Shane’s Rock Challenge: EXCITER – Unveiling The Wicked

Shane’s Music Challenge: EXCITER – Unveiling The Wicked
5.5/10

Exciter, hailing from Ontario, were one of the original speed metal bands – a term, incidentally, which seems to have been pretty much superceded by ‘thrash metal’, for better or worse. (I’m pretty sure I have a vinyl record somewhere called Speed Kills – not sure if Exciter are on there… but I digress…)

Unveiling The Wicked was Exciter‘s fourth album, and at the time was considered too commercial for some of the die-hards. In hindsight that seems like some petty, tall poppy thing: there’s some fine nascent metal on here, although it’s not quite as good as their previous albums.

Bolstered by an epic album cover which references the Sci Fi TV series V, where lizard aliens wear human dead skin masks to pass off as humanoids, there’s an abundance of axe-shredding to bang your head to: Break Down the Walls, Die In The Night, the belligerent (I Hate) School Rules and Live Fast Die Young are all good, solid stuff, if not exactly earth shattering.

UTW was the band’s first album without founding guitarist John Ricci (he would return to the fold in 1992), so draw your own conclusions there.

By Shane Pinnegar

 

Category: Shane's Rock Challenge