Diamond Head: Lightning to the Nations - The White Album [SILVER LINING]

Why you'll love it

Silver Lining's remastered edition comes in a gatefold jacket. Metallica have covered five of its seven songs over the years, and Japan's Burrn! magazine rated it the third-best riff album of all time.

This edition

• Remastered
• Gatefold jacket

About the album

Packaging budgets were tight for Diamond Head in 1980. The band recorded this debut in seven days at The Old Smithy in Worcester and put it out on their own Happy Face label in a plain white sleeve, with no title and no track listing, because their new manager owned a cardboard factory and blank sleeves came cheap. The first 1,000 copies were sold at gigs and by mail order for £3.50.

Inside that blank sleeve sat a blueprint for a great deal of heavy music to come. Brian Tatler's staccato riffs, harmonized leads and galloping rhythms drive the title track and "The Prince," Sean Harris wails through "Sweet and Innocent" and "It's Electric," and "Sucking My Love" stretches out into a long, heavy workout. The band produced it themselves, and the raw, unrelenting attack is the whole point.

Megadeth counted it as an influence too, and the original white-sleeve copies are among the most sought-after records of the era. It may be the most influential album ever sold in a sleeve with nothing written on it, though we admit the field is small.

Also at Kops: more Diamond Head on vinyl · browse Metal

Tracklist

Listen

On Silver Lining Music (cat# SLM103P42), a reissue of the 1980 album.