Vardis - The World's Insane (1981)

Taking the unorthodox route of releasing a live album as their debut had reaped great dividends for boogie metal trio Vardis, who quickly found themselves singled out as the New Wave of British Heavy Metal's official pub band. Optimistically, this meant they were being recognized as the best purveyors of '70s-inspired hard boogie, but the harsher reality saw Vardis becoming hopelessly stereotyped as the opening act of choice for other New Wave of British Heavy Metal heavyweights such as Saxon and Iron Maiden. Possibly realizing they needed to make a play for greater legitimacy, it was therefore decided by both the band and their label, Logo Records, that record number two, The World's Insane, should be recorded in a proper studio. Released a mere six months after said debut in the spring of 1981, the album did indeed show some sonic refinements over its predecessor, but these only seemed to cancel out the vital electricity captured in the earlier set. Standout tracks like "Power Underfoot," "All You Ever Need," and "Police Patrol" (bagpipes and all) were also harder to come by, and while blaming this on Vardis' limited bag of musical tricks seems like the obvious answer, this excuse was never thrown at AC/DC or Motörhead. Adding to the tired, repetitive feel, both the slow-bluesing title track and the boogie-by-numbers "Blue Rock" were simply updated takes of some of Vardis' oldest songs, and one of the album's gutsiest moments wound up being a cover of Hawkwind's "Silver Machine" not a good sign of things to come.