil with their third effort from 1983, Forged In Fire.
Tune in and find out where the riff to the title track from Sabbath's Heaven And Hell album really came from...
Tuesday Jan 11, 2022
Episode 51 - Night Crawlers (ft. Uriah Heep, Praying Mantis & Spider)
Tuesday Jan 11, 2022
Tuesday Jan 11, 2022
The next category to come out of the Tico Torres Tombola of Topics and Themes was 'insects', which the boys immediately changed to Night Crawler in homage to Judas Priest. The usual rules applied - a tangible link to entymology either in the band name, album title or album artwork.
The natural choice would obviously have been the Scorpions, the obviousness itself being reason enough for the boys to neatly sidestep it in favour of something else.
Which is how the lads came to spend a week in the company of Uriah Heep's Firefly from 1977 - the Brit-proggers' first album without the eccentric and erratic David Byron and with the excellent ex-Lucifers Friend and Les Humphries singers (yes, really) John Lawton.
Joining the Heep for episode 51 were NWOBHM's blink-and-you-missed-them Praying Mantis and their one and only (for ten years and with this line up) album from 1981, Time Tells No Lies.
Also along for the ride were Merseyside rockers Spider and their 1982 outing, Rock 'n' Roll Gypsies. We're not going to call them Quo soundalikes, but that doesn't mean no-one else did.
Sunday Jan 09, 2022
Episode 50 - Freebirds (ft. Atomic Rooster, Budgie & Europe)
Sunday Jan 09, 2022
Sunday Jan 09, 2022
The Hall of Fame hits 150 albums with this latest episode from the Sadmen, who were each tasked with finding an album with an avian theme after the Tico Torres Tombola of Topics and Themes spat out Birds as the subject matter for the pod's half century.
The lure of the most obvious choice also giving him the opportunity to head back to the early 1970s was too much for Mark to resist and so he rocked up with a copy of Budgie's 1973 album Never Turn Your Back On A Friend under his arm.
Steve, a self-appointed child of 80s glam and thrash rock, surprised even himself as he dredged up memories of anaglypta wallpaper, orange and tan soft furnishings, avocado bathroom suites and, crucially in this context, his old man's copy of Atomic Rooster self-titled 1971 debut.
Richard bowled into the mid-Eighties and the 1984 album that proved what its successor - The Final Countdown - belied. Namely that beneath the saccharine MTV-chasing veneer of Carrie Europe were an honest-to-goodness hard rock band at heart.
Tuesday Jan 04, 2022
Episode 49 - Precious Metal (ft. Led Zeppelin, Foreigner & Meat Loaf)
Tuesday Jan 04, 2022
Tuesday Jan 04, 2022
And so the Sadmen turn their attention to three albums that sit among the most commercially successful of all time. Passing on the chance - again - to put AC/DC's Back In Black into the Hall of Fame, they instead went with three records that ticked the brief in their own way, notable for not only the sheer volume of sales achieved, but also taking into account the relative stages each artist was at on the albums' release.
Two of the discs are debuts. Both were released in 1977 and 45 years later one of them is still the fouth best-selling record of all time.
Foreigner's self-titled debut marked the start of a 4-album hot streak of million sellers. A few months later, and after being rejected by eight record companies before a small independent took a chance on it, Meat Loaf's Bat Out Of Hell set off on a march to 35 million sales and a reimagining of how we define the word 'ambitious'.
But the episode starts seven years earlier, in 1970, as a young British band stopped to draw breath following an epic and gruelling US tour that had seen them conquer America on a scale that no other band aside from The Beatles had managed to achieve.
Led Zeppelin's third release may have been predictably titled - simply III, to follow II - but predictability ended there, with a soundscape so rich and so eclectic that it polarised critical opinion at the time, yet has come to be regarded as a pioneering classic.
Sunday Jan 02, 2022
Episode 48 - Doro’s Homework (ft. Saxon, Dio & W.A.S.P.)
Sunday Jan 02, 2022
Sunday Jan 02, 2022
Following their fireside chat with the Queen of Metal, Doro Pesch set the boys some homework, choosing the next three albums that would be up for review on the next episode of the Enter Sadmen podcast.
Once Steve had got over the shock of actually talking to Doro rather than just watching her from afar on a stage, the lads divvied up the albums she'd chosen and got down to business. It wasn't exactly a chore.
First up, Saxon's fourth album (the fourth in two short years, as it happened) Denim And Leather. Two hot singles, 9 fabulous tracks. Its place in the Hall of Fame was guaranteed. The only unknown was exacxtly where it would land.
Next came Dio's sophomore solo album, The Last In Line. Often overlooked, the boys discovered, upon revisiting it, that time had been kinder to it rthan they perhaps expected. But kindlesws can also be cruel, so where would it end up in relation to its predecessor, Holy Diver?
Finally, the concept album that should have been a solo album. 1992's The Crimson Idol from W.A.S.P. The mutual respect that Doro and Blackie had for one another is largely unchronicled - and you'll have to listen to the interview to understand why - but listening to Blackie's concept album it's not difficult to understand why the Metal Queen and the King of Sleaze found a (platonic) connection.
Wednesday Dec 29, 2021
Episode 47 - The Four Elements (ft. Rainbow, FireHouse & The Wildhearts)
Wednesday Dec 29, 2021
Wednesday Dec 29, 2021
At the end of Episode 46, the Tico Torres Tombola of Topics and Themes spat out 'Four Elements', meaning our trio of trusty adventurers each had to find an album that had a clear and non-tenuous link to one or more of the four elements of life.
Yeah, we had to look them up, too. But at least we can save you the bother of also heading to Google or Wiki. Fire, Earth, Air and Water.
After a false start which saw Steve and Richard sniggering at the lack of creativity evident in Mark's original choice (Y&T's Earthshaker) the lads reconvened for a chinwag over three albums that had a claim to fame without actually being all that famous in their own right.
First up, Down To Earth - Rainbow's 4th album, and their first without the Little Wizard's disproportionately enormous voice. Though it escaped broad critical acclaim at the time it did spawn arguably one of the all time great pop rock songs in Since You've Been Gone. The big question was whether the rest of the album could keep pace with its signature song.
Next came the eponymous 1990 debut from FireHouse (yes, that incongruous capital in the middle of their name is deliberate, thank you) - an album that bagged the band the 'Favorite New Heavy Metal/Hard Rock Artist' award at the 1992 American Music Awards. But while their star burned bright in their native America, the UK and pretty much the whole of the rest of Planet Earth passed them by without so much as a sideways glance.
And bringing up the rear was the some-might-say-cheeky-others-like-Mark-might-say-twattish Ginger and his post-Punk band The Wildhearts with their world-hating wink-and-a-smile 1993 effort Earth vs. The Wildhearts.