In 1989 an album was born, as many albums were. An album so "special" that no one remembered it. The band was one of many named
Wyvern. The cassette in question was from an independant label, and was titled
"The Red Flame of Pain". Twenty years has gone by and someone thought that this was worthy enough to be re-mastered and re-released, marketed as a power metal album. A lost classic for sure...
It is one of the most unfortunate discs you may ever run across. For while it is not the worst thing you will ever hear musically, it is an abomination in general.
Wyvern's sound was (is? apparently they are still semi-active but without a record label, amazingly enough, eh?) incredibly dated for 1989. It was like someone blew open the door of a closet and tumbling out of the mothballs of 1982 and the last stuttering gasps of NWOBHM,
Wyvern rolled out, all dusty and stinking up the place. The drums are fast, the guitars are thrashing all over the place spastically, the production is so thin you can see through it, and the vocals... well the vocals are another thing entirely. They are a good match with the lyrics, which are equally, disturbingly terrible. Another typical power metal screamer fronts the band, but this guy stumbles over the words so badly that every performance is stilted. It is obvious he is struggling badly to pronounce anything, and while the lyrics themselves are a disjointed mess, he just makes it worse. So either they are shrieking about wyverny dragons or pedophilic sex.
Yes, you read that right. One of the worst songs ever put to recording finishes off this disc in cringingly bad fashion.
"Adolescent Sex" is about, well the title says it all really. A stomach churning mess, vomited out with occasional skull rattling high pitched screaming, for no real apparent reason. Maybe the singer was just as tortured trying to give words to this abomination as the listener is having to listen to it. Maybe they could have skirted the lyrical content but the title drives the nail into the coffin. The band released a comment at one point assuring everyone that they "strongly condemn the pedophilia." Other songs go along with this atrocious theme such as
"It's a Waste of Time", where they are lamenting over their lost "sweet girl" who apparently betrayed them.
"Behind Bars" is another sure-fire winner, thrashing through the misery of being put in the slammer for killing someone. It was for love though! For love!!
Just as awkward is their fantasy slanted material such as
"Wyvern" (remember when it was popular to write a song that had the same name as the band? How imaginative and clever). Rattling on like a galloping smear, staining your eardrums for eight plus minutes, it makes a stabbing attempt at being epic, and comes off being gut wrenchingly amateur. Seven songs, fourty one minutes, and nothing worth noting really.
If this had been released during the NWOBHM boom, it still would have been bottom of the barrel when compared with
Angel Witch, Cloven Hoof, Demon, Starfighter and others. Interestingly enough, it seems even the metal public never embraced them even. Despite being around since 1985
, "The Red Flame of Pain" is the only full length release that ever was pushed out the door. Everything else they have released has been demos, with the most recent being a demo collection of material recorded prior to this release. When all's said and done, you feel your
IQ degrading just from associating with the album. Avoid it, unless you want a good laugh.
Written by
Alanna Monday, September 20, 2010
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I wanna have sex
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