Review by Sonny for Exciter - Heavy Metal Maniac (1983)

I first became acquainted with Exciter around the middle of 1985 when I picked up a copy of a Music For Nations comp, Hell Comes to Your House, from my local record emporium. That compilation changed my metal-listening life for ever. It wasn't because of Exciter's Violence and Force which was track two (or even Manowar's Blood of my Enemies which opened the album and which I already knew), no it was the opener of side two, Metallica's Creeping Death which shattered my worldview on what heavy metal meant. I fucking hammered that track over and over, at least until I got a copy of Ride the Lightning anyway and then I fucking hammered that too! Sadly for Exciter that meant they never really got a look in and were just "some other band on that comp with Creeping Death on" and so I never really paid them much mind.

So let's fast forward the best part of forty years and now I'm here finally giving Canada's speed metal trailblazers' debut album the attention it properly deserves. Originally going by the clunky moniker Hell Razor, they later took their permanent name from the classic Judas Priest track and that's a decent choice because the track Exciter does bear a lot of the hallmarks that Exciter the band were going for. They play high energy, get-out-of-our-way speed metal that may sound quite generic now, but considering this was released in '83 there wasn't a huge amount of stuff in similar vein before it. Taking inspiration from NWOBHM bands like Venom, Maiden, Diamond Head and, of course, Motörhead tracks like Overkill and The Hammer, Exciter just wanted to crank it up and strive for a kind of extremity by playing as fast as they possibly could.

While you would get no argument from me that this was an earth-shaking release at the time of it's release, just before "Kill 'Em All" and a full six months before "Show No Mercy", it just doesn't have the kudos of others from the time. Despite it's missing link status bridging the gap between the NWOBHM and the just-emerging Bay Area thrashers, it was quickly overshadowed, thus condemning Exciter to the role of supporting characters rather than leading men. This is a great shame because there are some exhilharating tracks on offer here, "Stand Up and Fight", "Under Attack" and "Cry of the Banshee" are supercharged headlong metallic charges dessigned for god-tier headbanging action. Unfortunately, the rock 'n' roll-like nature of the title track misses the mark for me, "World War III" feels like a very lacklustre workout and the attempted epic track "Black Witch" doesn't play at all to the band's strengths.

Still, all things considered, this must be counted as a fairly important album in the history of metal, it's importance maybe being greater than it's actual quality, but it still has some really good stuff on it, even though it may occasionally fail to hit the heights or consistencies of it's contemporaries.