Buried Treasure: RAZORMAID

 

   When was the last time you heard a band so freaking awesome you fell in love halfway through the intro? I know it's been a while, probably not since you were a teenager and discovering your favourite music for the first time. Well hold on to your boot straps because you're about to be amazed again.

   Razormaid is what I am talking about. One of those bands that didn't just have potential, they were the real fucking thing, but for god only knows what bullshit reason never got the recognition they rightfully deserved. Hailing from Reno, Nevada, and formed in 1983, they released one album, titled First Cutt in 1987. And oh that album had it all. The right sound. The right lyrics. The right artwork. And the band to make it all blend seamlessly along. 

   Jamie Lee's powerful and melodic vocals, the guitar excellence of John Kirk and Curt Mitchell, and the flawless technique of bassist Dave Wix and drummer Dean Clarkson were combined to put together a band that was simply beyond great- I just can not come up with words powerful enough to do this outfit justice. The genious of this band is audible from the first few seconds of their one and only album, as the intro to the song "Sooner or Later" fills you up with electricity and the kind of elation that has not been felt, perhaps, since the hard rock debuts of the 70s.

   Pure hard rock, with elements of heavy metal and maybe just a touch of glam somewhere in the guitar solos are combined to bring to life powerful, mellodic songs, meant to be sung along by thousands of people in sold out concerts, not remain forgotten in a dusty record in the back of a storage room of an equally dusty and forgotten record shop. 

   True, there was a plethora of hard rock bands trying to make it big in the 80s, and lipstick and hairspray were at an all time high around '87, but let's be honest for a second. Razormaid had it all. They had the songs to make love to or rock your heart out in a stadium. They had the looks. Hence why it remains a mystery why they never got the recognition they needed to go beyond that single, self-financed album. However, even as it is, Razormaid has bestowed upon us one of the best- and not just in my opinion- hard rock albums of all time, a little buried treasure with big value, to unearth one day by accident in the back of that dusty record shop or in some hardly-read blog on the dusty corners of the internet, and rock out to like we're 15 years old again.

   Highly recommended for fans of hard rock, Dokken, WASP, or just good fucking music, you can listen to the full album here. You're welcome.