Wheels Of Steel

Performer: Saxon
Distributor: MSI Music Distribution

Notes: 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.

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.

Click Here for Shipping Options and Policies

Shipping or Dimension weight in pounds: 0.25