Certif1ed Turn it up loud, enjoy with beer, then do a double-take at the year of release!

With their first album, 220 Volt attempted to refine the raw power metal style that they were pioneering on their earlier full-length demo.

This is a tale of fortunately, unfortunately...

Fortunately the quality of performance not only remains, but is taken up a notch.

Unfortunately, this is at the expense of the quality of attitude and the raw edge which really made the early demo for me.

Fortunately the mix is much better, and the drums do not threaten to kick all the other instruments off the soundstage.

Unfortunately, the mix is tailored to sound like other, more famous band's mixes, and the influences shine through much harder than they did on the original demo, losing some of the band's brilliant originality - focussing too hard on the gloss and not enough on the attitude, too hard on the market and not enough on the emerging talents.

Fortunately, this is an absloutely awesome album for 1983, and should be considered among the best of metal releases in that year, easily rubbing shoulders comfortably with Metallica's Kill 'Em All, Dio's Holy Diver, Iron Maiden's Piece of Mind, Def Leppard's Pyromania, Ozzy's Bark at the Moon and Raven's All For One. Yup. THAT good.

Technically speaking, better than all of them.

Lonely Nights kicks off the album in muscular style, with monster power metal riffs. The backing for the verse is quite obviously blatantly stolen from UFO's Doctor Doctor, but given the treatment that 220 Volt give it - like a kind of slowed-down Helloween - it's quite forgiveable. The quite brilliant, melodic and overtly Schenker-styled solo is an absolute treat. The vocals (vastly improved from 220 Volt's early demo) are pretty bearable too. This is a song written by a band who should have been destined for bigger things.

The tempo is raised a notch and the excitement mounts through the obviously Ozzy-inspired intro to No Return, with its understated thrashing in the rhythm guitar part, and wide variations in tempo invoking the Scorpions playing "I Don't Know" mashed up with Rainbow's "Eyes of the World" and the Scorp's "Always Somewhere".

This creates an odd mix of almost mechanical precision and Classic Rock organic-ness - a kind of missing link between the best of 1970s and 1980s metal/hard rock. The instrumental breakdown is superb, if a little clunky, with a great pre-solo, and some of the most fluid soloing outside Ritchie Blackmore.

The next piece begins with an intro that heralds Yngwie Malmsteen's Rising Force in terms of creamy guitar tone and quasi-classical styling, but generally feels plodding and a little forced - despite the gorgeous production and perfect balance between instrument tones, the rhythm guitars feel over produced and lose bite as a consequence.

That niggle aside, this is still ground breaking metal for the time, and again, the solo will bring a smile to any metalhead's face - especially the sumptuous minor harmonic melodies and frantic shredding, which should surely also bring blisters to your fingers and an ache in the back of your neck.

A solid crunch kicks off the more original sounding Gypsy Queen, the NWoBHM chunker you always wanted to hear - but most bands only got close. Here, 220 Volt go the whole 9 yards, with twin guitar meat hooks blazing from both barrels. I say original - the Scorps are clearly the main influence here, but that's all much of a muchness as personally, I'd like to hear more Scorps influenced bands - everyone else from this time seems to sound like either Maiden or Priest.

The quality continues with Nightwinds - a ballad, with a different vocalist, squeaky backing vocals, plinky guitars and, gasp, keys. Fortunately, the keys are strongly Hammond sounding, so no problems there. Metal + Hammonds. YUM! As with the other tracks from the early demos, I do prefer the originals, but there's no real problems with these new, polished interpretations - except, perhaps, the demonically 1980s sounding snare.

The quality of the tune and spine-chilling harmony arrangements, liquid smooth and speedy guitar soloing outweigh all of this. I'm just being picky really.

4 more tracks of metal magic round off this superb LP - 2 from the original demo, the satisfyingly frantic, Sweet/Priest inspired Child of The Night and the full-blown thrash/power metal masterpiece, Woman in White, both of which I would say exactly the same as before, that the originals have power, edge and in-yer-face rawness, which I really miss in these slick, oiled mechanised deliveries.

Of the two remaining new tracks, Stop and Look Back is merely interesting in comparison to the older material, evoking Europe more than Dragonforce, with the emphasis more on songwriting and super-slick style than musical arrangement and boundary-pushing.

Prisoner of War sounds like it's by a completely different band that just happens to have the same Power Metal approach and (for the time) awesome technical abilities, and is more satisfyingly raw and experimental in nature, with strong hints of Di'Anno/Maiden, even in the vocals and some blistering guitar work.

The sheer quality of songwriting and technical excellence in performance and production on display here makes this album a virtually comulsory purchase for anyone who considers themselves a metal fan. You're unlikely to find a copy of the demo cassette, so must content to gorge your ears on the more readily available LP - which is a MUST for any Power Metal fan, and should be considered by everyone else in the whole world really, particularly fans of Helloween and Dragonforce.

While I'm tempted to dock a point for the obvious flaws, I'm going to stick up for the unsung heroes and go all the way. 5 full Masterpiece points.

Certif1ed Dude, you just GOTTA hear this!!!

Although not a British band, this first demo from 220 Volt was created at the height of the NWoBHM, and truly represents much that was great about the movement, as well as something spectacularly different.

220 Volt were in a class of their own, as this demo shows, with imagination, energy and the technique to pull it all off. Combine with that an inherent feel for the unique style they were pursuing, and you have a band at the sharp edge of many of the most important changes that the NWoBHM brought about.

The only thing that potentially lets this demo down is the vocals - but that could be said of the initial offerings of 99% of bands at the time. That said, there's so much passion in the vocals that you can forget the punky amateurishness of them quite quickly, given the quality of the material.

Enough of the bigging up - let's dive into the great music;

White Knight clocks in at almost 8 minutes - and it was still very unusual to have such long songs. A fluid twin lead sets the scene for a hi-energy power riff which twists and tumbles all over itself with amazing agility - always making breathtaking sense, never tripping over itself. This is all backed up with the massive powerhouse of Krusenberg's solid, thumping bass and Hermansson's awesome drums, with backbeats and power riffing verging on thrash metal.

That's not all! The somewhat punky vocals I mentioned deliver tunes worthy of power/punk/pop maestros The Buzzcocks, replete with out of tune backing vox, and the music becomes distinctly proggy - without once entering into Spinal Tap territory, but instead, competing convincingly with Iron Maiden.

At 5:15 comes some truly impressive melodic twin lead guitar work that predicts Helloween and, gulp, Yngwie Malmsteen in style and structure. This builds and you just don't want it to stop, such is the mastery and beauty in composition. The fade-out is criminally early.

Next up is Nightwinds, beginning disappointingly like a torpid ballad that you don't want to like, but surreptitiously winds its way around your musical tastebuds like a friendly cat. Nääs shapes his vocals Joey Ramone style, and the backing vocals fill out the arrangement convincingly until the heavy bit crashes in satisfyingly. Somehow this piece reminds me a little of Skid Row's 18 and Life.

Gypsy Queen is one of two short pieces, and is full of moments that save it, just as you think it's a simple piece of filler, with a powerful chorus hook and twin lead tag that drags you right in.

Electric Power is THE killer track on this impressive demo, with gravity-defying fast flurries on the guitar, thunderous double bass drumming, and huge, crunchy riffs hearkening back to The Sweet's "Set Me Free", or Judas Priest, if you prefer.

Again, the Buzzcocks/Ramones-like vocals may turn some off, but the melodies are so strong, they're worth sticking with. The overall flying energy of this piece easily sets it in the realms of early thrash - surely Metallica must have been as familiar with this band as they were with Vardis.

You might think that the penultimate track would be a ballad, but no. Heads down, it's time for another blisteringly fast one. Maybe the thunderous drums were a little enthusiastically mixed on this, but that all adds to its charm. The twin lead is there, with cycling arpeggios that clearly hint at Helloween, and breaks in the song that clearly hint at Metallica's Seek and Destroy. A real belter, as they say oop narth.

The speed does not subside for the last track - far from it. Faster than you can say Helloween, Woman in White proceeds to destroy everything that was laid down earlier on this astonishing demo. The twin lead break is pure heaven, like something Iron Maiden ought to have thought up, but didn't - although the mix threatens to destroy everything with the double bass drums almost obliterating everything. A bit like Overkill with decent tunes...

What can I say?

I could fault it, but that would be to ignore the fact that the faults are a hugh part of why this is such an amazing demo. While I wouldn't usually condone violence or other forms of extreme co-ercion, if you ever see a copy, wrestle it away from its present owner, no matter what the cost.