HEAVY LOAD: Death or Glory CD. Swedish Epic Heavy Metal 1982. Check samples: Heavy Metal Angels, Might For Right, Still There Is Time

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Description

Label: Thunderload Records
Style: Heavy Metal
Tracklist:
1 Heavy Metal Angels (In Metal And Leather) 3:59 


2
Might For Right 3:19  
3 Something New 4:24
4 Bleeding Streets 3:39
5 The Guitar Is My Sword 4:24
6 Still There Is Time 4:19
7 Traveller 3:48
8 Little Lies 4:20
9 Daybreak Ecstasy 5:09
10 Take Me Away 4:25
11 Trespasser 5:05

Credits
Bass – Torbjörn Ragnesjö
Drums, Vocals – Styrbjörn Wahlquist
Engineer, Guitar, Vocals – Ragne Wahlquist
Guitar, Vocals – Eddy Malm
Mixed By, Producer – Heavy Load

Matrix / Runout: H.L.
Mould SID Code: ifpi 5904

Ragne Wahlquist (vocals / guitar),
Eddy Malm (guitar),
Torbjorn Rogesjo (bass),
Styrbjorn Wahlquist (drums)

When I got this album it just blew me away, straight ahead in your motherf*cking  heavy metal face. It was on my Stereo. I jammed to it again and again and again, damn how I would love to have seen these dudes in concert, but at this point in time there was zero chance of that.

A highly influential and successful Stockholm Metal outfit, HEAVY LOAD saw regular chart positions in their home country with a series of strong self-financed albums. The band date to 1976 when brothers Ragne and Styrbjorn Wahlquist teamed up with bassist Michael ‘Bachler’ Backlund. Heavy gigging ensued and the following year Backlund departed to be replaced by Dan Moln.
HEAVY LOAD scored its first album release in November 1978 when Stockholm Record store Heavy Sound released ‘Full Speed At High Level’, recorded at Mill Recording Studio in July, and the trio undertook a headline tour of Sweden to promote its release. HEAVY LOADâs brand of Metal was both enthusiastically riff orientated and melodious. Curiously, in the visual stakes, they would also take on every Heavy Metal cliché in the book with each and every album cover depicting a Viking warrior in battle mode.
By 1979 the touring schedule had taken its toll on Molen who quit. HEAVY LOAD added bassist Eero Koivisto and rhythm guitarist Leif ‘Lillen’ Liljegren to become a quartet. However, within months both new members had left and later formed RED BARON in 1985, Liljegren also turned up as a member of TREAT at one point.
During the summer of 1979 the band found replacements in bassist Torbjorn Ragnesjo and ex-HIGH BROW guitarist Eddy Malm. HEAVY LOAD’s next release was the September 1981 mini-album ‘Metal Conquest’ cut at Decibel Studios that July, which gained the band many honours, beating many international acts to grab the number one airplay position on the H.M.H. Metal radio station playlist and charting in the national Swedish listings. Naturally the album sleeve featured Vikings at war. This success was capitalised on by an extensive headline tour, which included two live radio broadcasts from Malmoe and Stockholm. A further album, ‘Death Or Glory’, arrived in October 1982 with another national chart placing at number 47. First editions of this record came packaged with a free 7″ single, ‘Take Me Away’ / ‘Trespasser’. ‘Death Or Glory’s artwork now saw an axe wielding Viking pitched against a polar bear.
1983 started with HEAVY LOAD releasing a concert video and recording the ‘Stronger Than Evil’ album, sporting a Viking atop a pile of recently slaughtered foes, for issue in October. THIN LIZZY’s enigmatic frontman PHIL LYNOTT, who was in Sweden promoting his solo album at the time appeared on the track ‘Free’. At this point HEAVY LOAD extended their touring into Europe as album sales got stronger, although gigs were curtailed in mid 1984 when Ragnesjo departed. It was 1985 by the time HEAVY LOAD added new bassist Andreas Fritz to the ranks.
Having been self-financed since inception the band now sought a major record deal and soon signed with WEA. A single, ‘Monsters Of The Night’, was released backed up by further Swedish dates, but a projected album never materialized and Malm left to pursue a solo project. As a result HEAVY LOAD was put on ice as the Wahlquist brothers concentrated on building a recording studio that would be used later by CANDLEMASS amongst others. Ragne Wahlquist scored a significant production credit on the monumental CANDLEMASS debut in 1986, ‘Epicus, Doomicus, Metallicus’.
In 1986 HEAVY LOAD recruited guitarist Patrik Karlsson to work on a new album, although further delays were caused when Fritz left to work with ex-member Malm. Still intent on recording a new album, ex-THE DAMNED and UFO bassist Paul Gray joined up, but business considerations at the recording studio forestalled any release, although a new HEAVY LOAD album apparently still remained a possibility.
Still, the Wahlquist brothers have resurrected their Thunderload label to release the Christian Metal VENI DOMINE album ‘Material Sanctuary’ in 1995. The band’s legacy was still strong in 2000 as evident by Swedish Metal kings HAMMERFALL cutting a version of HEAVY LOAD’s ‘Run With The Devil’ for a bonus track on their chart single ‘Renegade’. Italian Power Metal band NOBLE SAVAGE covered the HEAVY LOAD track ‘Dreaming’ on their ‘Killing For The Glory’ album in 2005.

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Heavy Load descended from Valhalla’s hall to deliver this glorious offering of Scandinavian steel. The songs bludgeon the listener into submission with meaty guitars and drums that sound as if they are played using fists instead of drum sticks. Heavy Load didn’t really sound much like any other metal band in ’82, but that was probably due more to naivety than design. The songs are crude but sincere. The Load (as I call them) jam-packed their songs with big, fat melodies. The chorus refrains seem almost arcane; Seriously. You’ll be singing these songs for days. You won’t be able to get the Load out of your mouth!
The band’s image was one of almost Spinal Tap-esque cliché. The album cover sums up what Heavy Load was all about: low-budget as hell, but overflowing with grandeur. My score: A”

——————

Heavy Metal Angels (In Metal And Leather) LYRICS:

Driving down the highway now
The speed is high, just like lightning
They have the wind in their hair
The light of sunshine in their eyes

They’re always there, every night
Standing up in the front
They look so fine in metal and leather
Heavy metal is their life

Heavy metal angels, metal and leather
Heavy metal angels
Heavy metal angels, metal and leather
Heavy metal angels, metal and leather

They come to see the show each night
Oh, the music takes you away
I’m for you and you’re for me
We look so fine in metal and leather

Like angels of the dark
You come to the show each night
You know I need you now
Need you ’cause you are the light

Like angels of the dark
Inhaling me with darken eyes
Making me paralysed
I’m burning, burning inside

We have the power, oh, of thunder
We can change the world together
There’s an aim for joy and glory
It’s not far to reach the sky

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