With this next review (which spans 1968-1972) the last three reviews will have dropped in on four different decades of music. Fun!
Disc 1857 is…The Axeman Cometh
Artist: Wicked Lady
Year of Release: 1968-1972
What’s up with the Cover? I’m not one for censorship, but I’m also not keen on having my account suspended, so I will not be sharing the cover of “the Axeman Cometh”. Instead, you get this generic rendition of the band’s logo.
If you were to look up the cover (n.b. not to be done at work), you will not find an axeman. Instead you will find an old-timey photo of a wicked lady wearing nothing but a hat, a belt, and some jewelry standing in what could be characterized as an ‘immodest’ pose.
On reflection, this lady is not necessarily wicked at all. For all we know she’s a devoted mother of three who models for an avant-garde jewelry company. However, she is naked so before you search her out, you’ve been warned.
How I Came To Know It: I found this recently in my local record store’s metal section. I kept passing it over, and then somewhere I was reading a metal review and it was referenced in passing, igniting my interest. Since I had some gift money I decided to give it a chance, unheard, on a whim.
How It Stacks Up: This is my only Wicked Lady album so it can't stack up. Technically it is their complete works, but I can’t confirm they ever released a studio album (their internet presence is very light) and there are only eight tracks, so I’m treating this as a regular record, rather than a compilation.
Ratings: 4 stars
While I found “The Axeman Cometh” in the metal section of the record store this is not strictly heavy metal. I call what Wicked Lady gets up to “Riffnoodle.” They like a good riff, but they like to noodle from that riff even more. It’s a psychedelic hard rock situation that really gets into itself and stays there for a very long time. All songs are played in the key of Wankery.
“Whoa,” you say with trepidation, “that sounds like it’ll be pretty self-indulgent” and you’d be right. This era of hard rock is full of bands that do whatever the hell they want, for as long as they want (n.b. often this is very long) and radio play be damned. I don’t have a lot of Riffnoodle in my collection for this reason, although some will swear by it, and if you love Cream, or Blue Cheer or Sir Lord Baltimore or other bands of this vintage and style, you are going to like Wicked Lady. If that’s not your cup of tea then – much like the album’s cover – you’ve been warned.
As for me, I wanted all these 6-10 minute long wank fests to annoy me, but it never happened. That’s for a simple reason, and that is guitarist (aka ‘axeman’) Martin Weaver is so damned good. This band plays songs that sound like extended jam sessions but they are so tight, and so deep into the groove that you don’t mind the excess of it all. Wankery here is a feature, not a bug.
According to the Internet (actual websites, not just the AI summary) the wah-wah pedal was invented in 1966, and Wicked Lady are early and devoted adopters. Many of these songs feature extended wah action, as well as various other filters and effects that I know nothing about, being mainly ignorant of the inner mysteries of the guitar once it has been plugged into an amp.
Again, this wah action could get annoying very easily, but in the skilled hands of Wicked Lady it never does. Yeah, it goes on for a long time, but the solos are delicious to the ear. You can practically smell the blue haze of a hotboxed recording studio, but miraculously no one loses focus or intent for a second.
In between solos, the band jams away, the riffs being the bread that lets you get your ears around all that meaty guitar work. It’s like a Montreal smoked meat sandwich – there’s clearly too much meat stuffed in there, but you can’t deny it’s tasty. Even the bass solos (there are extended bass solos as well) are delicious.
The production is what you would expect from a band you’d never heard of – not great, and at least on the CD it felt distant. In the 2012 re-issue liner notes Weaver writes “If you can’t play Wicked Lady loud – don’t play it!” and while this is true, the production doesn’t make it easy to accomplish. Don’t despair, however. I just keep doggedly turning the stereo’s nob to the right and eventually I got there.
Once I arrived, it was like a bath of excess rock and roll majesty that didn’t teach me any valuable lessons about life, but was fun to soak in nonetheless.
Best tracks: Run the Night, The Axeman Cometh, Wicked Lady, Out of the Dark
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