Happy 1986, Part 2

Last month in the Year-a-Month project, I decided to split 1986 into two installments to control costs. This month is the second installment! I was mainly disappointed in the results last month, but I'm happy to say that 1986 has been redeemed.

Accept: Russian Roulette - In December (1985), I pointed out that Accept was starting to sound too much like AC/DC. They cleaned up their act somewhat with this album, returning to a more traditional heavy metal sound for most of the tracks. There are still the occasional low points, like the first part of the title track. But by and large Accept sounds more like Overkill on this album than AC/DC.

Iron Maiden: Somewhere in Time - I'm always happy when I have a chance to add to my Iron Maiden collection, and this album is no exception. Unwilling to follow the 2nd-person romantic lyrical cliche of so many other bands, Iron Maiden uses a great deal of imagery to imply the meaning in their songs, instead of just whipping it out and laying on the table for all to see. I'm no expert, but to me, that's poetry. And it rocks. Win-win.

Megadeth: Peace Sells... But Who's Buying? - Megadeth is a much more technical guitar sound than anyone else this month. It's always nice to have a stand-out, even when the crowd is as good as these other albums are. Mustaine, at this point in his career, is still pretty annoyed with Metallica. So his rage is pretty thick, and that translates into the guitar riffs. In a good way.

Motörhead: Overkill - after trimming out the duds last month, I found myself with too much to order all in one month, but not enough for two months. I have an easy solution to that: a catch-up album with Motörhead! This one is from 1979, and let's face it: it sounds just like every other Motörhead album. If you like road-metal about drinking, drugs, groupies, and sleeping on a bus, then you'll like this album as much as I do.