High Treason - Saturday Night Special

At least in my opinion, this is one of the best ‘NWOBHM’ songs, or should I just say Heavy Metal songs since how could there be a 'New Wave of' if there was never an ‘old wave’ to begin with? Some people consider Black Sabbath as metal, I love Sabbath, I really do, but c'mon, they’re more heavy rock than anything else. Anyway, this is irrelevant and controversial...

High Treason seem to be another one of those metal bands cropping up in the late 70's/early 80's, you know the type, releasing a few 7's or demos, possibly an LP if they were lucky. In High Treason’s case, they only released this single in their heyday.  As far as I know they are back together, but I have no idea what they sound like now (edit 06/4/15: they sound pretty rad). What I do know is that ‘Saturday Night Special’ is an amazing tune! If you like 77' punk it won't be too hard getting into this. With a relatively short length, good solos, a powerful voice, fantastic choruses, cool chord progressions and to top it all off, played fairly speedy, I don’t see how you couldn't like it.

The B-side, ‘Waste My Love’, is much slower and not as interesting. Not bad, but not mind-blowing either.

Saturday Night Special

Opening up with a relatively fast harmonized guitar lead, some busy bass lines and some tasty drum fills, we are led into a chorded section for the verse. The harmonized guitar lead pretty much acts as a short bridge into each verse. The pre-chorus’ and chorus’ are bloody catchy, like, really catchy and are the standout moments throughout the whole song.

The track pretty much takes the ‘verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, verse, chorus’ structure with a few interesting variations thrown in, so there is no point in repeating my boring diatribe.

The solos are great, particularly the one at the end of the track, very rough and Ritchie Blackmore-like with some nice arpeggio work going on. At least for my money, this is one of the best NWOBHM tracks ever. 

Waste My Love

Greeted with a muted guitar melody and a chord progression we are then subject to some relatively catchy AOR/metal, I can’t really say too much about it. It’s obviously rocky but with a slightly ballad-y sensibility to it.  I’d say that the main riff becomes played out and a bit boring after a while, however the chorus’ save the track with some very strong vocals. Surprisingly, there are no guitar solos; however we do have some nice bass and vocal work towards the end. Overall, it’s nothing even remotely comparable to the A-side.

I'd definitely suggest this to fans of early punk, ‘real’ Heavy Metal, or just fans of AOR. If you're looking for heavy riffs, don't look here, but if you're looking for a catchy tune with great solos and a strong voice, I’d suggest you listen to it.

Edit 06/4/15: Thanks to High Treason for getting in touch! Check them out on their website http://high-treason.net/ as well as Facebook  http://www.facebook.com/hightreasonuk

Apparently High Treason are looking to re-record this monster jam and put a music video to it. After checking out a few tunes on their website, i'm excited to hear the results. These dudes can still tear it up after all these years!

Direct Download link

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/68280635/HT%20-%20SNSs.rar

Boneyard Metal Blog:

http://bm-80smetal.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/high-treason-uk-saturday-night-special.html