Description
2017 press. Double album on red vinyls with gatefold cover
The underground success of ‘All For One’ kept Raven on the road for most of 1983-84. By the end of the touring cycle for that album, Raven had ‘seven or eight major labels absolutely fainting over us’, according to John Gallagher. The band took a much needed break to sort through the many offers coming their way and to plot their next move. In order to buy some time they released this absolutely monstrous live album in 1984. On ‘Live At The Inferno’ the band is amazingly tight and spot-on, the mix is great, if you crank the original vinyl album up on a decent stereo it’ll feel like Raven are right there smashing up your living room. The track listing is a decent mix of the best stuff from their first three albums; in fact the live versions shown here of tracks from the poorly-produced ‘Wiped Out’ and ‘Rock Until You Drop’ albums actually sound better than their studio counterparts, so ‘Live At The Infenro’ could also serve as a best of compilation for someone who’s new to the band. All the roadwork Raven had been doing for the preceding three years meant that John Gallagher had become an experienced ringmaster by this time, asking the rabid crowd to show them ‘INSANITYYYYYYY!’ at every opportunity, and also telling the crowd that songs like ‘Let It Rip’ have ‘the same effect as a curry – it’s a blast up yer ass!’ Laughing very hard they also managed to get one of John G.’s longest, most insanely over-the-top glass shattering screeches EVER on tape during the midsection of ‘Hell Patrol’. If you happen to own the original double vinyl version then youll notice that the band didn’t labelled the sides 1 to 4 but in reverse order, starting with ‘Defcon 4’, ‘Defcon 3’, ‘Defcon 2’ and finally ‘Defcon 1’. As anyone who’s ever seen the movie ‘WarGames’ knows, ‘DefCon’ stands for the ‘Defense Condition’ of our government, with ‘4’ being ‘everything’s fine’ and ‘1’ meaning ‘total devastation, everything’s destroyed’. By the time you reach ‘Defcon 1’ of ‘Live At The Inferno’ you’re likely to be totally devastated as well. Quite simply, one of the finest live metal albums ever to be released.
Track listing:
1. Live At The Inferno
2. Take Control
3. Mind Over Metal
4. Crash Bang Wallop
5. Rock Until You Drop
6. Faster Than The Speed Of Light
7. All For One
8. Forbidden Planet
9. Star War
10. Tyrant Of The Airways/Run Silent Run Deep
11. Crazy World
12. Let It Rip
13. I.G.A.R.B.O.
14. Wiped Out
15. Firepower
16. I Dont Need Your Money
17. Break The Chain
18. Hell Patrol
19. Live At The Inferno