voila_la_scorie I remember Thor back in the eighties. There was an article about him in the Canadian metal magazine “Metallion” and photos of his show. Muscle-bound with long blonde hair, Jon Mikl Thor was known for bending metal bars, smashing cinder blocks, and blowing up rubber hot water bottles (yes, really blowing them up like a balloon until they burst!). To me he was too gimmicky. I figured he was some northern European or at least an American with European ancestry. The music may have been metal but I was not taken in by the whole performance schtick.

About three months ago, I found myself eagerly awaiting the arrival of “Keep the Dogs Away”, the first full-length album by THOR, released in 1977. What had changed my opinion?

There were two things really. The first was that I had been digging deeply into the roots of heavy metal, exploring the early years of heavy guitar rock from 1969 to 1973, when the term “heavy metal” first came in to use to describe a rock sub-genre, and the hard rock years that followed through the mid-seventies. I was also very in tune with the heavy metal explosion of the early and mid-eighties because that was my youth. But the late seventies had a lot of gaps to fill, and as THOR’s debut LP was from 1977, I knew it would shed a little more light into those dimly lit years for me. The other was that I read (much to my great surprise!) that THOR was from Vancouver, British Columbia. As I grew up in a suburb of Vancouver, I instantly became interested in hearing this local boy’s effort. Truthfully though, I still couldn’t take him seriously.

The album is stylistically what we’d call today hard rock though for 1977 it easily fell in under the heavy metal tag. The music is hard rockin’ guitar with some holdovers from 12-bar blues but also some definite early metal moments. I’m tempted to liken some of the songs to heavier Blue Oyster Cult of the same period or even Meatloaf but I am not familiar enough with either for that notion to be well-founded. However, there is a sound to this album that a professional metal guitarist has called a “very NYC punk/rock and roll vibe” and I can’t help but feel that’s a pretty good assessment. The guitars rock hard and at times hit heavy but there is an undeniable “period” sound overall, including in the recording approach. Yes, it is an album from 1977 for sure.

So how does a body builder who was a former Mr. USA and Mr. Canada sound as a vocalist? Pretty much as you’d expect. Yes, he can sing, meaning he can hold a tune and hit the notes, but he’s no Rob Halford. He puts a strained and restrained growl to his voice at times and other times roars or almost shouts. The backing vocals have that tough gang effect and I am reminded of early Accept albums like the debut and “I’m a Rebel” for some reason. There’s a decent variety to the songs and each one is distinct from the others. And although there are some mainstream themes to the lyrics and even the songs, the album has turned out to be less of a joke than I expected and actually does alright as a latter half of the seventies heavy metal album. You’ll still find cheese showing up from time to time, and the song “I’m so Proud” might have you shaking your head at first.

A couple of songs that feature something memorable are “Military Matters” which has a folk/classical lead guitar melody that sounds like a precursor to some Iron Maiden songs and “Superhero” which is fun for its lyrics (“Captain Kirk, he flew the Enterprise / Throughout the interstellar skies / And I admired his claim to fame / But it’s sad to see him back again / Cuz now he gets his jollies from a supermarket chain”). I also enjoy “Wasted” because Thor’s vocal approach is not unlike something from “The Rocky Horror Picture Show”.

By the mid-eighties, THOR would have a definite trad metal sound and albums like “Thunder on the Tundra” and “Unchained”, which you can hear on YouTube, capture the metal music of the day. I was surprised to learn that in 2015 a documentary film on Thor’s attempted comeback was made. I watched the trailer on YouTube and I earned a bit more respect for the guy. Yeah, something went wrong in the mid-eighties and his career suddenly fizzled. But from what I can gather from the documentary trailer, he was fighting for that comeback position, perhaps not too different from Anvil. Wikipedia makes it sound like his career has been a continuous success.

It’s not an album to recommend as a heavy metal or hard rock classic, but after a few listens I have found I like the album for more than just a novelty recording. When you're up for it, this can be a good listen. Still, you have to take this one home with a bit of humour. How else can you explain the cover to your friends or partner?

This album was released on May 13, 2016 as a double disc including bonus tracks and a DVD of live footage.