Customer Reviews

Lightning to the Nations: The White Album

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Before Metallica came to be, there was Diamond Head. And the album LIGHTNING TO THE NATIONS was the one that started it all. Diamond Head were one of the esteemed NWOBHM bands in the late 70s-early 80s that were influential in the heavy metal genre.

LIGHTNING TO THE NATIONS featured great songs such as the title track, "Sucking My Love", "Helpless", & the classic "Am I Evil?" that Metallica covered in their GARAGE DAYS, Inc.

Every metal fan MUST have this album.

Diamond Head is not a well known band. They are in fact a very small British heavy metal band. I got my first diamond head cd in London. It is one of my favorite cds. Diamond Head had the most complex guitar of their time. Their songs had many different complictaed rythm sections with sweet solos. All this added together plus the vocals add up to one of my favorite metal cds of all time. They were one of the greates influences on metallica(the other being Motorhead) and have influenced me and my band alot. The production isn't the best but overall its one of the best cds ever.You should buy it if you like heavy metal and if you like new metal buy it and she where all your stuff started from.

this is amazing
sucking my love
am i evil?
the prince
it electric are amazing

This is the stuff! For anyone who owns "Behold the.." You owe it to yourself to own this version. It is the original mix of Diamond Head's first album with some bonus tracks on it. The drums sound much better and the recording as a whole sounds more raw and powerful. What are you waiting for?!!

It seems that several people on here chose to use the review of a Diamond Head album to rip on Metallica, and although they were very influenced by this spectacular band they are a different band of a different movement from a different continent that began release 4 years after was released. On to Diamond Head.
Track One, Lightning to the Nations, is a NWOBHM classic, as is the rest of this album, but this first track was the all important first step to making the original vinyl copy of the LP so sought after in heavy metal circles. The song sets forward a "mission statement" of sorts and all the subsequent songs build off of that song as a base. Classic Song on a classic album
Track Two, The Prince, had the luck of being covered by the metal juggernaut that was once Metallica, so the song is better known than some of the others. A solid song, the riff that comes in after a great intro is one that all heavy metal fans should be aware of.
Track Three, Sucking My Love, is a fantastic song, musically the song just melds together into yet another spectacular song. Thus far on the album the boys are three for three for wonderful songs.
Track 4, the ever present Am I Evil?, this song is beyond words to describe, it's the center piece of the album in my mind. Metallica obviously embraced it as well as it is one of their most famous B-Sides (check with your parents kiddies) that the Bay Area folks ever recorded. The song is impossibly good and the album can revel in that fact. Most people will buy this album because of that song, whether or not they realize it.
Track 5, Sweet and Innocent, although not one of my favorites off of this album it is a solid tune none the less. The intro riff is still echoed in music today and the fast pace keeps this song afloat.
Track 6, It's Electric, is a classic. Its about rock and roll and making it in the biz. Metallica covered this fellow for its 1998 release Garage Inc. and it is track two on Disc One of that album. The only real thing that can people can honestly complain about with this album is poor production, and this song is a casualty of that. Irregardless the song is a classic.
Track 7, Helpless, is yet another song covered by Metallica and is once again an undeniable classic. It's a spectacular song and everyone that buy this album should be enjoying this song as an album closer. This concludes my review of the original LP. Whether or not this review helps you is not too important, the buyer should just be positive that if they buy this that they will not be let down. Millions of metal fans worldwide love this relativly "underground", at least "underground" here in the USA, NWOBHM band as they are still talked about in a sort of an awed sort amazement. They should have been the next Led Zep but were stifled by the record companies on the later releases, as were many of the other NWOBHM bands that weren't Iron Maiden, Def Leppard, or Saxon (they stifled themselves until bursting back with Unleash the Beast. Take a listen to that too). Know that this is a marvelous album and invest in this band.

It's nice the have the original mixes and all, but this has obviously been mastered from damaged tapes. It's particularly apparent on Am I Evil; the high end whooshes up and down like a cassette that was left out in the sun. I'm not crazy about the "white album" cover "art", either.

The first 6 or 7 songs on here are classic and pretty groudbreaking hard rock/metal. They seem to have taken everything up to this point and come up with something new and refreshing, and it's the most influential music they put out perhaps.

So many riffs on here seem to come back on Metallica's "Kill Em All", the influence and what they were shooting for is undeniable. It is great that Metallica took it to the next level. Diamond Head should have been huge, but perhaps this was their legacy, just to be one of the most important bands. Being the first doesn't always mean the best, but they certainly earned a place in metal history, and that's something particularly in metal that's hard to come by.

Around the song "Shoot Out the Lights" I think it is, they pretty much start sounding like UFO and Thin Lizzy for the most part though on the version I have.

My fav is "The Prince", and "Am I Evil". "Sweet And Innocent" also has a very appealing sound, some harmony is injected to that track that sets it apart. Really I could take the first 5 songs in particular and pick any one of them to be my fav. There is a song on the later half of the CD I thought I was gonna like called "Waited Too Long", it has a nice start to it and once it get's going it seems like it's gonna be killer, but it doesn't really get going heavy enough and there are not the early changes and riffs of the first group of songs, like I said it all is just hard rock of the times on the extra songs.


I often try to imagine back in 1980 people hearing stuff by bands like Iron Maiden, Motorhead, and Diamond Head, and wishing I could see the expressions on their face as they wonder "how do they do that?" And being a musician and wanting to learn to play like this was probably a daunting task to say the least. It was an exciting time, Metal was still young, but from here on out, it became very excitable and unpredictable...just as something maturing and growing tends to be.

Anyway everyone who is into metal and the history of metal needs this one in their collection, whatever version you get doesn't really matter as long as you get ahold of the debut you'll be happy.

Fav songs:
1. Am I Evil
2. The Prince
3. Lightning To The Nations
4. Sweet And Innocent
5. Sucking My Love
6. Helpless
7. It's Electric

When Hetfield and company were still in High School (and I wasn't even born yet), Diamond Head were already putting out classic metal albums, and "Lightning to the Nations" is by far their best effort. There's a reason that Metallica, Megadeth, and lots of other bands continuing covering Diamond Head and collaborating with them two decades after this album came out: they were true pioneers in bridging the gap between hard rock and metal, and they did so almost as well as anyone else.

The vocals keep the music grounded in rock (I even remember reading somewhere that Sean Harris tried to emulate people like Plant of Led Zeppelin). But the instruments are definitely grounded in the metal side (though that side was still evolving at that point). Even the album's slower moments would be copied later by metal bands (e.g., the little riff before the 2nd solo in the song "The Prince"). I'd recommend this album to just about anyone into either rock or metal (unless you're the type of person who wants everything 200 BPM or faster).

most of their hit Song is in this album.
this is their debut album and best of best album.
I like the song "sucking my love".

i found out about them like most people i know through, Lars Ulrich. i was blown a way at this LP because the guitar work was like a black sabbath meets metallica kind of thing. there were so many catchy riffs and the lead work is amazing. the one problem is a big one and its the reason i gave it a three. the vocals . what is up with that. i know not all bands have great metal vocalists but this sounds like The Cure or some emo band. well, just look past it and you be blown away too.