The 10 Greatest Releases from the North East New Wave of British Heavy Metal (NENWOBHM)!
That's quite the mouthful!
White Spirit – White Spirit (1980)
Track Listing:
- “Midnight Chaser”
- “Red Skies”
- “High Upon High”
- “Way Of The Kings”
- “No Reprieve”
- “Don’t Be Fooled”
- “Food For The Gods”
Home to Iron Maiden’s Janick Gers, White Spirit offered NWOBHM fans an ironically cleaner sound to sink their teeth into, with Gers’ already immaculate shredding and a distinctly Heap/Purple use of keyboards enabling White Spirit to stand out from the pack.
Blues heavy and with a firm focus on melody, the hard rock sounds of the 70’s – particularly Deep Purple – may have informed White Spirit’s output (Janick Gers would even decamp to join Purple frontman Ian Gillan’s solo band in ’81), but this was a group who were confidently introducing 70’s rock to the metallic might of the 1980’s….and they were doing it in style!
MCA may have royally fucked up the promotion of this great album but it holds up as one of the NWOBHM / NENWOBHM’s most confident debuts.
Note: In 2005, the album was reissued with an entire second disc worth of bonus material, including B-Sides, singles, demos, session takes, compilation tracks and more…..but it’s a bugger to find!
Hi. The Hollow Ground tracks on the Roksnax album aren’t the same four from the ‘Warlord’ EP (those tracks were Flying High/Warlord/Rock On/Don’t Chase The Dragon). Apologies if this has been pointed out before.
I mention it only because I was lucky enough on Saturday to find a copy of the original EP on Guardian with the picture cover.