Climbin' the Walls

Not a hell of a lot of metal bands got to sign with huge labels like Atlantic in the 80s, and surely it was a testament (pun intended) to the trajectory of your career to count yourself among them. Or was it? Well, in the case of Maryland's Wrathchild America, who added the national suffix so they wouldn't dare be confused with a crappy UK band, it certainly seemed like they were going to be huge. Back in the close of that great decade, this was one of those bands that even your normal high school friends had heard about, you know, the cliquey types who liked Metallica, Ozzy, Megadeth and Anthrax but couldn't be bothered to ever delve further into the underground or even consider themselves 'metal heads' publicly for fear of losing job prospects or not getting laid by the good girls.

Yes, Wrathchild America had a lot going for them, but I'm not it had truly manifest in the debut Climbin' the Walls, with its iconic hesher in a maze cover artwork. Though the band would later develop into a more interesting hybrid of progressive thrash with a few jazz aesthetics, this is more like a mixture of Metallica's 1984-86 period with some traditional British heavy metal, not terribly unlike another hopeful band, Powermad. You've got some decent enough songs here like "Climbin' the Walls" itself which has a few decent, ripping guitar riffs and stupid but fun lyrics; the driving, melodic "Day of the Thunder"; the goofy but endearing vampire epic "London After Midnight"; or "Silent Darkness (Smothered Life)", a hymn to being buried alive with a nice melodic guitar line in the chorus. But then you've got garbage like the bluesy hard rock & roll of "No Deposit, No Return" which might have fit better with their UK counterpart, or "Candy from a Madman", which is hard not to laugh at despite an acceptable riff or two.

Then there's the cover of Pink Floyd's "Time", which you might not expect on an album like this, and well, it's "Time". While a band like Voivod would manage to convert an experience like "Astronomy Domine" into something relevant and even poignant on the mesmeric Nothingface this very same year, it just doesn't seem that it belongs with Wrathchild America. Granted, it's not the worst cover out there, but it's not doing Climbin' the Walls any favors. Otherwise, this is just not all that great of an effort. Catchy enough perhaps to get a few people to notice, with decent guitars and drumming. The production was sufficient enough to match label mates like the comparable Savatage, but in the end, this album would be greatly outclassed by its follow up, and I very rarely find any compulsion to go back and listen aside from maybe two songs.

-autothrall
http://www.fromthedustreturned.com

The story of West Virginia's long-tenured, hard-working metal sons Wrathchild America is a common one in the industry - a ton of hard work undone by bad luck and bad timing. Most of the band had been gigging in the area as well as nationally in some form or another since the late 70's, starting as a more traditional sleaze-metal outfit with a harder edge, and built up a large and loyal regional following in the DC/VA/MD area. Early demos released under the Wrathchild moniker, such as 1983's Danger-Us, sound very much like Kix, which is unsurprising as bassist Brad Divins worked briefly with the influential glam band, appearing on their Cool Kids record.

Seen in this light, it helps to explain the somewhat transitional nature of the songwriting here, as opposed to the more focused progressive thrash metal approach of the followup. Though record #1 finds the band working out the remaining Aerosmith-like elements of their sound in favor of a modern thrash sound like Metallica, Climbin' The Walls still has quite a bit going for it on its own, including a charming, atypically rough-and-tumble production job by Alex Perialias, a number of strong riffs and a reverent and solid cover of Pink Floyd's Time. Some of the tongue-in-cheek lyrics are silly, like Candy From A Madman, but in other places work well, such as the raunchy, bluesy stomp of No Deposit, No Return. The speedy attack of Climbing the Walls and Hell's Gates, and especially the menacing grind of Silent Darkness toughen and distinguish this release while standing up very well as some of the better examples of thrash of its era.

Climbin' The Walls was plagued out of the gate by legal action by UK band Wrathchild, which forced the addition of the country designation to the band name, and delayed the release of the album for nearly two years until 1989. While the album did manage to scrape the bottom of the Billboard charts, the delays stifled momentum for the band. When you consider much of this record was already written and in polished demo form by 1987, comparing this to the state of the art thrash of 1989 it seemed more quaint than revelatory. Ultimately ending up more of a dry run for the more refined follow-up 3-D, the raw, not quite fully-formed attack here is nonetheless still enjoyable on its own merits.

Since Climbing the Walls is the only Wrathchild America album I have found, I can not compare and contrast this album to the others. A little note about Wrathchild America: Wrathchild America was previously named Wrathchild, but had to change there name to avoid legal issuses with a band already named Wrathchild. This cd is pretty fun! An A+ goes out to riffs and solo's, thrashy sounding with lots of headbanging delite! What makes Wratchild America so fun is there sound. They are sometimes labeled as thrash, but not always do they have this thrash sound. A definite A+ goes out to lyrics! The lyrics are well constructed to go with the riffs and drumming, which I have rarely seen. Like on the opening song Climbing the Walls, the riff goes than stops with vocals and continues this process! The drumming on this album is just beyond amazing. Double bass like you wouldn't fucking believe, not even Lars Ulrich can do some of the shit Larkin does on this album!
The only thing I didn't like (or rather particulary care for) is the vocals! Yes, the lyrics kick ass, but there is something about the vocals that doesn't move me to a 100%. It is in key, but it is straight, that is the tone of his voice (not the pitch mind you). Other than that, this album kicks ass, and it is a must, if you can find it! Great songs to check out are Climbing the walls, Hell's Gate, No Deposite, No Return, London After Midnight, Candy From a Madman and Time (which is a most excellent cover of the Pink Floyd classic)!!!