Amulet 1980

"Amulet was an American hard rock and heavy metal band who released their only album in 1980 - in the midst of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal - and thus, although technically not part of it, they are sometimes associated with NWoBHM, although there is a certain sense of American rock to the music on this album which emphasizes groove and that bluesey feel.

There is some really good stuff on this album, which contains a lot of nice riffage and catchy chorus lines, and also some offbeat, quasi-progressive things such as odd time signatures and the like. "Just Like A Woman" is a southern rock based song which in some ways was a sort of predecessor of the glam metal of the 80s, while "Sea of Fear" is a metal song along the lines of Judas Priest's "One for the Road", which also applies to "Kings and Queens", while "Do You Live Again" is a strange sort of groovy power ballad. "Person to Person" is an uptempo, yet groovy, metal track, while "Funk and Punk" is, not surprisingly, a rather funky song (and perhaps the first alternative metal track ever - it certainly reminds me of Rage Against That Machine and funk metal acts like Impotators or Kinky Boot Beast). "Gemini" is another groovy and semi-funky track, but without the same heaviness and ballsiness of "Funk and Punk". "Life is Living" and "A New Day" are both quite groovy tracks that draw on the style of various proto-metal acts (again, there are some similarities with 90s alternative metal here).

This album should appeal to fans of protometal and hard rock as well as traditional metal. While it is not an NWoBHM-related release as such, I think that NWoBHM fans might like it too.

(review originally posted on metalmusicarchives.com)"