Wheels of Steel [Remastered] [Bonus Tracks]

Performer: Saxon
Engineer: Will Reid Dick
Producer: Pete Hinton
Distributor: n/a

Notes: Personnel: Graham Oliver, Paul Quinn (guitar); Steve Dawson (bass guitar); Pete Gill (drums, percussion). Liner Note Author: Jerry Ewing. Recording information: Ramport Studios, London, England (02/1980). Arrangers: Byford; Saxon. The new wave of British heavy metal that dawned along with the 1980s yielded heavier and more popular bands than Saxon (Iron Maiden and Def Leppard, to name just two), but anyone who listens to their second album, WHEELS OF STEEL, will recognize the origins of what came to be the dominant style of FM radio metal for over a decade. Combining the muscle of Black Sabbath with the nimble, twisting two-guitar attack of Thin Lizzy, Saxon helped create the template for British "power metal." Its driving rhythms and wailing theatrical vocals may have eventually become the norm, but in 1980 WHEELS OF STEEL was a shiny chrome beast of an album, and without precedent. Songs such as "Motorcycle Man" and "Freeway Mad" are the soundtrack for outlaw biker parties on both sides of the pond, and "Suzie Hold On" is a perfect hard-rock love song, tough and tender in equal measure. After finding a metal-savvy producer in Pete Hinton, Saxon recovered from their disappointing debut in fine form with 1980s career-defining Wheels of Steel, whose songs displayed a bright metal sheen and set the template for the band's most successful albums. One of the greatest New Wave of British Heavy Metal standards, pounding opener "Motorcycle Man" introduces the album's biker obsession from the get-go -- a recurring theme that is revisited on the frenetic "Freeway Mad," the title track, and on most of the group's subsequent albums. At nearly eight minutes, the title track is another classic that would become a nightly encore for the rest of Saxon's career. Other highlights include the dramatic, if lyrically bizarre "747 (Strangers in the Night)," the all-out metal assault of "Machine Gun," and their finest early ballad "Suzie Hold On." And despite the occasional filler like "Stand Up and Be Counted," which drops it just a notch below the nearly flawless Strong Arm of the Law, Wheels of Steel would introduce more concert favorites than any other Saxon album. [EMI France's 2009 remastered edition included bonus tracks.] ~ Eduardo Rivadavia

Kerrang (Magazine) (p.54) - "[A] classic in every sense....'Motorcycle Man' and 'Machine Gun''s quickfire power stood alongside the dramatic and strangely emotional 747..."

Along with Iron Maiden and Judas Priest, Saxon was one of the key bands in the early-1980s scene known as the New Wave of British Heavy Metal. Using the hard-rock template laid out by Deep Purple and Black Sabbath but playing a faster, louder, and more theatrically bombastic version of it, Saxon's sound would influence a plethora of metal bands--from Megadeth and Bathory to Metallica and the Darkness--for decades to come.

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