Review by UnhinderedbyTalent for Running Wild - Gates to Purgatory (1984)

The debut from Running Wild ticks all the boxes in terms of balls to the wall metal intensity.  Considering what the band were to become over the years it does stand out as a weak point also.  Despite the points it achieves for effort the delivery is poor and one-dimensional.  You are essentially listening to the same track over and over again, such is the lack of variety on the album.

It is hard to tell where one track stops and another begins as at times breaks between tracks seem like pauses on one long track as the next rack that starts adheres to pretty much the same pace, tempo and structure.  The songwriting criteria on this record did not have the bar set very high at all it seems.  Now, this is not to deny the credentials of the musicians involved.  What quality is here is delivered by obviously individuals, the guitars in particular save the day on more than one occasion but they can only do so much I am afraid.

I think considering this was their debut and maturity clearly was lacking there is perhaps an argument to give them a little more slack but when your thought process is to regurgitate the same riffs and occasionally say menacing words like "satan" then the game plan is too flawed from the off.  Yes, the core heavy metal component parts are here but they feel force-fed as opposed to being offered in any discernible menu format.  Imagine a meal where all four courses are the main meal, you get the same meat dish over and over again and this pretty much is what Running Wild serve here.