17. Diamond Head - Lightning To The Nations
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVoRBQr_Hz8 Track List: 1. Lightning to the Nations 2. The Prince 3. Sucking My Love 4. Am I Evil? 5. Sweet and Innocent 6. It's Electric 7. Helpless Lightning to the Nations or The White Album as its also known was at the forefront of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal (NWOBHM) scene which erupted in the late 70's and early 80's. Led by Diamond Head and other like-minded bands such as Saxon, Iron Maiden, Raven and Angel Witch the NWOBHM was characterised by heavy riffs, fast tempo's, punishing power chords, intricate guitar solos and melodic, often soaring vocals. Diamond Head exemplified this definition perfectly and they should have been big, like monumentally, planet-destroying big. This is perhaps a bold statement but they could have been the new Led Zeppelin (long before Kingdom Come literally tried to be the new Zeppelin - check out their self-titled debut, it's brilliant-yet-hilarious in its obvious-yet-unacknowledged plagiarist mentality). Diamond Head were blessed with a singer whose pipes and attitude could rival Robert Plant, with Brian Tatler's riffs coruscating and utterly brilliant in content and style. To call them influential would be an understatement. Listen to those riffs on "The Prince", remind you of anyone? Metallica? Megadeth perhaps? It's all a little too familiar and yet these upstarts were first; writing, recording and touring long before Lars had even put down his tennis racket and wondered what those drum things were for. "Am I Evil?" is extraordinary and could well be the single greatest metal song ever recorded (the jury's out, I'll let you decide) while "Sucking My Love" may not be a particularly subtle re-interpretation of Zeppelin's "The Lemon Song" but its still a great track, the cliches of Rock lovingly adapted for a band wishing to take on the 1980's and win. Lightning to the Nations catapulted Diamond Head to the forefront of the early 80's NWOBHM scene and was a big influence on many metal bands who borrowed extensively from their sound but adapted it far more successful, most notably Metallica. There's a reason Metallica ripped these guys off wholesale in the early days - this music was at the vanguard of modern rock/metal. How did they fail? Bad management, bad decisions and plain old bad luck. In another life we would be paying to see Diamond Head headline Download in 2014 instead of creaky old Aerosmith but it just wasn't meant to be. At least they're still receiving royalties from all those Metallica covers; Lars, James and Kirk owe them everything, so it only seems fair!
Christopher Jennings
Contributor
I love Heavy Metal, and generally anything that involves a guitar and loud noises, so I figured it was about time I put all the useless information in my head to good use and start writing a few things. Most of the time I'll be writing nonsense but occasionally I may surprise myself and appear half-way knowledgable.....but you can be the judge of that. Thanks for your fleeting attention!
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Christopher