APOCALYPSE — Storm Child (review)

APOCALYPSE — Storm Child album cover Demo · 1982 · NWoBHM Buy this album from MMA partners
4/5 ·
Certif1ed
Apocalyptically bleak.

The sound of Apocalypse's sole single is hard to describe. The vocals sound very much like early Lemmy, and the music is a curious mixture of the old Speed bands; The Pink Faries and The Groundhogs, but it keeps threatening to go off in a progressive or even a reggae-fied direction, like the Ozric Tentacles meet early Motorhead.

The bass pounds constantly, never sitting still, while the drums weave themselves around the bass lines, as the guitars snarl out lines that hint at Iron Maiden's melodic licks, without ever being direct copies, instead, maintaining more of a 1970s hard rock vibe.

Flip the single, and, budget production aside, we're in much heavier, doomier territory. It's the very roughness of it you just gotta love - yet despite the roughness, you can clearly hear every instrument in the mix, and the band deliver with a taut aggression an impressive set of tempo changes and stop/starts that are the hallmark of the NWoBHM at its best. Like so many of these singles, the A side is a kind of easy access anthem, and the B-side is the real meat - the stuff you just know the band really wanted to play.

I'd definitely want to be drinking in whichever pub these guys are playing in. You can tell it's one of those with bike-oil encrusted sawdust on the floor, and legions of Angels in their Friday night colours. The atmosphere from these two songs is absolutely tangible.

If anyone knows the whereabouts of any of the demo tapes these guys sold at gigs, I want them!

I can't quite manage the masterpiece on this - it's great NWoBHM, and essential listening, but not quite outstanding.
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