(ThyBlackMan.com) We’re doing another album dive and this time it’s Sound Barrier’s 1986 release Speed of Light! Sound Barrier was one of the bands mentioned in our Black heavy metal/hard rock feature and Speed of Light was the recommended album.
How good is it compared to their 1983 debut Born to Rock? Better and more polished. This is a Sound Barrier that really embraced heavy metal fully and cranked up the speed. That’s what I’m digging on this album: faster songs while keeping the melody of their debut.
Sound Barrier’s Speed of Light: Side A
On the A-side we have five songs and all are bangers. This was an A-side done right. Unlike when I looked at Black Death‘s self-titled debut, I can’t say “Scrap these songs and rearrange the A-side” or that the B-side was stronger. The A-side on Speed of Light is crazy strong.
It kicks of with “Speed of Light”, a speed metal opener that really sets the pace of the album. Everyone is tight here in the instrumental department and you know this is going to be a different kind of beast compared to Born to Rock.
I’m big on vocals. Unique vocals intrigue me because I want to see how it fits with the sound. Do they define the band’s approach? Are these vocals out of place? What genre would they be better for? Bernie K’s aren’t the most unique on this album—especially in heavy metal by 1986—but they are extremely good. Not only that but he’s able to bend his vocals easily depending the pace of the song.
It really makes me wonder how his vocals would’ve developed or what else he would do with them had Sound Barrier just continued through the 80s and into the 90s.
Would Bernie K and Sound Barrier be out of place as thrash metal, groove metal, and grunge came along? Or would they hold their own and find success elsewhere? Sound Barrier’s sound would’ve caught on in Japan for sure. Japan has always had a love affair with speed metal and power metal.
As for the rest of the A-side: aces. The weakest track is “On the Level (Head Banger)” while the two strongest A-side offerings are the title track and “Gladiator” which follows it. Their cover of Thin Lizzy’s “Hollywood (Down On Your Luck)” was pretty good as well.
The B-Side
After a very strong A-side, how does the four-track B-Side hold up? I’ve got to say that it’s not nearly as strong, it has some power to it. It’s a good B-side. “Fight For Life!” and “On to the Next Adventure” are the main events here. Both have a nice speed to them.
The thing is that when you kick off an album with a furious pace, you can’t exactly end it on something mid-tempo or mellow. Well, you could but that’s just a weird arrangement. Sound Barrier finishes Speed of Light off strong. It stuck the landing and didn’t stumble much. “Hard as a Rock” is a another fine song off the B-side but it doesn’t hit like “Fight For Life!” or the closer.
Verdict: 8.5/10
Speed of Light was a few points away from being a perfect metal album. The B-side lets it be great but cut it off from being amazing. That said, Speed of Light is the album that could’ve taken Sound Barrier to the next level in the second half of the 80s. Seriously, a follow up to this in 1988-1989 that built on the formula here could’ve been truly incredible.
Staff Writer; Corey Shaw
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