Been listening to a lot of different things lately. Most recently finished going thru the entire Judas Priest catalog. I've never been a super huge fan of theirs - I have Metalworks and Painkiller, and I thought that was all I needed. There are a couple of other very good albums in there, but overall, I stand by my original assessment.

After that I decided to start listening to some of the albums that Michael Wagener was involved with in some way, and that led me to a WASP's Inside The Electric Circus.

I'd never listened to WASP before, as I always thought they were a heavy metal band in the vein of say Maiden or Megadeth - based largely on some of their promo pix no doubt. However, I was incredibly surprised by how good Electric Circus was, and I've now been listening to their catalog in order. I'm on Still Not Black Enough currently. So far, I've been very pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoy them. Lawless' voice reminds me a lot of a cross between Cinderella's Tom Keifer and Britny Fox's Dizzy Dean. Being a fan of both vocalists, I rather enjoy Lawless' as well. The band does a lot of classic rock covers too, and I must say, I think they cover them quite well. In addition their few ballads are remarkable. Not sure how I missed these guys all these years having grown up in the late 80's/early 90's, but better late than never!!!!

To answer the original question, not since I hit puberty.

That said I would recommend The Headless Children while The Crimson Idol tends to be a fan favorite but I don't think I ever heard it all the way through.

I thought this tour preview from a site called "Metal Sucks" was hilarious:

W.A.S.P. To Bravely Allow Armored Saint to Blow Them off the Stage Every Night on U.S. Anniversary Tour

JANUARY 13TH, 2022 AT 10:40AMMETALSUCKS

W.A.S.P. have announced U.S. dates for their fortieth anniversary tour. Just as a friendly reminder, Blackie Lawless is the only original member of the band left.

In what I can only assume is a cruel joke perpetrated by a vengeful booking agent, support will come from Armored Saint, who I can 127,000,000% guarantee you will be 241,000,000,000% better than W.A.S.P. each and every night. I mean. Look at John Bush. Look at Blackie Lawless. Which one of those dudes do you think is gonna put on the superior show? You might as well ask Tommy Wiseau to perform a dramatic monologue directly after Meryl Streep has done the same.

Keep in mind that W.A.S.P. won’t play “Animal (@#$%& Like a Beast)” anymore because Blackie found God. So actually, forget the Streep/Wiseau thing — this is like breaking George Foreman’s arm before pushing him into the ring with Tyson Fury.

Michael Schenker will also be on some of the dates. I’m guessing he’ll sound better than W.A.S.P., too.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2023-01-26 00:58 by kovach.

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Dan
To answer the original question, not since I hit puberty.

That said I would recommend The Headless Children while The Crimson Idol tends to be a fan favorite but I don't think I ever heard it all the way through.

I wasn't a big fan of The Crimson Idol. So far I think Electric Circus is still my favorite, but Headless Children was also very good. I think their first 4 are all very strong albums. Still Not Black Enough was also pretty damn good. Crimson and KFD were not as good. I'd say KFD was the weakest so far.

PS - I'm a big fan of hair metal, so I enjoy all those bands immensely.

I love hair metal - fun times

I was never actually a big WASP fan, but oddly enough they started putting out some really good heavy music later in their career. Not the stuff they're famous for, but I heard a song on my local radio station in like 2009 and was like "this is great!" Imagine my surprise when they said was the new WASP song. Never inspired me to really go back and listen to their classic stuff, but they had two albums that were really solid, silly as that sounds, in the mid 2000s. Babylon and Dominator. Some great tracks between them: Babylon's Burning (the single that was on the radio), Seas Of Fire, Deal With The Devil, Heaven's Blessed. And some great covers of Chuck Berry's The Promised Land and Deep Purple's Burn on them as well.

Also, since I just get emails from various venues, I did see they were doing some big 40th anniversary tour. I'm not going, but I know that they stopped playing their big Animal (@#$%& Like A Beast) song in the mid 2000s because of Blackie's religious views. It was a decently big deal for them to finally add that back in the set for this tour and that they are indeed playing it again for the fans.

I'm still making my way thru their catalog and have not gotten to those mentioned albums yet, RollingFreak. I'm on Neon God 1 right now. I must say that I've been a bit disappointed with the most recent albums I've heard (so far this one, and Dying For The World). The 2 before that (Unholy Terror and Helldorado) were both hit or miss, song wise.

While they may not be everyone's cup o' tea, I do give them huge props for continuously releasing new music and not just reforming every few years to tour and cut a new album. There are a few bands that have continued non-stop regardless of record success. Tesla and LA Guns are two others that immediately come to mind. I know Def Lep and Bon Jovi have as well, but I would say those are bigger names, with much larger past success than some other bands that are still going strong. And I applaud those bands for that - the former ones I'd mentioned. You can tell that they do it simply for the love of what they do.

I had also read that about F Like A Beast. Glad to see they added it back into the live set.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2023-01-25 20:35 by VoodooLounge13.

Liked a lot of the metal bands in the 80s but wasn't really into WASP. I did like the song Blind In Texas, saw the video a number of times back in the day.

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VoodooLounge13
I'm still making my way thru their catalog and have not gotten to those mentioned albums yet, RollingFreak. I'm on Neon God 1 right now. I must say that I've been a bit disappointed with the most recent albums I've heard (so far this one, and Dying For The World). The 2 before that (Unholy Terror and Helldorado) were both hit or miss, song wise.

While they may not be everyone's cup o' tea, I do give them huge props for continuously releasing new music and not just reforming every few years to tour and cut a new album. There are a few bands that have continued non-stop regardless of record success. Tesla and LA Guns are two others that immediately come to mind. I know Def Lep and Bon Jovi have as well, but I would say those are bigger names, with much larger past success than some other bands that are still going strong. And I applaud those bands for that - the former ones I'd mentioned. You can tell that they do it simply for the love of what they do.

I had also read that about F Like A Beast. Glad to see they added it back into the live set.

Yeah, they are definitely less metal than Maiden or Priest like you say, but I do get how they give off that vibe. I thought the same about them and was surprised they were a little more straight ahead rock and roll. Good call on Blackie's voice too. The comparison to Tom Keifer is spot on. (by the way, if you haven't listened to Tom Keifer's solo album The Way Life Goes I'd definitely recommend. I feel like the album itself is fine, but the lead single Solid Ground I thought was an excellent Stonesy song. Heard it on the same radio station as the newer WASP).

As for Tesla lol, I used to be a MAJOR Tesla fan. Listen, I could still tell you everything about them, and they are solid, but I do feel I kinda outgrew them. Their albums through Forever More are largely solid all the way through. It really seemed to nosedive from there but I'll always have a soft spot for them. Also Michael Wagener's got a great catalogue behind him. Good discography to go through.

I was never into Wasp but this video from Blackie is pure rock and roll

[www.youtube.com]

Bye
Fernando

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RollingFreak

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VoodooLounge13
I'm still making my way thru their catalog and have not gotten to those mentioned albums yet, RollingFreak. I'm on Neon God 1 right now. I must say that I've been a bit disappointed with the most recent albums I've heard (so far this one, and Dying For The World). The 2 before that (Unholy Terror and Helldorado) were both hit or miss, song wise.

While they may not be everyone's cup o' tea, I do give them huge props for continuously releasing new music and not just reforming every few years to tour and cut a new album. There are a few bands that have continued non-stop regardless of record success. Tesla and LA Guns are two others that immediately come to mind. I know Def Lep and Bon Jovi have as well, but I would say those are bigger names, with much larger past success than some other bands that are still going strong. And I applaud those bands for that - the former ones I'd mentioned. You can tell that they do it simply for the love of what they do.

I had also read that about F Like A Beast. Glad to see they added it back into the live set.

Yeah, they are definitely less metal than Maiden or Priest like you say, but I do get how they give off that vibe. I thought the same about them and was surprised they were a little more straight ahead rock and roll. Good call on Blackie's voice too. The comparison to Tom Keifer is spot on. (by the way, if you haven't listened to Tom Keifer's solo album The Way Life Goes I'd definitely recommend. I feel like the album itself is fine, but the lead single Solid Ground I thought was an excellent Stonesy song. Heard it on the same radio station as the newer WASP).

As for Tesla lol, I used to be a MAJOR Tesla fan. Listen, I could still tell you everything about them, and they are solid, but I do feel I kinda outgrew them. Their albums through Forever More are largely solid all the way through. It really seemed to nosedive from there but I'll always have a soft spot for them. Also Michael Wagener's got a great catalogue behind him. Good discography to go through.

I am a huge Keifer fan! Growing up in the 80's, his was by far my favorite. It was so unique and different to anything else out there. He's really had a tough go of it over the years with his vocals. Glad to have him back. I do know his Life Goes album - it's pretty darn good I think. I just discovered 2 days ago that his band - Keiferband - has released another album called Rise. I am going to have to check it out as well after I finish WASP.

I tell ya, I know I said it in my first post on this thread, but WASP's ballads are just incredible. Blackie can really sing. They're poignant as hell to me. Peace and Hold On To My Heart on the ReIdolized album are both brilliant. And there are a couple of other songs on earlier albums that I'm going to have to go back and like on YT so that I can remember them until I can pick up some physical albums. I have been really surprised by these guys, in a very good way, overall. I do think they took a dip, creatively in the middle there (from Helldorado to Dominator), though Helldorado and Unholy Terror each had a couple of good songs. They just weren't consistent as the earlier albums, and the ones after I felt missed the mark. From Babylon on, they seem to have re-found their sound, and those last 3 albums are pretty solid as well. Finishing up ReIdolized now, and then on to the live releases.

Tesla is an interesting one, and I completely understand what you're saying about outgrowing them. Loved them back in the day. They put out some great rock and roll. I think I went a bit further than you - my last album was Forever More, which was a real dud to me. I did enjoy the Real to Reel albums a lot, but yeah, I don't think they've aged well. It's almost as if they SOUND late 80's/90's, if that makes sense. Little Suzie is my favorite - might even be one of my all-time favorite songs. Mechanical and Radio and 5 Man are three fantastic, solid albums. But I don't listen to them much these days.