Review Summary: Wiped Out is not Raven's greatest album - that accolade goes to its successor, All for One - but it sure as hell puts up a bloody fight.
Following the surprise success of Raven's 1981 debut,
Rock Until You Drop, the three crazy Geordies re-entered the studio to lay down what would become 1982's
Wiped Out. It is with this album that guitarist Mark Gallagher really comes into his own, with a display of explosive riffing which propels just about every song on the album as much as Rob 'Wacko' Hunter's drumming does, if not more so. If there was one studio album which is most representative of Raven's live show, it's
Wiped Out - in fact, just about every cut concedes absolutely nothing in intensity to their counterparts on 1984's live album,
Live at the Inferno, and fittingly, 90% of the album was indeed recorded live.
Wiped Out starts off with a misfire on the nondescript "Faster Than the Speed of Light" - fast, as the name says, but unfortunately quite bland, and stilted by the awfully cheesy intro. However, the band finds the right gear on the scorching follow-up, "Bring the Hammer Down", which nicely displays the charm of
Wiped Out - it's a spontaneous, raw, no-nonsense affair, and it sounds every bit like it, featuring the banter of the band members before starting off with the bang of a face-melting Mark Gallagher riff. The excellent "Fire Power" and frenetic "Read All About It" both take this template and run like the wind with it, leading into the standout track "To the Limit/To the Top", an epic which is not only the most musically varied song on offer, but also the most spontaneous, having been practically made up as the band went along. Side one closes with the stampeding "Battle Zone", capped with an ear-splitting, hair-raising banshee wail from frontman John Gallagher.
The simply ferocious "Live at the Inferno" opens side two - so ferocious, in fact, that it lent its name to the aforementioned 1984 live album. Another gold standard follows in "Star War", with its earth-shaking riff and ear-splitting blizzard of banshee wailing. "UXB" is a more standard speedy workout, and the listener gets an enjoyable, well-deserved break with the classical guitar of the instrumental "20/21", although short-lived. The destructive last stand of the album arrives in the twin terrors of "Hold Back the Fire" and "Chainsaw", with the former boasting chugging riffs, extended instrumental breaks, two solos played atop pianos in the studio, and a finish so massive, it could've closed the album on its own strength, were it not for the sheer, brilliant insanity of the latter, which closes the album to the sound of maniacal laughter and the odd broken instrument.
What really characterises
Wiped Out is the sheer, unrelenting intensity of the performances; these are songs which only would've been half as good had they been played by a tamer group of musicians. 'Over the top' does not even begin to describe this album - it is
Wiped Out which shows, like no other Raven album could, that this trio of madmen loved performing because it was a way to exorcise all the crazy out of them. The band does have misgivings about the mix, stating that the wrong mix was pressed for the final album, however it is still sonically far superior to
Rock Until You Drop. The only other potential gripe is the awful cover art, but this is one book you will regret judging by its cover. While
All for One is the best of Raven's three golden-era albums,
Wiped Out is by far the most energetic, and therefore is absolutely recommended.
