TANK - Don't Walk Away Review

High Roller Records is giving us fans a Christmas gift ahead of time. And when I say gift I really say gift as the company decided to reissue Tank’s long forgotten, but not gone, albums. They are: 1981’s “Don’t Walk Away,” 1982’s “Filth Hounds of Hades,” 1982’s “Power of the Hunter,“ 1983’s “This Means War,“ and finally 1984’s “Honour & Blood.” This iniciative is compared only to Therion’s reissues and I kind of will do the same I did with them. That is write album by album reviews in honor of the band. Tank are one of the most cult bands from the NWOBHM folds with a ferocious high adrenalized and potent music that is mostly recalled to be near Motörhead’s. This doesn’t tell all the truth, if you wanna know my dear fan. TANK are much than a Motörhead copycat as you will see by these reissues which are very welcome if you know what I’m saying. TANK are the kind of band that make us metalheads proud, really proud. It’s high adrenalized, exciting, simple, and straight ahead music make us happy, happy.

TANK are a very dear band of mine. They are one of the million bands I discovered in my eMule times – if you myd ear fan are a milenium you must not have a clue of I’m talking about but eMule was a download music service where you could find all kinds of the coolest Metal bands ever. This, of course, before the Youtube era and a little bit after the Limewire and Napster Metallica’s lawsuit. Their NWOBHM music mixed with some Punk made my mind when I discovered them – Please, don’t ask me which album was the first. I can’t help it to remember. I don’t how many times I listened to all of them and I still have them recorded in a CD – MP3, of course.

The band has curious story. In some part of the way after legal and creative disputes, Algy Ward led one version of the group while guitarists Mick Tucker and Cliff Evans led the other. So says Wikipedia. In 2007, both Algy Ward and Mick Tucker/Cliff Evans went their separate ways with the original “Tank” band, but decided to keep making music under the “Tank” name. So says Encyclopaedia Metallum. So, for some time there were two Tanks rolling around – Hm, that sounded awful. But whatever. Both line-ups are still on as far as I am concerned but not 100% sure about it.

Ok, then, this is “Don’t Walk Away” a 7″ record with three songs and two demo versions and a live version of the tittle track “Don’t Walk Away.” I have never listened to this album before and I have to say opener and tittle track “Don’t Walk Away” was a surprise as it doesn’t sound as the songs I’ve heard before. In fact, this album is great for the fan that knows the band see where they come from as there are lots of 1970s music influences but the hard knocking spirit was already there. The bass lines are prominent and sound as they would be in the future albums with that classic playing a la Lemmy Kilmister. The guitars sound a bit from the 1970s with some Blues and Southern Rock influences. Pay close attention to the guitar solo and tell me what you think, my child of the night. “Run Like Hell” has a great taste of the great and sometimes forgotten UFO. The same cadence. From “Shellshock” on the album begins to sound much more as a Tank album though still with some sonancies of the seventies. The speed and the power are definetely Tank’s as it is the singalong chorus. The adrenaline and the smell of gasoline and smoke are all there. Yeah, Tank’s albums smell gasoline and smoke and they’re proud of that. I wish I had discovered the band before.

To be continued…

TANK “Don’t Walk Away” will be released on May 06th via High Roller Records.

Track Listing: