A socially awkward young metalhead who had just finished his first year in college was enjoying his first week away from the grind of coursework. The summer months meant a time of partying with a bunch of metalheads, hippies and stoners that took this guy under their wing when his best friend was more interested in the carnal pursuits of a girlfriend. It was a splinter group of early twenty-somethings, all living in a row of houses, meaning he could crash over and drink as much as he liked without grief from his parents.
His love for metal was stronger than ever, but it was confined more and more to the extreme side of the spectrum. He had bunked off college one day just to purchase Cannibal Corpse’s latest album The Bleeding, his college friends had lent him albums and recorded mix tapes from bands such as Death, At the Gates, Morbid Angel, Deicide - and there was a lot of fuss about a new up and coming band called Machine Head.
The ringleader of this troop of metalheads, stoners and hippies was a guy called Daz. He had an elaborate collection of vinyl that you could spend hours looking at, including classic rock from the likes of Pink Floyd, Black Sabbath, Budgie and Deep Purple, as well as thrash classics from Anthrax, Megadeth, Metallica and Testament. It would probably take days to play this collection if you played it back to back without sleep. This young metalhead loved what he heard, and this rag tag bunch of friends often had random adventures and barbecues, at one point shoe horning six people into a mk2 Ford Escort estate and driving for hours to anywhere random, usually somewhere scenic - because "Why not?" (one of them had passed their driving test recently).
For the most part, this young metalhead liked what he heard but was still pretty much all about Strepsil sponsored vocals, and power chords., In fact, ‘the lads’ didn't really get what he saw fascinating about a new vinyl he bought from a band called Cradle of Filth, and a CD from a bunch of teenage Norwegians called Emperor. It was all set to change one Friday night, when this young metalhead called over with some beers to Daz’s gaff. He was having a natter about music, and brought up a pre-recorded tape of Pink Floyd’s The Division Bell for him to check out. This led neatly into playing an album from his collection that turned into a real game changer.
The vinyl was placed onto the platter of a late 1970s Pioneer music centre. Daz was an audiophile on a shoe string. He preferred these type of music centres or hi-fi separates as "They cared more about the engineering of record players. When they made CD players, they skimped on record players and they sounded like shit, you know?”. This young metalhead agreed, as his father managed a hi-fi and electronic shop and was surrounded by technology from an early age; CB radios, VHS recorders, Amateur Radio, all sorts of things - it was pretty much genetic.
The music centre whirred into life, and a ethereal sounding choir came from the speakers; which developed into piano, mandolin, which build to a crescendo of lead guitar solos. This young metalhead sat there, mouth open and rendered completely speechless.
“What the?....Fuck....man! What’s this album, Daz? This is amazing!”
“It’s Ommadawn by Mike Oldfield”
“What? Mike Oldfield? That dude that done the theme to that banned film? I thought he only done this and some cheesy crap that my Dad kept on playing when I was a kid on holidays to Wales in his Ford Cortina. Really?”
“Yep”
The album starts off with in an ethereal manner, with soaring choir vocals, mandolin, piano notes, and occasional electric guitar flourishes and a piano riff. The choir still holds steady with layered keyboard synth effects, only to be punctuated by a mournful mandolin solo adding further to the ethereal atmospheres. A guitar solo slowly builds from the mix, gaining in volume with a crash of cymbals. Then, a louder guitar solo soars over the top. This develops into further territories marked by flutes and pipes, building further into a crescendo once more with a duelling banjo style jam incorporating a recorder, piano, mandolin and acoustic guitar that sounds compelling and bewitching. A gentle section containing harps, penny whistles and so forth develops into more lead guitar trade offs. This then develops into a mournful flute solo before developing into deep African style drumming and nonsensical chants of “ommadawn” like a compelling witch doctor dance, all becoming louder and louder with every layer of instruments playing full force and ending with ploy-rhythmic drumming patterns reminiscent of post coital heart beats.
The second side of the LP continues with searing slow electric guitars, acoustic guitars and synths but this time more mournful, continuing with the dense multiple layers of the previous side but developing into an arrangement largely dominated by what sound like wedding bells, but with a sea of many instruments. A flute solo then appears in the mix surrounded by slow acoustic guitar strums and multiple dizzying keyboard effects. This clears and fades, like the fading of rain to a quaint Gaelic folk ditty involving bagpipes, acoustic guitars and harp flourishes. This interlude ends with what myself and Daz called the “Feeling sorry for yourself bit”; an interlude that seems to be a prevalent pattern on what I eventually discovered was found on all of Mike Oldfield albums - a mournful flute solo that blossoms out into multi layered instrumentation with keyboards and soaring choir vocals. Then, it develops into a fun little hoe down of drums, acoustic guitar duelling, flutes, and more searing electric guitar work, developing in pace and loudness before ending almost abruptly.
Finally. the album ends with a surreal moment. The final track is acoustic guitar, electric guitar flourishes and flutes; with Mike talking about how he likes beer, cheese, a place called Hergest Ridge and riding upon horseback. The ‘song’ contains the nonsensical chorus of “Hey and away we go, through the grass across the snow, big brown beastie, big brown face, I’d rather be with you than flying though space”. Clearly something that he wrote on one of his more lysergic moments, perhaps consuming ‘those sort of mushrooms’.
From that point on, this young metalhead suddenly had his musical horizons expanded. The album was truly compelling, with complex sound structures with waves upon waves of different instruments added to the mix as the album went on. He had to know more of this sort of thing.
The following week, he had also discovered the joys of Ozric Tentacles - which one of the other lads brought along - and he quickly learnt of bands such as The Black Crowes, Steve Hillage, Gong, solo stuff from Pink Floyd members such as Roger Waters and Syd Barrett’s 'The Madcap Laughs' as the summer months went on before he returned back to college for a new term. When he left college and got his first job as an Office Junior, contact with these friends eventually faded. He grew out of their ways and ended up finding different friends. With the new found freedom of his own money and not misspent college grants, he went on to purchase hi-fi separates of his own and spend industrial amounts of money on trawling vinyl shops to replicate what Daz owned, or to even better it.
This young metalhead would even think nothing of buying complete discographies rather than just one mere album, with albums by Hawkwind, Deep Purple, Yes, Sisters of Mercy, The Mission, and even a job lot of Kate Bush records finding their way into his collection. Nowadays, this man has a comprehensive collection that stretches from Jimi Hendrix to Darkthrone. Death and black metal is still this guy’s specialist subject, but now he now knows about a whole tonne of music. Oh, he also got the rest of the Mike Oldfield albums too and just purchased Man on the Rocks this weekend just gone on vinyl.
It just goes to show, that an innocuous vinyl once heard at a friend's house many years ago can be enough to prove that it doesn't all have to be Strepsil sponsored vocals and power chords.
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