Wicked lady - The Axeman Cometh (1993)

Posted By: hill0

Date: June 29, 2015

Wicked Lady laid down some of the heaviest stuff ever, and it is hard to believe that it was recorded way back in 1969-72. You know how a lot of reviews of obscure reissues say “This is the best band you have never heard?” In the case of Wicked Lady, that could not be more true. The eight songs that make up The Axeman Cometh, and the seven that comprise Psychotic Overkill have never been “officially” released until now. The exact story is a little hazy, but the music was apparently released as a semi-bootleg in 1994 by a label called Kissing Spell.

To say Wicked Lady were an ultimate cult band is almost an understatement – the U.K. power trio's contemporary reputation was derived solely from a small if committed live fan base. The Axeman Cometh, with original bassist Bob Jeffries, covering selections from 1969 to 1972, comes from tapes that lead figure Martin Weaver freely admitted in 2012 were done just to keep clear how the songs were performed. Part of the appeal lies in how good everything sounds – for basement recordings by a band with no resources, even the earliest songs stand up pretty well. Vocals are a bit distanced at times, but both the basic riffing and the enthusiastic if unremarkable drumming are clear enough. That the trio was a product of its time is perfectly evident, but for all the heavy riffing the band is playing with, there are moments of individual flair, with Weaver's own work sounding especially inspired, mixing yank-'em, crank-'em tendencies with solid senses of mood while never losing sight of the core rhythm work. While songs like "Living on the Edge" can sometimes feel a bit draggy, nothing ever slows down, and the fairly standard arrangements always give way to a little moment of Weaver glory at some point or another. The opening "Run the Night" features a bit of frenetic soloing from Weaver that could be ahead of its time, and nearly everything else has a similar moment of glory. If "War Cloud" sounds more like a bit of moody folkiness filtered through a touch of Deep Purple, the sentiments aren't far removed from Black Sabbath. But the instrumental title track, with Weaver pulling off some double-tracked solos careening beautifully over the central chug, is pretty close to its own beast.
Review by Ned Raggett

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Tracklist:

1. Run The Night (5:08)
2. War Cloud (7:37)
3. The Axeman Cometh (6:52)
4. Life And Death (9:58)
5. Wicked Lady (6:01)
6. Out Of The Dark (10:14)
7. Rebel (3:32)
8. Living On The Edge (10:09)

EAC log

Exact Audio Copy V1.0 beta 3 from 29. August 2011

EAC extraction logfile from 20. March 2014, 3:51

The Wicked Lady / The Axeman Cometh

Used drive : TSSTcorpCDDVDW SU-208DB Adapter: 0 ID: 0

Read mode : Secure
Utilize accurate stream : Yes
Defeat audio cache : Yes
Make use of C2 pointers : No

Read offset correction : 48
Overread into Lead-In and Lead-Out : No
Fill up missing offset samples with silence : Yes
Delete leading and trailing silent blocks : No
Null samples used in CRC calculations : Yes
Used interface : Native Win32 interface for Win NT & 2000
Gap handling : Appended to previous track

Used output format : User Defined Encoder
Selected bitrate : 896 kBit/s
Quality : High
Add ID3 tag : No
Command line compressor : C:\Program Files (x86)\Exact Audio Copy\Flac\flac.exe
Additional command line options : -T "artist=%artist%" -T "title=%title%" -T "album=%albumtitle%" -T "date=%year%" -T "tracknumber=%tracknr%" -T "genre=%genre%" -5 %source%

TOC of the extracted CD

Track | Start | Length | Start sector | End sector
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––-
1 | 0:00.00 | 5:09.01 | 0 | 23175
2 | 5:09.01 | 7:38.07 | 23176 | 57532
3 | 12:47.08 | 6:53.31 | 57533 | 88538
4 | 19:40.39 | 9:59.20 | 88539 | 133483
5 | 29:39.59 | 6:02.04 | 133484 | 160637
6 | 35:41.63 | 10:15.60 | 160638 | 206822
7 | 45:57.48 | 3:33.26 | 206823 | 222823
8 | 49:30.74 | 10:09.15 | 222824 | 268513

Track 1

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Track 4

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Track 6

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Track 7

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Track 8

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None of the tracks are present in the AccurateRip database

No errors occurred

End of status report

==== Log checksum 909415A0874EC7619C2FC1389F1CEF854824AD1F6AF3299143FF52DCF9C2D2B5 ====

Personnel

Bass – Bob Jeffries
Drums – "Mad" Dick Smith
Guitar, Vocals, Written-By – Martin Weaver

Previously unreleased sessions recorded 1969-1972.

All thanks to original releaser