Exciter - Heavy Metal Maniac

Yesterday i poo-pooed a great Power Pop album, today i'll wahoo an album you'll all hate. Strap on your dog collars and sharpen your switchblades, we're headed back to 1983 for some old-school Canadian Speed Metal. It's Heavy Metal Maniac by Exciter and my copy is worth way more than the $7 i paid for it. Technically i paid more for this specific record, but that mother of all "regular" discounts averaged out to $7 a piece. 

Unlike other genres, the lineage of Heavy Metal is pretty straight forward. Steppenwolf named it, Black Sabbath invented a bunch of dark alleys it could mug you in, the New Wave of British Heavy Metal invaded America, Exciter said let's crank this up 3 more notches, and that's how Thrash was born. Exciter took the direct influence of Judas Priest and Motorhead, infused it with even more aggression, and scrambled everyone's brains into a pulpy goo. 

Exciter never achieved the level of fame and stability as the Big 4, or the Big 4 of Europe, but Heavy Metal Maniac is a genre defining album. They wear their influences on their cod pieces, so to speak, and it sounds like Judas Priest meets Motorhead at a Pagan ceremony in the haunted forest. 

Perhaps what you'll notice most, aside from the high gain, heavily reverbed vocals, and Dude Musical vocal delivery, is that this is raw. They're just playing this stuff rather than constructing it in bits and pieces, and those heavily distorted lead guitars get slapped in and cut off the tracks without any blending or mixing tricks. It might sound clunky at first, but it's more of a technical recording issue than a musical problem, so you just have to get used to it in these early recordings. Everyone was making it up as they went with no idea how to handle this level of sheer volume and noise. Compared to Kill 'Em All or Slayer's first efforts though, this sounds pretty fantastic. 

If nothing else, Heavy Metal Maniac is a historical document of the beginnings of Thrash, a bridge between the Hard Rock styles of the 70s and the clear separation between Mainstream and Extreme Metal that began in the early 80s. I might not look like a heavy metal maniac, but it definitely excites me, so give it a listen on the old tubulator when you get a chance, because you can't have my copy.