format: LP
year: 1988
country: Finland
label: Flamingo
#: FGL 4026
info: Innersleeve w/ lyrics
style: Heavy Metal
Side A:
Side B:
If there's any talk of Finland's TAROT among 80's Metal fans at all it's usually centered around their "Spell Of Iron" debut, but really, listening to their 2 first records back to back it becomes clear that "Follow Me Into Madness" isn't far behind in quality. While I may agree with the popular vote of the former being the slightly stronger of the 2, it could still be considered a matter of metallic taste. In one corner you have the Iron Maiden-harmonies-over-Judas-Priest-riffing of SoI, in the other the BIG production Euro Heavy/Power of this gem. Yeah the cover's pretty corny, but nice corny - just pretend you're colorblind and all will be OK. The tart + puffy hair band pic is also severly misleading as this album doen't follow the dreaded "more radio-friendly follow-up" trail
that those attributes are usually associated with, and as far as the music goes it's hard to find any particular flaws to whine about.
I have a distinct memory of someone playing this album in the background at some festival camping ground and I commented how much I liked the Dutch Power Metal masters ANGUS too. The mildly embarrasing mistake was partly because of the vocals but yes, the opening Power-ripper "Descendants Of Power" really is that good. "Rose On The Grave" was the single, and it makes sense since it's the most commercial number but in the best of ways, the way a select few really talented acts could churn out this kind of material in the late 80's without sounding absolutely cringeworthy. After the solid Priest-rocker "Lady Deceiver" comes the excellent, bombastic pounding title-track and wrapping up side A is "Blood Runs Cold", another fast & catchy number with some sweet NWOBHM-riffage for flavour.
Now, if the B side would have been as strong as side A, this one might have earned the badge of Kült Underrated Masterpiece, but it's not quite there. Both "No Return" and "I Don't Care Anymore" tend to slip by without leaving any memorable impressions even after several spins. Things pick up a bit with the fast, Painkiller-Priest'y "Breathing Fire" and following cocky "I Spit Venom",
but after that we're merely left with the mandatory (yet not completely sappy) ballad and then, The End.
Well, not really. The band continued to produce half a dozen albums in the 90's and 00's in that typical "Adult Oriented Metal"-style so typical of the era. Better that than completely wimping out or follow the alterno-trend I guess. 80's fans need their 80's albums. Both.