Warthur Blackie Lawless and crew had been responsible for some of the most deliciously sleazy albums of the 1980s metal scene, successfully latching onto the dirtiest, filthiest side of the glam metal aesthetic whilst keeping a more purist heavy metal sound than most of their glam contemporaries. By the end of the decade, though, glam's shiny lyrca star was fading, and to their credit the group manage to pull off an extremely successful stylistic and aesthetic pivot with The Headless Children.

It's not that it's a radical departure from what has gone before musically - it's still WASP's style of heavy metal, with perhaps less emphasis than ever before on including a catchy number here and there. But lyrically, suddenly things have become surprisingly serious, Blackie Lawless revealing a thoughtful side to his writing that must have been incredibly surprising at the time.

In retrospect, of course, we've had a bunch of more serious-minded WASP releases like The Crimson Idol, so listeners coming to The Headless Children from that direction may find it seems like a solid, entertaining example of business as usual. But compared to the material preceding it, it's a radical shift in perspective that is elegantly executed. It must surely have seen like a massive artistic risk at the time, but not only is it a great album in its own right, but it also paves the way for WASP's future career.

Unitron The Headless Children is the fourth studio album from heavy metal band W.A.S.P.

W.A.S.P. are one of those bands that was stuck in between glam and traditional metal at the beginning of their career. They had the image and lyrics of glam, but certainly were a metal band. You could say they were similar to Motley Crue in that sense, being both glam and metal. While their early stuff is good enough, they really made a huge leap for the better with The Headless Children.

Gone is the shock-rock image, gone are the sex-obsessed lyrics, and enter a mix of energetic heavy metal tracks and bleak emotionally-charged songs. Songs like the cover of The Who's "The Real Me", "Mean Man", and the darker-sounding "Maneater" are just pure heavy metal, while songs like "The Heretic (The Lost Child)", "The Neutron Bomber", and the title cut showcase a much more depressive, somber, and beautiful sound. These songs are my favorites; Blackie Lawless's amazing emotional vocal performance and bleak atmosphere making them absolutely spine-chilling.

Blackie Lawless's vocals on this album really are amazing, having one of the most emotive voices in metal. His vocals feel a lot more passionate than they did on the band's glam albums. The instrumentation is just as amazing, with some killer guitar licks, ripping solos, and powerful drums. The bonus tracks are great, including an excellent cover of the Jethro Tull classic "Locomotive Breath", the cold "Lake of Fools", "War Cry", and the song "For Whom the Bell Tolls" (Not to be confused with the Metallica song.)

If W.A.S.P.'s old image puts you off, give this album a listen. This album is all raw power and emotion, and one of the greatest albums I've ever heard. A true classic metal album. Hope you found this review helpful.

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Vim Fuego W.A.S.P. was a band that always rode just under the crest of the glam metal wave of the late 1980s. They were too antisocial to gain much radio play and too heavy for many glam fans. The hairspray, makeup and songs about girls alienated traditional metal fans. However, W.A.S.P. made too much noise to ignore.

The choir intro and menacing feel mounting at the start of "The Heretic (The Lost Child)" dispel any thoughts of dismissing W.A.S.P. as mere glam shock rockers. The song is dark and heavy (for W.A.S.P.), and almost reaches the heights of traditional Metal a la Manowar and Maiden. Blackie Lawless has never been a flash guitarist himself, but proved here he could knock out some very solid rhythm guitar. Over it all, Chris Holmes threw layer upon layer of guitar histrionics, with solos flying in several directions at once.

The title track follows in a similar dark vein. Where the opener crashed along at a brisk pace, "The Headless Children" throws out the anchors. It pounds along incessantly, with the heaviest drum sound the band ever produced.

W.A.S.P. had a habit of throwing in the odd cover to their albums. This time round, it is The Who's "The Real Me". Double kickdrums, at the time the staple of thrash metal, are thrown in here courtesy of Frankie Banali. Also in the mix was keyboard player Ken Hensley, beefing things up with the unmistakable sound of a Hammond organ. This was confusing for thrashers. W.A.S.P. were a glam metal band with a keyboard player, and therefore the sworn enemy, but the music wasn't throwaway pop–rock. The lyrics weren't about "Girls, Girls, Girls", and the band had toned down their effeminate side. What was a thrash fan to do?

Basically, all they had to do was wait for side two of the album (back in 1989, albums had at least two sides). Yep, after a promising start, Blackie fucked it all up. First song up on side two was "Mean Man", which was supposedly banned by the BBC for having the word "motherfuckin'" in it. It was more likely to have been because it was crap. In an instant, the atmosphere of despair and hopelessness built up on side one disappears. Lyrics as piss poor as "Chewbacca in the rye/The water of fire" and "Scooter gypsy/I'm a renegade/An orphan of the road/A live hand grenade" deserve to be banned. "The Neutron Bomber", "Maneater", and the ubiquitous power ballad "Forever Free" are just as bad.

By the time "Rebel In The FDG" rolls around, thrash fans of old would have been praying for merciful death (and would be hunting through their collection for Dark Angel’s "Merciless Death"), as the album descends into full on cock rock "yeah, yeah, ooh, ooh, baby, baby" territory.

After a moody first half, 'The Headless Children' crashed and burned into the realm of glam metal cliché, proving a glam rocker can't change his leopard skin spots.

Stephen "The Headless Children" is the fourth album by American heavy metal act, W.A.S.P which was released in 1989, and this is their best selling record to date as well as the last album to feature guitarist Chris Holmes before he rejoined the camp again in 1997. Musically, W.A.S.P is another example of how they stayed true to the roots and consistently brought the original slab of heavy metal to the masses while many had gone in a different direction playing pop-sliced commercial metal.

While Blackie Lawless is no doubt a very talented songwriter and I also admire his raunchy spine-chilling voice, it's also the prominent play of Chris Holmes that contributed a lot to this album, and I also won't ignore the important presence of Frankie Banali's tight drumming. Honestly, the first four tracks are just okay to my ears, including The Who's cover, "The Real Me", which is quite decent, but when "Mean Man" strikes like thunder, I was amazed with the blistering riffs and the brilliant solos. This is clearly their best offering beside the other two superb tracks, "Maneater" and "Rebel In The F.D.G". The commercial ballad of "Forever Free" is also quite nice and I like how they speed up the tempo in the midst of the song.

I kinda agree with the consensus of W.A.S.P's hardcore fans that this is one hell of an album, but to merely give this a perfect five stars is a bit too much for me since this album suffered with quite amount of average tracks and many songs are in the repetitive arrangement structure, making some of them sounded the same. Thanks to the sound enhancement and bonus tracks of "Locomotive Breath", "War Cry", and the live version of "L.O.V.E Machine" that was included in the reissue version, I'm confident to give this a four stars.