Dragonslayer, The EP.just these three words could ignite giddy-stupid excitement in me like no other. For those that do not know, a mere six or seven years ago, the unreleased EP made by the NWOBHM (New Wave of British Heavy Metal - for all four of you who don't know) band
Dragonslayer was the stuff internet legends are made of. Sure, it was probably legendary before the mass mainstreaming of the internet, but it wasn't until world wide communication was made cheap, simple and widespread, did word get out about this. Having it or even the possibility of having heard it was an immediate status symbol for the person claiming to have been in contact with the EP. It was rare, supposedly only in vinyl and a very limited pressing at that. I remember surfing all over to shady MP3 sites just seeking to hear one measly song from this but instead was disappointedly bombarded with pop ups of "NEW SHANIA TWAIN HERE" or "SEE BRINTEY SPEARS NAKED", nevermind she was still underage at the time and if such photos existed would be highly illegal.
Of all the people that were hardcore into metal that I knew, and I mean really
into it, no one, not a single soul, even claimed to have even heard about this piece of seemingly forgotten music. And I knew a lot of people. One or two even based their current life's work on selling music for those looking more for an insanely priced collector's item that no one in their friend's circle would give a crap about than a sane person buying a reasonably priced CD for the music's sake alone. Or because they heard that HOT song on the radio and just got to have it. Whatever. There is no musical integrity left in the United States, it was long since sold to big budget corporations that monitor what we should like or not like, and blocking whatever is deemed unsellable. Its all about the benjamins baby.
But the point of this, is not the search itself, but the finding. For six or seven years later, I managed to get a copy of it. The sad thing is, is it the real deal or not? Its unfortunately not an actual vinyl, but rather a shoddy cassette tape copy of the disc with some poor writing on it detailing the song titles in a "maniac scrawl" mixing capital letters and those of the lower case variety and a little smiley face at the end which gnaws at my consciousness and makes me suspect the authenticity of this. Since I cannot find any information on the internet regarding the band, the song titles or anything other than people vaguely mentioning having this somewhere in their cobwebbed covered collection, I'm at a loss for trying to match this up to the underground "legend" of old.
I also do not own a cassette player, the only one I have is in the car, and so I pop the thing in and am blown away. It was on an almost
midnight drive on my way to work, in a half asleep stupor, but the music knocked me right into rocking mode and since the whole thing runs for only about thirty minutes, it was the perfect length for my commute to my job with only a few minutes spent jamming to the last tune in the parking garage. Excitement was running through my veins so I tried to strike up conversation about it - a mistake of course, since my jibbering about the awesome
Dragonslayer was met with the following co-worker dialogue. Note that I said nothing during the following exchange.
"Yeah that was a real let down of a movie."
"No I liked it, its a classic, I can't believe Disney released it."
and
"That's nothing, I bought 50 Cent the other day and you know, it didn't have that song with that rapper chick on it. The one that dresses like a slut."
"Lil' Kim?"
"Yeah that biotch. I wanted that."
"The biotch or the song?"
"Whatever man, whatever. You listen to crap (addressing me). Your Dragonband must have sucked if they didn't get, you know, on the radio."
In which I sigh, keep to myself by going back to my anime magazine (Newtype is so dorky I know) and feeding my Neopet, Aisha. I'm sad. I don't care.
Dragonslayer was claimed to be the best band to never have a record deal. This EP is supposedly the greatest demo EVER recorded. Not just ones unavailable to the public, but EVER. As in 20th century into the here and now. Maybe its not quite as good as hype would lead you to believe but after over half a decade of wanting and pining away for this seemingly unattainable gem, giddy excitement is the only way feelings could be expressed. The music? It sounds alot like Omen from their holiest of holy "Battle Cry" album. Raw, in-your-face vocals, uncompromising guitar that shreds like an absolute beast, and repetitive lyrics that are broken up by screechings and are they ever quite manly screechings. You never have to worry about this guy's sexual leanings or identity (I hope). This surely isn't some band that
Hammerfall tried to copy because there's not an ounce of wussiness to be found. The high pitched stuff even has balls. And its very early 80s sounding and not in that keyboard pomp pussy way either, but pure absolute killer metal.
Manowar without the cheese (but gosh do I ever love their cheese!),
Virgin Steele before they became more artsy or fartsy depending on the release, a little nod to Celtic Frost, maybe even a dash of the earliest
W.A.S.P. in there somewhere. But mostly Omen. Mostly "Battle Cry" and all great songs to blow your speakers up with. The singer is even very J.D. Kimball-ish (R.I.P.), and having been a Kimball fan since the discovery of Omen in an obscure Louisiana swamp land record store (Raccoon Records - *the* place to find metal CDs no Tower Records or Sam Goody or FYE would dare selling), this is a plus indeed.
The sound quality is garage band status stuff, not bad for a mere demo that was unleashed sometime in 1985 and most likely taken another sharp hit from being transferred from vinyl (or maybe even MP3 who knows the source of this?).
"Lies In Your Eyes" is insane with energy, riffing and vocal emotings. It kicks your ass from one afternoon into the next morning.
"Dragon Drums" begins with slamming solo skinwork that opens up with a great cry of "Thunder in the heavens..." something about the sky and screechings about dragons or something. I really have no idea, its almost unintelligable but sounds killer cool with the frantic riffing giving off flames of urgency. "Dragons are bleeding into the night." Atleast that's what I *think* he said and it undoubtedly is much cooler this way so let's leave it at that, that line is followed up with an excursion into the higher registers which also tend to obliterate making any sense of what the guy is trying to sing. But that's alright because it sounds like Omen and that's a plus one in my book. Despite the fact that the riffs get stale at the end.
"Catch Me" oozes niftiness from the first screech and on as it kind of follows along an early Iron Maiden-like path. Metallic and even I dare say it? Catchy! But its no wonder these guys fell off the face of the earth, I'm sure the lead singer blew his voice out just recording the demo.
"Rock With Me" suffers a little more than some of the others, it's muddier and not as clean as the others, but surprise, sounds similiar. In fact, all the songs can pretty much be summed up the same. This one has a twist though, the chorus featuring the crowd stirring line: "rock with me", is delivered in a stadium friendly fashion with the vocalist urging others to "join in the song" before *everyone* yells together in a metal-forever!!! way - "ROCK WITH ME!" YEAH! That gets the blood pumping. The solo is also electric bliss. Simple, lengthier than one would anticipate, and ultimately satisfying.
It seemed like every other band that didn't wear makeup and glitter (and many who did) wanted to shake the Almighty Evil's hand in the 80s and often declared their spiral into darkness with some song or another, and I am just going to assume
"Satan's Soldiers" is doing the same. It has high register screamings about soul taking and is mostly about no escape, nowhere to hide, and blood. Lots of blood. Man everything in this CD (okay cassette tape, whatever) is bleeding. My eardrums will be too after its over, but its worth it. The ripped right from the lung screams are worth the bloodshed and permenant inner ear damage alone, all set with an appropriately almost tucked away synthesizer "scary atmosphere" doodlings and topped off with another shred-worthy guitar solo.
"The Battle Is On" is a little different in pacing, there's a galloping rhythm riff in there that surges the song along while the singer stays in the same "singing" range that he's hit through the whole affair so far, other than the screams of course.
"The Battle Is On" is also worth noting for its sing-a-long vibe and that "call to arms" feeling that
Manowar does so well. I have to mark this one as my pick of the disc, if it couldn't sell the band, then nothing was going to convince a record company that the warriors of metal (without ever referring to themselves as such, but just listen to this thing, and you know they are!) style couldn't move units and make them dragonslaying steel-clad rock superstars then nothing would.
The cassette ends with
"The Hunger" which kicks off with a more deliberate, but deliciously heavy pacing, before kicking back into their standard practice rhythm complete with shriek pierced verses. A galloping guitar riff is always appreciated, and its the frosting on the metal encrusted cake here. Trying to decipher some lyrics here for you between the screechings, the fact its a cassette player in my car, and a budget demo to boot: "The hunger, threaten to kill? the hunger, it certainly will" cue in a rip roaring guitar solo that goes for the juglar before smoothly slipping right back into that gallopy trademark riff of the song. The guitarist was a real talent too, he could nail the solos with style. Let's just hope he didn't give up on his trade and become a burger dealer at a fast food joint or a movie peddler at Blockbuster and instead ended up being some six string hero down the line. "Take my advice, don't go out on your own."
Well that's it. The
Dragonslayer EP reviewed and on the web. I don't think anyone else has done this yet, but since information is scarce, forgive me for wrong song titles, track listing order and not knowing who any of the musicians are that contributed their talents to this. All I have is a homemade cassette and if this thing is as obscure as everyone has made it out to be by lack of knowledge (or not knowing about it at ALL) and the nonexistance of information on the web in general, you are lucky to get this much and I sincerely doubt I'm going to run across a legit record or tape of this (if the latter even exists) at any point in my lifetime to hopefully give the correct info.
In wrap, I must say it was worth the wait. Having experienced not too many demos, its tough to say for sure whether its the "best demo EVAH!" or not, but the music was killer. Pangs of sadness come in waves just thinking that these guys were shot down before they even had a chance.
Dragonslayer would never have been big, not even those dreaming of their unsung heroes getting a chance for big paydays in a metal loving decade, but face it, if you weren't pretty boys (okay so we don't know what they look like...) or didn't have a chick swooning ballad in your repretoir then pop radio wasn't going to play you, MTV wasn't going to give you even the
midnight slot (when they actually played music), and your band would still be stuck opening for Faster Pussycat,
Tora Tora or some other third tier metal-whatever band.
Dragonslayer are obvious Omen rip-offs and that's a wonderful thing. I always viewed Omen as a rawer version of
Manowar. They didn't just put whores on their album covers, they sang about them too (
"Be My Wench Tonight") and I love that kind of blood-dripping-sword-in-the-heart uninhibited honesty.
Dragonslayer approached their music in the same way, and thus it stands as a testament to the times and the first blows of power metal still dragging the NWOBHM banner behind it. If you like your metal without the mainstream factor, and can find it (good luck to you), grab it.
Written by
Alanna Wednesday, May 12, 2004
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