If you look hard enough you can find it on MP3 sharing sites but that's not really the same as physically owning the album. So here's three albums that somebody really needs to reissue on shiny disc.
Bethnal - Crash Landing (UK 1978)
The second of Bethnal's two albums for Vertigo, Crash Landing opens with the violin-driven, hard-rocking title track before settling down to good quality 70s Rock throughout.
I've seen this band described as Punk which isn't quite accurate - not on this album anyway- as they're altogether too refined. Standout tracks - the opener, "Clown in The Crowd" and "Nothing New" which, weirdly, sounds like something INXS might have done if they'd had a fiddle-player.
Rage - Run For the Night (UK 1983)
A band that don't even have their own wikipedia page and who will probably spend the rest of eternity in the shadow of the German Power Metal outfit of the same name. And that's a shame because Rage (UK) put out 3 albums of catchy hard rock that are all worth listening to. ( I picked this one simply because it's the album I listened to most recently.)
My personal favourite is the majestic title track but since that's won't upload and the Youtube version skips anyway, here's "Ladykiller"
Marseille - "Marseille" (UK 1979)
Another one from the more melodic end of the NWOBHM. Or, as they're best known these days, "The band that kids tv presenter Neil Buchanan used to be in"
Marseille brought out 3 tuneful albums with some useful guitar work, the first apparently being the soundtrack to a porn film. I've never heard it but I can personally vouch for this album and the followup "Touch The Night". They're both pretty good. Take my word for it.
Like a lot of their contemporaries (Rage, for instance) Marseille slogged around the country for some years then finally lost interest in the mid-80s after Kerrang started filling up with wild-haired Americans.
And then much to everybody's amazement, a little while back Neil Buchanan got his guitar down from the attic, called up his mates and Marseille were back in action.
So I live in hope that some of their old product will get a reissue.
Here's "Over and Over"
Here's what they sound like these days: http://www.marseilleonline.co.uk./
Of course my other problem is albums that came out on CD at the time but have been out of print ever since. (Wolfsbane's entire discography springs to mind.) I might cover a few of those next time around. Anyway, that's it for now. Catch you later, peeps.
Like the riff on the Marseille track. Reminiscent of the Kinks' "All day and all of the night".
ReplyDeleteI still have all my old vinyls. Haven't been able to part with them. Bethnal reminded me a bit of Alan Parsons Project meets ELO.
ReplyDeleteBig D, good point about how stuff always falls through the cracks in the conversion from one medium to another. I’m not familiar with these bands but I like what you posted. Bethnal reminded me a bit of Led Zepplin. Thanks for the background info on the bands too.
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