Split Beaver

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Split Beaver
General information
origin Wolverhampton , England
Genre (s) New Wave of British Heavy Metal , Rock
founding 1979
resolution around the late 1980s
Last occupation
Alan "Hunk" Reese
Mick "Raven" Dunn
Mike "The Bike" Hoppett
Darrel "Savage" Whitehouse
former members
Drums
 Keith Allen

Split Beaver was a new wave of British heavy metal and rock band from Wolverhampton that was formed in 1979 and broke up around the late 1980s.

history

The band was founded in late 1979 by singer Darrel Whitehouse and guitarist Mike Hoppett, although the original line-up still had two guitarists. After one of these left the group, the line-up consisted of Whitehouse and Hoppett, bassist Alan Rees and drummer Keith Alan. The band signed a recording deal with Heavy Metal Records before being listed in the first issue of Kerrang magazine in the Armed and Ready category . In 1981 the double A-side single Savage appeared with Hound of Hell , which was recorded in the same year. Shortly afterwards the band could be heard with the song Running Wild on the sampler Heavy Metal Heroes . In the following year, the recordings for the debut album followed. Meanwhile Mick Dunn was the new drummer in the line-up. The album was released in the same year on Heavy Metal Records under the name When Hell Won't Have You . Various songs from it were regularly represented in the heavy metal charts. However, since the album was hardly successful, no second followed. With a different line-up, the band was sporadically active in the Midlands for the rest of the decade , performing with The Handsome Beasts and Starfighters in the late 1980s. In 1988 a new demo was also released . The band later broke up.

style

Malc Macmillan wrote in The NWOBHM Encyclopedia that the songs for the single and the sampler contribution were influenced by boogie-woogie and rock 'n' roll , which local groups like Speed ​​Limit and Starfighters had created. Motorhead and Tank would be considered further influences . The album offers a mixture of heavy boogie, blues , rough rock and quieter moments. According to Otger Jeske in NWoBHM New Wave of British Heavy Metal The glory Days , the music on the album is independent, but it has more roots in boogie and rock 'n' roll than in heavy metal . The International Encyclopedia of Hard Rock and Heavy Metal found the band to play ordinary heavy metal, as is common in North East England. Colin Larkin wrote in The Guinness Who's Who of Heavy Metal Second Edition that the band plays clumsy and clichéd rock that was influenced by Deep Purple and Thin Lizzy , but lacked esprit and playfulness. The album offers faster rock songs. Martin Popoff stated in his book The Collector's Guide of Heavy Metal Volume 2: The Eighties that the band on When Hell Won't Have You was as close to boogie and blues as they were to Iron Maiden . The song Hounds of Hell can be assigned to speed metal . Overall, the album offers a mixture of pub rock and newer metal, so that it can be summed up as “UK biker rock”.

Discography

  • 1981: Savage / Hound of Hell (Single, Heavy Metal Records )
  • 1982: When Hell Won't Have You (Album, Heavy Metal Records)
  • 1988: Demo (demo, self-published)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b c d Matthias Mader, Otger Jeske, Manfred Kerschke: NWoBHM New Wave of British Heavy Metal The glory Days . Iron Pages, Berlin 1995, p. 139 .
  2. ↑ a b Malc Macmillan: The NWOBHM Encyclopedia . IP Verlag Jeske / Mader GbR, Berlin 2012, ISBN 978-3-931624-16-3 , p. 578 f .
  3. ↑ Tony Jasper, Derek Oliver: The International Encyclopedia of Hard Rock and Heavy Metal . Facts on File Inc., New York 1983, ISBN 0-8160-1100-1 , pp. 314 f .
  4. ^ Colin Larkin: The Guinness Who's Who of Heavy Metal Second Edition . Guinness Publishing, Enfield, Middlesex, England 1995, ISBN 0-85112-656-1 , pp. 337 .
  5. ↑ Martin Popoff : The Collector's Guide of Heavy Metal Volume 2: The Eighties . Collectors Guide Ltd, Burlington, Ontario, Canada 2005, ISBN 978-1-894959-31-5 , pp. 334 .