Year Of Metal #011: Whiplash - Power And Pain
Of all metal’s myriad subgenres, thrash seems to be the most inviting for acts to give it a go and shortly disappear. Though they kicked around at the same time as the big four (and named themselves after a Metallica song), Whiplash don’t seem to have garnered much in the way of lasting acclaim. Indeed even their own Spotify bio slags them off, describing their act as “very competent but rather unoriginal”.
That’s not always true on their 1985 debut Power And Pain. The best tracks on this record have some lovely, weird ideas and passages. My favourite is “Red Bomb”. The whole first minute of this track sees the band move chromatically up the scale with a crunchy little riff. It’s simple stuff but it’s so charming and strange - I was willing them to just keep on climbing. When we reach the song proper, it’s all good stuff, Tony Scaglione’s clattering drums especially. The second solo is again oddball stuff, spluttering in and out of life before going on a charge.
I like “War Monger” a lot too, a particularly breakneck track that keeps throwing to a goofy little lick that’s basically just a scale played at lightning speed. They do reuse the trick a couple of times - the enjoyable “Power Thrashing Death” has similar bursts of wobbly riffs to keep attention - but it’s a neat trick, almost a signature move on the part of frontman and guitarist Tony Portaro.
It’s fair to say they don’t reinvent the wheel, with only a handful of the tracks giving you a great deal to hang on to. Closer “Nailed To The Cross” has a nicely histrionic chorus for Portaro, whose vocals otherwise do fit into the above description of competent but unoriginal. One can understand why they didn’t stand the test of time when loosely similar acts were ploughing similar fields with more obvious upside.
All the same, there are definitely moments of real quality on Power And Pain, when the band throw stranger ideas at the wall and see if they stick - which, often, they do. And a word must be reserved for the album art, surely the best I’ve seen so far in this project, and one that will take some beating.
