Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Artist: W.A.S.P.
Label: Snapper Records
Release: 1984
Rating: 4/5
While time runs by without mercy, Snapper Music is serving up yet another reissue of W.A.S.P.’s debut. What’s new is a digipak sleeve and a seriously provocative, witty foreword. The only argument that actually gives me enough wiggle room, and holds up against any jab about how silly it is to review a re-release of a re-release, is that it lets us talk about the history of rock music. There’s another upside to reissues coming this thick and fast, too. W.A.S.P. are no Hendrix and no Deep Purple, names so famous they’re basically part of the general education of your average Western European or Japanese schoolkid. Outside the narrow metal circles, any trace of W.A.S.P. existing at all would vanish pretty quickly without a memory-jogging occasion like this one.
The year is 1984. The puritan right was enjoying the special perks of life under Ronald Reagan’s Republican regime. Every basic right and individual freedom was being trampled. A xenophobic, racist USA, which looked the other way while Christian fundamentalism thrived and spread across a world it had enslaved, led by proud, blinkered leaders full of lies and deceit, was in no way ashamed of those labels. Instead, in its most backward radicalism, it did absolutely everything to make people forget forever what love and peace are. Or, in plain language, what sex and rock ‘n’ roll are. Funny thing, today’s US politics is a perfect copy of it, with half of Reagan’s former administration running the show (and not only for that reason). So? Have we really forgotten what love, sex and rock ‘n’ roll are?
And right at that moment in 1984, W.A.S.P. strike, at the time one of the tallest bands in the world, at least when it comes to average body height. Their crotches kitted out with circular saws, draped in the most bizarre leather and smeared with real, honest-to-god animal blood around their mouths. Teased-up hair, lacquered nails, shocking from head to toe, it was something else. Terrorizing the US constitutional order, they set off to make some money. And with that controversy they succeeded completely. W.A.S.P. were never famous as some great musical scholars. And matching the fame of the heavy metal pillars of the day, like Iron Maiden or Judas Priest, was utopian in that department. So W.A.S.P. came up with a different principle to get up alongside them.
A provocative image and provocative lyrics. These two trademarks of the band fit their own musical style perfectly. Wide-open, wound-up-to-the-limit riffing. Nothing complicated about it, with guitar solos that were only allowed as long as they didn’t dial down any of the brazenness and arrogance spewed out by a foursome sworn to winding up the public with their sexual perversions in 1,001 ways. As Blackie puts it: “This music make you want to fuck!” and believe me, this little brainwave of Blackie’s is surely not far from the truth. On top of that, a polished production creates a terrific contrast between the lightning-fast drumming and torpedoing double bass pedal and the “whoosh” of sharp-edged riffing, with no complex frills, no embellished transitions, just perfectly simple sawing that instantly cranks the adrenaline in your blood up a notch. The penetratingly red-hot Animal (Fuck Like A Beast) has thus finally found its place on the album, where it should have been back,… oops (how many years ago was it?) nineteen years ago. Opening track position, that is. The label was scared of it, because heavy metal was just too popular in the eighties, and the masses could easily have been turned into people the state would declare its enemy no. 1. This re-release finally gives it to you. Who even needs a state anymore? Only prisoners of their own fear.
W.A.S.P.’s “shocking” debut is an excellent album. The band hit you straight between the eyes with all the debauched hedonism offered by, for example, Animal, I Wanna Be Somebody, L.O.V.E. Machine, Hellion or Tormentor. The verses in the choruses, which barely stray from the song titles, sound incredibly convincing. This is how you make music when you’re furious beyond all limits. Bomb after bomb, Blackie’s aggressive, signature cutting vocals backed by extra backing vocal lines hit the bullseye and carry the band’s explosiveness to the extreme.These punks didn’t do much thinking, they each grabbed their own tool and just honestly sawed away. And damn well at that.
Lineup
Blackie Lawless – vocals, bass guitar
Chris Holmes – guitar
Randy Piper – guitar, backing vocals
Tony Richards – drums, backing vocals
Production
Blackie Lawless & Mike Varney
Track list
1. Animal (Fuck Like A Beast)*
2.I Wanna Be Somebody
3. L. O. V. E. Machine
4. The Flame
5. B. A. D.
6. School Daze
7. Hellion
8. Sleeping (In The Fire)
9. On Your Knees
10. Tormentor
11. The Torture Never Stops
12. Show No Mercy*
13. Paint It Black*
* – BONUS TRACKS ON THE 2003 REMASTERED EDITION
Album length: 48:36
