Customer Reviews

Power Games

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

 

 

The already legendary " New Wave of British Heavy Metal" was a spontaneous movement that ocurred between 1979 and 1983/4 in Britain. More than 300 bands tried to make their names in that prolific scenario, from whom only three ( Iron Maiden, Def Leppard - totally transfigured muscically - and Saxon ) survived until our days - without any interruptions, I mean. Mosf of them had already disappeared by 1985. Jaguar was one of them. This album is a landmark of that era. Hard, fast and simple metal songs played with energy, fury and good taste. Amazing album. The singer, Paul Merrell, has an outstanding voice.

I got Jaguar's "Back Street Woman" 7" single back in 1981 when it was released. I liked power and dirty back alley feeling it got. So when "Power Games" LP was released in 1983 I got it immediately. It rocked, very hard, but there was just something missing, something that the 7" had. I didn't give the LP many spins then.

I recently purchased band's 2003 release "Run Ragged" and was positively surpised. That encouraged me to try "Power Games" again.

But even today the album just don't hit me so hard it should. The problem with "Power Games" is not lack of speed or musicianship or sound quality. They are all excellent. But what this album - and bonus tracks - don't quite have is excellent songs and a bit more relentless approach in performance. So in a way it's productional problem. Sound is controlled, heavy, molten metal sound, but it's not enough.

Lyric leaflet contains pretty interesting press leaflet from 1983 where guitarist Garry Pepperd says "nothing in Heavy Metal is new, but I strive for freshness and originality".

Somebody might say Pepperd's attitude was cynical, but I say he got a point there, concerning "Power Games": nothing really new, except speed. And a band is in trouble if the songs don't stand up alone, without speed, or if performance isn't so relentless it smashes everything out of the way - like Exciter did in "Heavy Metal Maniac" (1983). Average songs, but man, what relentless attitude in playing!

All in all, "Power Games" is a bit over-rated release, although it has it's place in Heavy Metal history as one of the first Speed/Thrash Metal albums.

If you want to get to the core of Jaguar, get their 15-track live CD Holland 82 (2006) instead. Sound quality is only from fair to good (or if you're used to today's over-produced pro-tools live albums, it kinda sucks) even it's remastered, but they are in full action slaughtering their Dutch audience with merciless metal assault. Their performance surpasses the problem with average material. And that's great.

This was the finest moment from a band that really had a chance to write great riffs and the songwriting shone through, only on this release however. Including the great onrelease tracks (some of which I spent years wishing to find as the re-issue was out-of-print)In another notes a really great release from JAGUAR,missing in action title is JAGUAR-THIS TIME,I really wanna find it someday like others fans of this great band on CDs too,good luck for everybody.

This review is for the 1998 Metal Blade release of this album. Unfortunately I bought this version. It is awful. The sound quality is so bad that it makes the album unlistenable. I'm pretty familiar with NWOBHM so I'm used to less than stellar sound quality but this is just unacceptable. Hilariously, the cd case says it was remastered. I would really like to know how they remastered this one. It sure sounds like they just took the original vinyl and held a handheld cassette tape recorder up to it. The main problem is with the rhythm guitar parts. They are fuzzy, distorted, screechy, and are so high in the mix. They all just sound so bad. The reason I'm giving it two stars instead of one is because the bonus tracks sound perfectly fine(there is three of them). So at least you get the Axe Crazy single that was released before Power Games. The A and B side from that single are cool songs and again they sound great here. If it wasn't for the bonus tracks this one would be added to my frisbee collection. If someone could recommend me the best cd pressing of this album please do because the songs from Power Games seem like they might be cool without terrible production.

P.S. I hate this because it makes me even more nervous to buy cds online before hearing the specific pressing I'm going to get. Metal Blade is a huge, well respected label and this is just an ameteur release.

The New Wave of British Heavy Metal, or its acronym, NWOBHM, was "the" movement that propelled heavy metal into the mainstream spotlight. This umbrella of classification has grown over time, and now includes a large number (hundreds) of bands. Most under the umbrella never made it beyond the "influential" title, remaining mired in "unknown," "underrated," or "under-appreciated" status. Jaguar is one such band.

Having some local success with their 7" singles, Jaguar's first full-length release, Power Games, was an instant classic. Thrashing first cut to thrashing last, the boys from Jaguar were metal thrashing mad. Power Games shouldered its way to the top of the metal board, standing beside Motorhead's Overkill, Judas Priest's British Steel, and Iron Maiden's eponymous debut as "must have" metal LPs. Fierce cuts like "Coldheart," "No Lies," and "Dutch Connection" represented the best of Jaguar--fast fretwork, light-speed tempos, and intelligible lyrics. These tracks also embraced a raw, unfettered sound, one the aforementioned heavyweights also had, but moved away from after reaching a modicum of success. By all that is metal, Jaguar appeared to be next in line, the band that would storm the heavyweight metal throne and lay claim to it as their own.

Alas, Jaguar was not--and never would become--a heavyweight. You've probably never heard of them. Following the release of the 7" single "Axe Crazy" in 1982 (a song highly praised in several fanzines), interviews with band members indicated a desire to play faster and faster on each successive release. While they fulfilled that promise on 1983's Power Games, they didn't on subsequent efforts. As was so often the case during that era, Jaguar's follow-up to Power Games was not nearly as intense, raw, or inspired as the one that had thumb-tacked their name to the metal map as ones to watch. Power Games was Jaguar's one and only collection of speed cuts among a tiny catalog released by the band.

Such a shame. They had talent, energy, and something to say on Power Games. It is a crime Power Games was not embraced as the epic it was, and a further crime Jaguar was not able to maintain the intangible qualities that brought this incredible album to production. Whether it was due to ego, boredom with the style of music they played, or the diverting cast of sycophants that often surround a band showing potential success, Jaguar changed things during the recording of their second album, and fan interest flitted away like a startled bird.

But what made Power Games such a satisfying blitzkrieg? Was it a technical tour de force? Nope. Was it a spacey symphony of all things metal? Nope. Was it diverse? Nope again. True, Power Games occupied a one-dimensional arena--10 cuts laced with lightning-fast and superb axe work, emotional vocals, and neck-snapping drum fills. Was it a mature effort, full of dual-meaning lyrics and effects-laden studio panning? Nope. It lacked glitz; it lacked menace; it lacked layered walls of reverb. Rather, Power Games was merely a slab of straight ahead, in-your-face speed recorded in the raw environment a first release generally affords. Jaguar surely didn't have the intimidating quality other bands like Venom had, but--like Venom's early efforts--there was palpable urgency to their music.

Lack of commercial success notwithstanding, Jaguar's Power Games still has the ability to resurrect that "metal" feeling--to unleash the subverted shackles adult responsibilities lay upon us. Listening to Power Games will allow you to escape frustrating life for a moment. It will unlock the "metal" in you. And you will ask: "Why didn't this band make it?"

You want to hear to the NWOBHM captured at its apex, right? Then go lay down some Jaguar from the amazing Power Games LP. Do it A.S.A.P. You'll experience the urgent tempos and fleet-fingered riffs of a raw young band trying to place themselves in the direct glare of heavy metal's 1983 growing spotlight. It unfortunately was a spotlight that never found Jaguar.

By 1982, the New Wave of British Heavy Metal, which had been burning bright for a good three years, was starting to show some signs of ailing. Some of the scene's key early bands, such as Diamond Head and Tygers of Pan Tang, were now releasing material that while palatable was slightly more commercial and lacked the underground edge that characterized these bands' earliest releases.

Not so with Bristol's Jaguar. The group was just one of the many still-unsigned hopefuls when they released their debut single in 1981, the brilliant "Back Street Woman" EP. As 1982 dawned though they saw a member change in the form of new vocalist Paul Merrell, who was broken in for the April 1982 recording of the band's "Axe Crazy" single (tracks included here), which finally got them the attention of Neat Records, who then signed the band for their first proper full-length. That came in the form of the album being reviewed "Power Games," recorded at Impulse Studios in Newcastle in November '82.

Wow! Far from going the direction of some others in the scene at the time to a slower and more radio friendly sound, here was a band that believed in capitalizing on the things that made NWOBHM music so great to begin with. That being, SPEED, rawness, and attitude taken from punk and melded with classy riffing and song structures that could only come from classic metal.

Truth be told, Jaguar were not the most wildly original band in their scene (nor did they ever claim to be), as one or two of these riffs sound vaguely familiar, but they more than made up for it by being steeped in the qualities I mentioned and produce an album that is packed with catchiness and visceral energy from beginning to end. Some reference points might be Tank, Motorhead, and their labelmates Raven, along with a touch of the speed and aggression of U.K. '82 punk bands like G.B.H. If you enjoy any of the bands mentioned you will love this album. Can't so much name standout tracks because they are all strong.

All in all, great early speed metal that was yet another NWOBHM precursor to the following year's "Kill 'Em All" by U.S. upstarts Metallica. Tune in and crank it up loud, and prepare to bang your head to Jaguar "Power Games." Highly recommended.