Review Summary: The real Holocaust reveals itself with this impressive effort.
Holocaust’s second full-length release,
Live: Hot Curry and Wine, did what
The Nightcomers never could - it showed Holocaust for what they really were: a no-holds-barred heavy metal band with bags of power, cojones and a street-tough attitude to match it all. The band had two more years under its belt, it had a new drummer in Nicky Arkless - in which bandleader John Mortimer also found an ally in the ongoing arguments about the band's musical direction - and the compositions featured on this album are harder, faster and heavier than anything the band had done before, with the exceptions of the opening one-two punch of "No Nonsense" (a new one, too) and "Smokin' Valves", present in a longer and heavier form than that of
The Nightcomers.
It is here that
Live: Hot Curry and Wine begins to surprise, then impress, for the following "Long the Bell Will Toll" is an excellent song, boasting heaviness melded with unforeseen amounts of melody in its memorable vocal lines, riffs and even the pseudo-shredder soloing which characterised much underground NWOBHM music, making for a winner all around. The strangely titled "Jirmakenyerut" - whatever the hell that means - is surprisingly interesting, given that it is an instrumental written by a fresh-faced band, with its pleasant harmonic-tapped break.
"The Small Hours" has a large claim to fame in Metallica's better-known 1987 cover, but what the original song, as heard here, proves is that they simply chose a great song to do in the first place. The only difference, production values aside, is unsurprising: Metallica guitarist Kirk Hammett changed the solo. Despite that, the original song, in its entirety, is at least every bit as good. The rampaging "Forcedown Breakdown" is an absolute barnstormer, and leads into what is only the second
Nightcomers song present here, in "Heavy Metal Mania", which does away with the album's lengthy, guitar-noodling intro (as good as it was) while upping the aggression and showing off the superior skills of drummer Arkless, who announces his presence with a monstrous double-bass assault during the solo, making for quite an improvement in the heavy stakes over the version featured on the previous album.
Finally, what is listed on the album sleeve as "The Nightcomers" is in fact a wailing, screaming, feedback-scarred instrumental held up by yet another stream of speedy drumming from Arkless, bearing no resemblance to the original and begging the question of whether it should have been included on this album. For most versions of the album, the road ends here: others add "Love Feelin' Danger" and a rather sloppy rendition of "Death or Glory", both culled from the band's live video, the VHS-only
Live from the Raw Loud 'n' Live Tour. Sound quality, an issue frequently encountered with low-budget live albums, is acceptable; while the original release does come close to cacophonic in its raw sonics, the 2003 Sanctuary re-release has been painstakingly cleaned up, and for the better - while it's not quite
Live After Death, it has impact and some degree of clarity, and those qualities alone make it a far sight easier to listen than many NWOBHM-era live albums (I'm looking at you, Motörhead).
All in all,
Live: Hot Curry and Wine is an excellent effort which completely redeems the band of any crimes committed on
The Nightcomers. However, while Mortimer and Arkless may have proven victorious against the rest of the band in deciding the band's musical direction (and therfore the songs featured on this album) for the moment, this came at a price: the band was already disintergrating by this point, but following the release of the album, the pair were ousted from the band. Much like Exciter without Dan Beehler, Holocaust did not go far without its heart and soul; the band folded soon after. Holocaust would eventually be retaken and reformed by Mortimer with new members, enjoyed a boost in popularity with Metallica's famous cover of "The Small Hours", and have since gone on to enjoy a successful career. And that, my friends, is all that one needs to know about the first incarnation of Holocaust.
