Diamond Head

		DIAMOND HEAD DINGWALLS LONDON, UK AUGUST 13, 2008 by Alissa Ordabai
		LINKS: diamond-head.net myspace.com/diamondheadmusicltd
Metal as we know it today would never have come into existence if not for this band. Not simply pioneers and outriders of a new ground-breaking genre of music, this English quintet achieved true greatness in the early ‘80s as much through innovation as through laying claim to the heritage which was then in danger of disappearing under punk’s relentless siege. Unmatched in capturing the zeitgeist of their time, Diamond Head managed to single-handedly create an entirely new musical form, inspired not only by their own creativity and talent for invention, but also by classic British hard rock. Having managed to retrieve, revive, and rework the methods and ideas first formulated by Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin, this unique band then went on to transform the old legacy into an entirely new style, which later received the name of thrash metal. And they did it so eloquently and with such aplomb that legions of bands immediately followed their suit—from Metallica and Anthrax to Kreator and Dark Angel.
Throughout their career Diamond Head held on to their early discoveries, never surrendering the spirit and the meaning of what they had achieved in their youth to any subsequent trends. Loyalty to their original findings and refusal to blindly follow the shifting fashions, is as strong a trait with them these days as renewal and transformation were all those years ago. But all this certainly checks out, as Diamond Head have always had respect for tradition, even at the time when they were busy inventing a completely new genre of music.
Refusing to let go of the values of their youth, these days Diamond Head play less hyped gigs, and not too often either, but every time they do, they are reminded of their legendary status by an army of die-hard fans. Dingwalls in North-West London is a kind of club that can always create a gorgeously intimate atmosphere given half a chance, and on the night it brought the band and the crowd together in a celebration of closeness that musicians and fans can even these days sometimes share. With the stage set low, the lights dimmed, and people scrambling to the front, this show was all about the simple but compelling chemistry between the band and its audience. Opening with barnburners “Wild on the Streets” and “The Prince”, Diamond Head set the tone for from the very beginning, the tight, loud, pulsating rhythm section perfectly supporting Nick Tart’s voice soaring over Brian Tatler’s heated leads. Their seamlessly fused sonic presence at once filled the room, telling everyone to prepare themselves for nothing else but a non-stop set of pure A-grade hard rock and thrash-and-burn metal.
	Tatler, of course, is the natural patriarch of this band, having long ago turned his personal musical vision into what is now a classic universal standard. His playing presents a dynamic, but at the same time strictly disciplined creative approach, complimented and expanded by Tart’s stunning multi-octave vocal ability in a way that takes this band beyond the usual riff-centric simplistic philosophy into the territory of pure creative art.
“This Planet and Me”, an infectious strident number from Diamond Head’s 2007 album What’s in Your Head, was contrasted by a knockout oldie “Lightning to the Nations”, showing that this band’s gift for ball-breaking hooks has never forsaken them, and prepared the crowd for one of the biggest standouts of the set--“To the Devil His Due”. Starting with a Kashmir-like hypnotic pace and hauntingly lit by Eastern modalities, it then went on to illustrate the perfect genealogy of metal, soon receiving a swift kick in the pants dished out by Tatler’s raw-edged thrash riffing, bringing home the realisation that while the origins of metal may lie in spaced-out trans-inducing places, what it has become since then is a completely different kind of beast. Tatler, however, is not the only one in this band who knows where the roots of his music are. Recruited in 2004, singer Nick Tart always reverently acknowledges what Robert Plant has done for heavy metal, and tonight he did it not just on “To the Devil His Due”, but also on numbers like “Give it to Me” (Diamond Head’s thrash homage to “Immigrant Song”) and new material like “Skin on Skin” from the band’s latest album. “Skin on Skin” was introduced as “a song about sex” and proved to be exactly that—a tightly wound, thumping rock number which was cheered loudly by everyone in the room once the spaced-out futuristic guitar outro wrapped up its irresistable stomping pace in an elegant display of shrewd sensibility.
In the early days this band had always balanced tradition with an equal degree of innovation, and the old classic “Helpless” took the audience back to the early ‘80s, allowing us all to witness the birth of thrash metal all over again. You could hear perfectly how back in the day this band invented, defined, and summed up all that thrash has been about ever since—the biting fills between the verses, lightning-fast heavy riffs, and unruly attitude, all sounding just like 30 years ago when the band was showing Metallica, Megadeth, and a plethora of other now legendary acts the way.
On “It’s Electric” Tatler mixed and matched his favourite styles, going from an old-school Page-inspired solo to blistering-hot thrash passages. He dug deeper and wider on “In the Heat of the Night” where he elaborated his eloquent solo almost to excess, but still came out triumphant in the end with the power and the confidence of a true guitar hero. The main part of the show ended with “Am I Evil?” to which the headbanging in the crowd went rampant and made everyone step closer to Brian Tatler’s side of the stage to get a closer glimpse of the man before he disappeared backstage. His audiences may not be that huge in 2008, but Tatler knows that he still remains not only an innovator, to whom acts from Metallica to Bullet for My Valentine owe much of their thunder, but also one mean guitar player, unwilling to ever bow to fashions or play it nice just because the industry wants him to—a fact that his fans have known all along and which to this day he makes sure no journalist ever forgets.