The 1986 Listening Post - Warlock - True as Steel

Warlock - True as Steel

#332/2012

August 18 1986

Warlock

True as Steel

Genre: Make It Stop

3 out of 5

Look, I know that in all things pop culture when something works you make copy after copy until no one wants it anymore. That’s how you get body switch movies and Star Wars…anything. 

But, come the fuck on. These songs ALL SOUND EXACTLY THE SAME! Surely they all knew this in the studio, right.

“Well, no, man. We have Doro! A female lead singer. We are different!”

“Um…but ALL those other bands’ lead singers all sound like they are trying to sing as high as they can so they sound JUST. LIKE. DORO!”

This is intensively boring metal. 

There’s more of this to come. 

Shoot me. 

https://music.apple.com/us/album/true-as-steel/1442215246

The 1985 Listening Post - Warlock - Hellbound

Warlock - Hellbound

#175

May 29 1985

Warlock

Hellbound

Genre: Metal

2.75 out of 5

I blame Ghostbusters. Obviously the same people who saw Spinal Tap and thought it was a documentary then saw Ghostbusters and thought that the mouth of hell had actually opened and decided the best way to combat it was by bringing the Rawk! Except for bands like Bathory who wanted to bring forth the hell demons. It was a battle not between demons but between the rock and roll soldiers who went to battle to defend/defeat them.

It is really really hard for me to get over the fact that these records all came 30 years after “Rock Around the Clock”.

This stuff is 34 years old. More time has passed SINCE it’s release than between Bill Haley and Warlock. 

That’s weird. This is actually more accessible than most in this category but it’s really not all that inspiring. Better than their last, but that’s nor really saying much.

https://music.apple.com/us/album/hellbound/1444038520

The 1984 Listening Post - Warlock - Burning the Witches

Warlock - Burning the Witches

#70

March 1984

Warlock

Burning the Witches

2.25 out of 5

Doro Pesch rocks harder than Lee Aaron could ever dream. 

Trouble is it’s all chukka-chukka/ambiguous standard issue shredding and not much more than that. Anonymous metal I can get from a basket of Twisted Rioting Ratts attending Girlschool on a Jett. 

A weird thing happens halfway through this album: At first I really appreciated Doro’s Wendy O Williams but on key screeching and I felt that the musicianship was rote. By the end I was dreading every time she would come on and detract from the band who I started to believe might actually have had some potential. Fortunately, there are 3 more Warlock records after this until 1987 when they stop recording. 

Unfortunately, Doro goes solo and records, i shit you not, 14 albums between 1989 and today. 

Yay….

https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/burning-the-witches/218840693