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Sean Harris: vocals
Brian Tatler: guitars
Colin Kimberley/Mervyn Goldsworthy: bass
Duncan Scott/Robbie France/Jamie Lane: drums
Chris Heaton: keyboards/Fairlight
Diamond Head, from Stourbridge in the Midlands, began as early as 1976 as a bunch of schoolfriends, led by charismatic vocalist Sean Harris and obscenely talented guitarist Brian Tatler. In 1980, after a pair of independent singles, they opted to release their first album themselves, the resulting untitled, white-sleeved classic becoming known as Lightning to the Nations/The White Album. Sounds' Geoff Barton declared in an interview (to the band's embarrassment) that 'there were more great riffs in one of their songs than on the first four Black Sabbath albums', or somesuch. A ridiculous claim, of course, although upon listening to the record, you can see his point.
By this point, the band had become fully caught up in the Barton-monickered N(ew) W(ave) o(f) B(ritish) H(eavy) M(etal), although after a couple of high-profile appearances at the London Lyceum, they rather dropped out of sight on the capital's gig circuit, to their detriment, despite touring the country like things possessed. Despite a major-label NWoBHM feeding frenzy, somehow, Diamond Head missed out that year, possibly due to poor management (er, Harris' mum, apparently). 1981 rolled around, the movement's other major players either going on to bigger and (arguably) better (Maiden, Leppard, er, Saxon) or splitting due to internal strife and lack of proper success (Angel Witch), leaving the 'Head still doing the rounds of the country's toilets.
Just when some of us were giving up hope, the band were finally signed later that year by MCA, quickly releasing the patchy Four Cuts EP, followed by Living on... Borrowed Time in '82. A good, in places great album, many fans (not least myself) were disappointed by the its sparse sound, with seemingly little attempt made to fill out the band's live arrangements, a lack of extra rhythm guitar leaving holes in the sound when Tatler played lead. Another personal disappointment was the non-appearance of stage fave To The Devil His Due, although we got a slightly unwelcome eight-minute version of Don't You Ever Leave Me, complete with tedious blues solo, the poppy Call Me and glossy, inferior re-recordings of Lightning To The Nations and the iconic Am I Evil? from their homemade debut. To add insult to injury, opener In The Heat Of The Night lost its picked-guitar-and-vocal intro, while To Heaven From Hell sounded strangely plodding, leaving the title track as the only wholly satisfying piece on the record.
One major-label benefit was getting the backing for their first tour of 'proper' venues, although they played to a less-than-packed Hammersmith Odeon, amongst others. The sadly-missed To The Devil His Due found its way into their set, along with a killer new song, Knight Of The Swords, announced as 'one that'll be on the next album', giving this listener, at least, hope of a better second MCA effort.
September 1983 brought the release of Canterbury, apparently originally to be titled Makin' Music. The album was plagued with problems, not least the pressing fault that caused the initial batch to skip on several tracks (I managed to replace mine with a good one, as luck would have it). And what was with the 'band' pic on the rear sleeve? There's Harris, there's Tatler... Bassist Colin Kimberley? Drummer Duncan Scott? Stories differ, but the gist appears to be that MCA wanted them replaced by 'better' players and the two songwriters/frontmen kowtowed, to admit, years later, that their rhythm section's presumably forced departure destroyed several years of band spirit.
This was supposed to be DH's 'breakthrough' album, but it's such a schizophrenic release that it seems to be trying to appeal to at least three different audiences simultaneously, only one of whom was the band's by-now considerable fanbase. While by no means as consistent as their debut, or even Borrowed Time, its highs more than outweigh its lows. To my surprise, Mojo covered the album a year or two back in their Buried Treasure series, although, as you might expect, their writer came to some strange conclusions. Anyway, the tracks:
Makin' Music: Opening with a straightforward rocker is considered good practice for hard rock acts, Diamond Head being no exception on any of the original band's three releases. Unfortunately, Makin' Music (the album's first single) is easily the weakest of their openers, although its main riff is a classic 'Tatler writes a straightforward part that somehow, no-one's actually come up with before' effort.
Out of Phase: The second and last single released from the album, this is a rather thin-sounding pop/rock effort with an irritating rhythmic quirk, the lyrics actually rather better than the music, for once. A pointer to the direction in which the band were headed and as such, worth avoiding.
The Kingmaker: The album's first 'epic', The Kingmaker is surprisingly short, also not as cohesive as it might have been, although it contains some great ideas. Opening with portcullis sound effects, chanting vocals are underlaid by a chordal synth part, the guitars relegated to the distant background. What appears to be a typical Harris 'sword'n'sorcery'-type lyric is actually more of a historical mini-epic, a mere two verses long. Tatler pulls his 394th great single-line riff out at two minutes in, although the track goes slightly awry towards the end, as he shifts gear into what would, on their first two albums, have presaged a whole new section. This time round, it describes a swift left-turn into a variant on riff no.394, ending on a sustained off-root keyboard chord for no especially good reason. Good, but not great.
One More Night: Um... What? Nearly thirty years on, the overlong-at-four-minutes One More Night is as awful as it was first time round, time having done bugger-all to soften the blow of drivel like this turning up on a DH album. Pop/rock/swing, anyone? Thought not. Its skiffle-alike rhythm, allied with a truly rubbish set of Harris lyrics, is enough to bring this listener out in hives. Er, I thought this album was supposed to be a 'neglected classic'? Thankfully, it picks up from here on in.
To the Devil His Due: Ah... One album late, here comes To The Devil His Due. Was it worth the wait? Fuck, yeah... Given a decent studio budget, Harris and Tatler took an already good song and turned it into a classic. It opens with a beautiful picked acoustic part in 5/4, overlayed with the Zeppelinesque guitar/vocal duel from the song's live version, before it shifts into a mid-paced acoustic guitar shuffle for an opening chorus, Tatler's single-note electric riff laid over the top. The band switches up from E to F# for the verse, a highly effective manoeuvre, Harris doing his best Percy Plant wail with his vague tale of some kind of retribution, dropping back to E for the chorus. Another verse and chorus brings us to the jaw-dropping midddle section: another deceptively simple rising single-note Tatler riff in 3/4 underlaid with keyboard strings, a stupendously effective acoustic guitar arpeggio coming in under the second time through. Ominous (Fairlight-produced?) voices over epic string chords lead into a reiteration of the chorus, three perfectly-placed triple-beat snare hits leading us back into a conglomeration of several parts of the song, laid over each other perfectly and all in under six minutes. You can tell I like this, can't you? Of course, had the band tackled it on their previous release, it would've sounded very different and quite possibly nowhere near as good. I remember being exceedingly happy with this on its original release. Nothing's changed.
Knight of the Swords: And opening side two on the original vinyl, here comes that galloping 'new one' from the previous year's tour. Does it match up to expectations? Oh yes... Lyrically based on a Michael Moorcock theme (Corum, as it happens; maybe they should've got Moorcock to actually write the lyrics), it is, in some ways, the 'earliest' sounding track on the album, despite not being the oldest. It also features the album's one and only good old-fashioned guitar solo, after a classic clean picked part, Tatler pulling a real beauty out of the bag, including the old 'vary the backing riff' trick he used to such good effect on Am I Evil?
Ishmael: Ishmael came as a surprise on the album's release: an Arabian-themed number, both musically and lyrically, it sounds like nothing else the band ever wrote. Notable for featuring not one full guitar chord, let alone a solo, it shows how Tatler had learned from U2's The Edge, amongst others. I tell you, you wouldn't get away with this kind of variety on a rock album these days...
I Need Your Love: This is probably the album's best take on the U2/Police approach that the band had partially integrated into their own style, Tatler utilising cleanish echoed guitar during the verses, yet still managing to sound like himself. Lyrically, it seems that the love Harris needs is that of his audience, rather than an individual, lines like 'the beat has just begun' being sadly entirely non-prophetic.
Canterbury: Just when you're wondering what else the band might pull out of the hat, they wind things up with the title track. Opening with a medieval-sounding piano part (yes, I know pianos didn't exist then), Harris sings what appears to be the sorry tale of Thomas (à) Becket, the twelfth-century martyr, giving the album its title and sleeve design. We're over two minutes in before the band shifts into gear, Tatler playing with some unusual chord voicings, pulling out yet another classic single-note line in the middle section, this time as an accompaniment to a vocal section. As on To The Devil... it's clear that the band (or at least, Tatler) have been working on keyboard arrangements, rather than just sticking block chords under the guitars, which is all we've come to expect from so many lesser outfits.
Although, in some ways, the original band's weakest album, Canterbury features so many highlights that the relevance of that statement has to be called into question. Its production sounds a little dated these days, but with five or six killer tracks on board, who cares?
I don't have sales figures, but the album did nowhere near as well as all concerned hoped it would and the band were quietly dropped a few months later. By the following year, they were back down to club venues, although still touring hard. They recorded a few tracks that have leaked out, titled the Flight East demos, but their unpleasant AOR sheen proves that the band were a spent force musically, reduced to concetrating on their least interesting elements in a vain attempt to get signed.
On the other side of the Atlantic, however, something was stirring... Just as DH ground to a halt, a young San Franciscan band called Metallica (whatever happened to them, anyway?) appeared, raving about the NWoBHM in general and Diamond Head in particular. Hetfield's boys ended up recording no fewer than four of The White Album's seven tracks, presumably providing Tatler and Harris with a decent income from the royalties. DH inevitably reformed, playing selected gigs in the early '90s, not least Milton Keynes Bowl supporting... Metallica, although Sean Harris ballsed it up for them good and proper. Another reformation in the early '00s ended up with Harris leaving in high dudgeon, being replaced by a young geezer with the unfortunate name of Nick Tart, the band releasing (to date) two albums of new (and rather straightforward) material. When last seen, they were playing to a small audience in a London club, most of whom seemed to want to hear the tracks recorded by Metallica and little else. Sad.
In hindsight, Canterbury also suffers from a weak production, albeit in a different way to Borrowed Time, some of its then-current drum sounds now rather dating it. Out of print, particularly in the UK, for decades, it's now finally available in slightly-expanded form, although the bonus tracks don't add significantly to its appeal. Despite starting fairly badly, by the end of side one, the album kicks into high gear, being a good two-thirds excellent. There really is more to this band that Am I Evil?, you know...