Great Metal Albums of 1988: Battlezone- Warchild, The Best of

After two albums which went by with little notice, drink and drugs and lots of infighting, the band Battlezone, fronted by former Iron Maiden lead singer Paul Di’Anno, decided to call it quits. However, before they did, the put out a “Best of” album. Normally, I would scoff at bands who put out such an album after just two studio albums but it is different in this case. Battlezone’s first album, “Fighting Back,” escaped my attention. Therefore, with this album, I got to go back and listen to many of the songs which were on that album and some of them were quite good. One of these was “The Land God Gave to Cain.” This is a six minute long rocker, which is about a post nuclear holocaust. Paul drives the point home with some good vocals and there is a cool acoustic interlude in the middle of the song which accentuates his vocals really well. However, the power chords come in and really drive things home.

Very few songs from the two studio albums fail to make it on here. Therefore, I get to reminisce over the great songs from the album I did listen to, the second one, “Children of Madness” and got a good introduction to the debut album. It’s the songs from the first album which come first and then the songs from the second follow with a bonus track at the end, “To the Limit.” While not a bad thing, I can help thinking that maybe they should have arranged it the way its done on Youtube with the songs interwoven. That really made me concentrate more when listening to the album.

What you do get is seventeen good songs. I got to experience songs like “Welcome to the Battlezone” and reminisce over familiar ones such as “I Don’t Wanna Know,” Metal Tears” and I like “Whispered Rage” even more. As for the bonus track, it starts with some cool guitar riffs which sound even cooler once the rhythm section kicks in. Paul’s vocals are as good as always and the guitar solo tradeoff is done very well. Plus there is a cool drum solo after the guitar solo which gives it a more African feel.

Track Listing:

1. Fighting Back
2. Welcome to the Battlezone
3. Warchild
4. The Land God Gave to Cain
5. Too Much to Heart
6. Voice on the Radio
7. Rising Star
8. Rip It Up
9. I Don’t Wanna Know
10. Nuclear Breakdown
11. Touch of Heat
12. Whispered Rage
13. Children of Madness
14. Metal Tears
15. It’s Love
16. The Promise
17. To the Limit

Paul Di’Anno- vocals

John Wiggins- guitar

Pete West- bass

Steve Hopgood- drums (tracks 8-16)

Bob Falck- drums (tracks 1-6)

Graham Bath- guitar (tracks 8-16)

John Hurley- guitar (tracks 1-6)

The easy answer to if you want to check out Paul Di’Anno’s Battlezone, get this “Best of” album. It has all the best songs you need to hear from them. Still, I wonder if it hadn’t been for all the rock related issues, how far they might have gone.

Next post: Kingdom Come

To buy Rock and Roll Children, email me at: tobychainsaw@hotmail.com

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