format: 12"
year: 1980
country: UK
label: White Witch Records
#: WIT 1
info: insert with credits and lyrics
style: NWOBHM
Side A:
Side B:
As far as "archetypical NWOBHM" goes they hardly come as archetypical as Renegades' "Lonely Road" 12", released in the tail end of 1980 = no 'borderline-', '2nd wave-' or 'post-' prefixes required this time around. Rarely does it however turn up on top-10 or even top-20 lists when NWOBHM EPs are listed, and they are listed OFTEN (frankly, I can't think of any subset of old Metal vinyl that's toplisted more often than NWOBHM EPs, but I digress...)
Is it therefor crap, one wonders? Not really. The title track bares a strong resamblance to early Tygers Of Pan Tang, i.e. there's not an overabundance of flavor to their brand of chugging British Heavy Metal, but musically they cross all the t's and dot all the i's. The vocals aren't stellar, but not so problematic they ruin anything in particular - the track is perfectly decent-yet-forgettable either way. The proggy semi-ballad flip is
however not the cultepic gem it could/would/should have been and just drags on an on and not even the fast, metallic finale manages to save it from neither the ho nor the hum. The lengthy 5+ minutes playing time of both songs does incidently offer and explanation as to why they went with the larger 12"-format with this one.
To summarize, the finest hour of UK's Renegade remains their stellar inclusion on the rare "Kent Rocks" compilantion and this needn't be any of the first dozen black&white-sleeved NWOBHM 12"s for anyone to add to their collection, but neither is it strictly a 'for completist only'-item - and boy do we have plenty of those...