TANKARD — Heavy Metal Vanguard (review)

TANKARD — Heavy Metal Vanguard album cover Demo · 1984 · Thrash Metal Buy this album from MMA partners
3/5 ·
UMUR
"Heavy Metal Vanguard" is the debut demo cassette tape by German kings of alcohol themed thrash metal Tankard. The demo was self-released in 1984. Tankard was formed in 1982 and went under the Vortex and the Avenger monickers in the early years before switching name to Tankard (German for "beer mug").

"Heavy Metal Vanguard" features 8 tracks and a full playing time of 30:54 minutes, so there is a good amount of material to listen to and judge by (if you were a label in those days). Stylistically the music on the demo is actually a bit surprising to me as I only know Tankard as a thrash/heavy metal act, but here they play some pretty aggressive hardcore punk with some heavy metal leanings. The trademark alcohol theme is already in place though (they´ve even dedicated a full track to it titled "Alcohol") and lyric wise they definitely belong in the metal camp rather than in the generally more politically motivated hardcore ditto. This is all fun and games and most tracks are about love for heavy metal ("Incredible Loudness", "Heavy Metal"), alcohol and typical death/destruction themes too ("Arson", "Mercenary").

Considering that "Heavy Metal Vanguard" is the band´s debut release, it´s quite a strong release, and although Tankard would develop their style greatly before the release of their debut full-length studio album "Zombie Attack (1986)", there are enough of the band´s trademark elements present on this demo to unmistakably make it sound like Tankard. The sound production is very raw and more or less sounds like it was recorded live in the studio, but the raw quality of the recordings suits the aggressive hardcore punk tracks well. A 3 star (60%) rating isn´t completely unfair.
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