It was in March of that year that Thin Lizzy released the Thunder and Lightningstudio album, which would end up being their final effort of original material prior to the death of Phil Lynott in early 1986.īy this point Phil Lynott had recorded and released two solo albums, and the group had lost guitarist Snowy White, who was replaced by John Sykes, fresh out of his stint with Tygers of Pan Tang. Buy this you insignifiCUNT little fuck.1983 marked the end of an era. I have the utmost respect for Phil being able to pull off a wide variety of colors and emotions throughout his whole career, but pissed Lizzy is the best Lizzy. Hell, this is why Thin Lizzy are fucking metal. This album is the reason Thin Lizzy are respected in metal circles. Metal-archives readers, this is the reason Thin Lizzy are accepted as metal on the archives. You wanna fuck on the floor? You wanna break shit? You want to crash your car into a brick wall? Then scream it loud with me kids LIKE THUNDER! AND LIGHTING! GODDAMN ITS SO EXCITING! IT HITS YOU! A HAMMER! GODDAMN! Angry enough to start knife fights with bars filled with six foot six men standing two miles high. You want rage? You want angst? Wait, fuck angst, angst is for emos. Erupting with a riff that just saw its wife cheating with that lousy interior decorator next door. Then again, it could be argued that the album’s standout moment is the opening title track. He can and did throughout his entire career and made all those who tried to duplicate him look like utter hacks. Sorry James, but Boris was right, you really are the Keanu Reeves of metal. James Hetfield’s obnoxiously awful Waylon Jennings mannerisms? Yea you can blame those here. Bad Habits has all the great rock swagger Phil’s become known for, and if there’s any fault, its that the man makes it look way, way, way too easy. There are still some “rockish” moments on this album, but anybody who sees that as a negative can go shove their Lamb of God albums up their asses sideways. Aside from a few of Phil’s quips, that’s the only lyric in the whole song, but it just fucking works because Gorham and Sykes are like Bruce Campbell with two chainsaw arms ripping through everything in their path. It’s Lizzy jamming at an almost-but-not-quite speed metal pace with the lyrics “Some Day She’s Gonna Hit Back” being repeated ad naseum. On paper everything about this song should scream failure. If it’s shredding you want, Baby Please Don’t Go will be your forte, but not quite as much as Some Day She’s Gonna Hit Back. Making a statement of “Yeah, we’re aware you’re changing the scene, but we can still play and, as you kids say today, shred better than you can!” John Sykes and Scott Gorham (who is always on point) put every single guitar player in rock on red alert with their lead work here. John Sykes is especially deadly on the solo here, and this is one of the few moments where he doesn’t shred! This is probably the slowest solo on the album aside from the Sun Goes Down and holy fuck what a melodic lethal monster. Then again, if it did end the album, The Holy War’s funky but ominous bass line wouldn’t come erupting from the silence to violently slice all religious fanaticism from the crotch up. I say this because there are some days where I feel The Sun Goes Down should be the final song on the album (it was chosen as Lizzy’s final single) to make the final curtain falling truly effective. Strung out on heroin or not.” The fact that this album is so underrated even in metal circles seems to intimate that some in metal circles were still a bit salty because of this attitude, and as far as I’m concerned, that’s their problem. Some might scoff and simply ask why they didn’t go full metal back in 76, and the answer then, as it is now, was “because fuck you we’re Thin Lizzy and we do what the fuck we want. The fact that this was written as Thin Lizzy’s swan-song seems to support this theory. Thin Lizzy were getting accusations of “going heavy metal” and Phil just responds to them with his usual “Yeah? and? Fuck you if you can’t take it.” While Thin Lizzy have consistently had a great hard rock vehicle since 75-76, it always felt like heavy metal was the ultimate destination. In terms of sheer intensity, this goes toe-to-toe with every heavy metal album released in 1983 with the exceptions of Kill Em All and Show No Mercy (maybe even Melissa). Dear Nightwish, THIS is what your ballads should sound like. While we do get a respite, and a fairly early one too, with The Sun Goes Down, its bleak atmosphere sound makes it a very welcome addition to the album. But this is no Scott Travis performance (though judging from the live version of Sha-La-La, I think its arguable he could have easily approached that territory). That’s not a knock on Brian Downey either, he’s in fine form here as he always is. With the exception of the drums, that describes this album’s sound pretty well.
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