Review by Daniel for Fist - Turn the Hell On (1980)

Four-piece NWOBHM outfit Fist first formed in Newcastle, England in April 1978 under the name of Axe & wouldn't change their moniker to Fist until late 1979. But that still makes them one of the earlier bands in the NWOBHM movement. Fist kicked off their recorded music career with a couple of well received singles before releasing their debut album through MCA Records in late 1980. That first-up effort, "Turn The Hell On", draws upon influences from a wide array of heavy metal & hard rock bands (with UFO & Thin Lizzy being amongst the most obvious) but I think there’s enough legitimate metal here to warrant it being labelled as such. Unfortunately the production is not all that great & the performances also seem a little naïve at times. The quality really drops off in the back-end too & it's hard not to be left feeling that the record has simply petered out after a more promising start that included a few quality tunes like "The Watcher", "Axeman" & particularly the pure speed metal of "You'll Never Get Me Up (In One of Those)". Unfortunately these positives are nullified by a lacklustre B-side that sees the album closed out with four failures in a row. When taken holistically, I find "Turn The Hell On" to be a bit of a struggle.