The Industrial Twilight: Hittman

Monday, April 29, 2013

Hittman - s/t [1988]

Artist: Hittman

Title: Hittman

Genre: Heavy Metal

Country: USA

Release date: 1988

Track List:

Metal Sport
Dead on Arrival
Will You Be There
Breakout
Backstreet Rebels
Caught in the Crossfire
Secret Agent Man (Johnny Rivers cover)
Behind the Lines
The Test of Time
Sleepless Nights (bonus)

One of my favourite heavy/power metal records of all times, and one of the best releases to come out of the North American melodic metal scene in 1988/1989 (along with "Operation Mindcrime" by Queensryche, "Time Will Tell" by Fifth Angel, and "Transcendence" by Crimson Glory). If you like all the aforementioned albums, be sure to check out this one. The production is excellent for a not-so-well-known 80's metal band; this album sounds quite modern even today! Maybe someone will complain about too loud drums, but I think it only adds "personality" to Hittman's sound. The vocal work is just amazing, especially on the track "Behind the Lines". Almost all the songs on this album are extremely catchy, which makes it sound more like a "Best Of..." compilation rather than a regular album. And special kudos to Hittman for singing about more realistic subjects rather than usual heavy/power metal stuff like knights and dragons (I'd say it's metal for the people who prefer detective novels over fantasy ones).

Download

P.S. I also included a track "Sleepless Nights" from their earlier demo to the archive, since some people say it's the best their song ever. I personally don't think so, but it's up to you to listen and decide.

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About this blog

I created this blog mostly because I wanted to practise my English skills, and to showcase the industrial, gothic, punk, metal, neofolk and progressive rock scene of Russia/ex-USSR and Eastern Europe (especially Hungary) in the meanwhile.

As you can see, this blog doesn't take itself seriously enough, but I hope I'm doing good enough with my reviews even if my proficiency in English is limited. Along with the aforementioned stuff from Eastern Europe, I occasionally post some classic and rare albums that aren't to be missed, and generally whatever I want. Other categories of note:

* finno-ugric rarities - various music (including pop) in minor Finno-Ugric languages which I'm interested in because of my heritage. The music from Hungary, Finland and Estonia can be found under the respective categories;

* lo-fi - various poorly recorded demos from before 2000 that are of historical importance. Most of these demos come from the USSR era, so you might want to check out the USSR category as well.

As of now, I try to post only music that has already been made free by the artists themselves, or the rare old releases that are out of print. But if you're an artist and would like me to remove the download links of your work, just contact me using the form below.

Sorry, I don't do reviews by request, I don't have the time. Moreover, I think the bands that feel the need to advertise themselves by sending their demos to as many blogs as possible are usually just plain boring. If you want to contact me for any other reason, use the contact form below.

It should be obvious enough that reviewing anything on here doesn't equals endorsement of artists' personal views. This especially concerns neofolk and martial industrial. It'd be fair enough to say that I have the same approach to the political and religious topics in these genres as Laibach do.

Many of the female musicians featured on my blog are amateur models, and in many cases their modelling work is no less interesting than their music. Right now I'm working on giving it a separate section of the blog (just in case if anyone wants my review to be only about their music and not their looks). The work is in progress, check back later if you're interested.

The title of my blog comes from a song by The Kovenant (album "SETI", 2003).