Album Review: Paul Di'Anno - The Book of The Beast
Reviewed by Dan Barnes
One cannot help but feel a certain empathy for Paul Di’Anno. Leaving Maiden only to see them evolve into the Metal Behemoth they are today must give pangs of regret – a bit like seeing your ex has won the Lottery Jackpot, I suppose.
I don’t suppose anyone would argue against the statement that Mr Di’Anno has been no angel, but he seems to exemplify the definition of a tragic figure of Shakespearian proportions. A lesser-man might have disappeared into the pages of history, yet Mr D has been prolific ever since his Maiden exit, putting together band after band and releasing music that, in retrospect, deserved far more attention than it received.
However, on the back of a productive twelve months, which saw Paul opening for KK’s Priest, his own headlining tour, and a set at the Stonedead pre-show last month, it feels we are witnessing the long-overdue renaissance of Mr Paul - The Beast - Di’Anno.
As if to underscore this, Conquest Music unleashes The Book of the Beast, the first compilation of Paul’s post-Maiden material, featuring seventeen songs from across the years, staring with his Eighties Battlezone project and bringing us up to speed with some of the unreleased demos and ideas from more recent memory.
Rather than act as a chronology, The Book of the Beast’s tracks are organised in a far more organic manner: opener, The Beast Arises, dates from the Killers’ Murder One album back in 1992, and features a dual guitar attack reminiscent of Priest at their finest; Paul’s voice, while not Halford, has a far more metallic sound than his Maiden work. Mad Man in the Attic jumps us forward to the beginning of the millennium and the Nomad album. The hefty crunch, ironically, does conjure the Halford self-titled from the same year.
Also taken from Nomad comes the balladic, Iced Earth-vibes of The Living Dead, showing the Di’Anno voice might be different from Dickinson’s, but Paul certainly always had the chops to at least compete with Bruce. The record’s title is the third and final song from that album and shows that there is much to appreciate in them-thar-tunes.
The second Killers’ album, Menace to Society was released a mere two years after Murder One, yet the pair were a world apart when it comes to style. Both Die by The Gun and Chemical Imbalance have foregone the traditional Metal sound in favour of a mid-Nineties Pantera-like crunch and grooving guitars. Got to say, even though it might be seen as a way to remain relevant in those days, neither song sounds forced or gives the feel of Paul moving outside his comfort zone.
The oldest song on offer here is Battlezone’s Children of Madness from the 1987 album of the same name and is closer to Dio or Priest, as opposed to what his former colleagues were doing on Somewhere In Time or Seventh Son of a Seventh Son. The fat, meaty guitars get down and dirty as Paul’s voice soars.
The other Battlezone tunes are taken from the 1998 album Feel My Pain, with the title-track being, again, era-appropriate and the ballad, The Forgotten Ones bringing us back to the more traditional sound.
The second half of the album is a collection of odds, ends and rarities which go into giving a bigger picture of the creative process. Covers of T-Rex’s Children of the Revolution, as featured on the Murder One album, while Venom’s Black Metal – from the sessions for Menace to Society - goes balls-out to challenge to original’s unrelenting speed.
A short-lived project from 1999, The Almighty Inbredz, found Paul exploring his Punk side on the previously unreleased The Serpent and the Shrew, showing the influence of the UK82 scene on his style.
Elsewhere, there’s the home cassette demo of The Beast is Back from 2003, on which Paul and guitarist, Chris Evans, were working on songs for what was going to be a new Killers’ record, a rip-roaring galloping tune; an acoustic version of Murder One’s Dream Keeper, recorded for radio broadcast in 2002, and a rehearsal recording of Menace to Society’s Three Words, captured as the band were preparing to tour with Metal Church, Vicious Rumors and Zodiac Mindwarp.
While this is essentially a post-Maiden collection, there’s still room on the compilation for a couple of the old standards, Remember Tomorrow and Wrathchild. Depending on which version of this record you go for, you’ll get different collaborations of these songs.
On the CD version, former Black Sabbath frontman, Tony Martin lends his pipes to Remember Tomorrow and one-time DragonForce / Skid Row singer, ZP Theart, duets on Wrathchild. For the vinyl version, both songs are complimented by Crowley’s Lidya Balaban; can’t fault either Tony or ZP, but I preferred Lidya’s versions, if I’m perfectly honest about it.
So, the choice is either the limited edition, double gatefold sleeved coloured vinyl, or the CD version with bonus DVD, featuring assorted live tracks and promo videos. Ooo, the options!
I saw Paul’s show at Blackpool’s Waterloo Music Bar last month and he intimated that, following the success of this Maiden-only series of shows, he is considering coming back in the new year with a set that covers his solo material. On the strength of The Book of The Beast, that would be a very welcome return and a showcase for some quality, forgotten work.
