Episode #12 - The Brian Tatler Challenge

Many moons ago, when the tyrannosaurs still walked the earth, early man could still buy a brand new Ford Cortina and Iron Maiden had but a brace of albums to their name, two young men of 22 had already composed and recorded one of the most important rock albums of their generation.

As 1982 dawned Sean Harris and Brian Tatler, the creative driving force behind Diamond Head, an inventive and pioneering NWOBHM four-piece from Stourbridge in the heavy metal heartland of the UK’s West Midlands, were on the cusp of unleashing a second genre-defining record on the world.

Together, Lightning To The Nations and Borrowed Time would catch the ear of a young Danish-American tennis protege and forever change the landscape of hard rock and heavy metal as we know it now.

So, when the boys had the chance to sit down and chat with Brian Tatler for an hour or so over Zoom in the middle of 2020’s lockdown, it was something of a big deal. There were so many questions to be asked (has he ever cocked up the start of Am I Evil?, for example), so many myths to dismantle (did DH really invent Metallica?), so much gushing to be done (hear the gushing for yourself).

We also discovered which ten albums would make the personal Hall of Fame of The Man Who Invented Metallica.

At the end of our chat, Brian decided it was time someone other than Mark, Rich and Steve chose the albums that would be reviewed on the next episode of the podcast, so he dug into his record collection and served up three aces.

Led Zeppelin - Physical Graffiti (1975)

It’s older brother, IV / Four Symbols / Zoso (take your pick), has sat, apparently immovably, at the top of the Hall of Fame since Episode 3 of the podcast, but here at last - surely to goodness - was a behemoth punching in the same weight division and one of only a handful of albums released in the 25 years from 1970 that might reasonably be expected to give the home of Stairway a run for its money.

But if IV, as a conventional single album, is float-like-a-butterfly-sting-like-a-bee era Ali, is the double studio …Graffiti the fleshy 41-year-old Foreman lumbering down the comeback trail like an out of breath rhinoceros, brandishing a clutch of rope-a-dope haymakers and not much else?

Perhaps more importantly, is its signature track an epic, sprawling journey through Pakistan, or ‘a plodding dirge that doesn’t go anywhere’? One thing’s for sure, the Sadmen have never been ones for toeing a party line …

Judas Priest - Sad Wings Of Destiny (1975)

Yes, we know it’s hard to get your head round this, but there was life before British Steel. By the time this, their second album, was released, not a single member of Judas Priest’s original line-up remained and in that regard, as Steve observed, the band was the musical equivalent of Trigger’s Broom.

So if fellow Black Country rockers Black Sabbath were among the godfathers of metal, where in metal’s lineage would this offering sit? Who knows? Certainly not Judas Priest, who spend the album doing a Tony Christie and exploring the avenues and alleyways of myriad styles and genres and getting uncomfortably - and catastrophically - preoccupied with Bohemian Rhapsody.

It also prompts the question, when is a prelude not a prelude?

AC/DC - Let There Be Rock (1977)

On the SS Heavy Metal there is a wheelhouse called AC/DC, and at its helm is a seat with Mark’s name on it.

At the time of this release, four short years have passed since the Scottish Aussies announced themselves to the world with their debut High Voltage album and a video of Bon Scott in a dress. No, really. It’s a 48-month period in which they had seemed unassailably destined for the very top.

But the top, remember, is a long way if you wanna rock and roll, and so it proved as the band faltered with that ‘difficult’ second album - Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap ignominiously failing to secure an American release.

This, their third offering, was make-or-break time. Atlantic had decided it weren’t no fun waiting around to be millionaires and sent out their decree: a commercial hit - nothing more, nothing less - or it was curtains for the band’s mainstream record deal.

Luckily, Malcom and Angus Young didn’t really give much of a fuck about what Atlantic wanted and so merrily set off to make the album they were always going to make. Spoiler alert: AC/DC went on to become one of the biggest bands on the planet. But, shhhhh - keep it to yourself, okay?