Review by Daniel for Paralex - White Lightning (1980)

Paralex were a little-known five-piece NWOBHM outfit that formed in Nottinghamshire, England in 1977. Endurance wasn't their strongest quality & fate would see them only having time to release a couple of short EPs over a two year period before their untimely demise. The first & most well regarded being 1980's "White Lightning". Paralex's main claim to fame was that Metallica wanted to cover the title track from “White Lightning” for their classic “The $5.98 E.P.: Garage Days Re-revisited” E.P. from 1987 but unfortunately negotiations broke down & it wasn’t to be. 

The production job on Paralex's recorded debut is very much of demo standard but it’s a good example of what was going on in the underground NWOBHM scene at the time with hundreds of garage bands releasing self-financed singles & E.P.s just like this one. The vocals really are very poor & aren’t up to the standard required for the band to reach the next level but strangely I could imagine this type of performance pricking up the ears of thrash metal vocalists like Paul Baloff (Exodus) or Sean Killeen (Vio-lence) because they both ended up taking similar approaches where they made up for their obvious lack of talent with aggression & attitude. 

Musically, Paralex play hard rock-influenced heavy metal with a nod towards early Iron Maiden. The guitar solos are the band's best weapon with some nice guitar harmonies being utilised at times. Unfortunately I struggle with the vocals & the guitar sound isn’t real flash either. The most metal song on the tracklisting, “Travelling Man”, seems to be heavily influenced by Judas Priest’s “Hell Bent For Leather” & it represents the only song worth listening to as the other two are pretty poor really. I have to admit that I struggle to see what Lars Ulrich would have seen in a track like “White Lightning” when there was so much higher quality NWOBHM material available at the time. Don't waste your time with this one.