The first offering from the 'Gallagher' boys and without a doubt one of my favourite 'NWOBHM' albums, and generally considered one of the best of its genre. Ok the production is ropy, but the raw performances and effort more than make up for that. 'John Gallagher' is a very capable vocalist and in places is reminiscent of 'Priest' legend 'Rob Halford' and occasionally 'Accept's' 'Udo Dirkschneider'. Musically this is one of the heaviest albums of the early 80's and even surpasses 'Maiden's' first two albums for speed and aggression.

The opening cut 'Hard Ride' is a bombastic, full blooded staple, full of glorious pounding rhythm and fine axe work. Next up is the tasty 'Hell Patrol' a track that about sums-up the spirit of 'NWOBHM' music with its explosive drumming, blistering guitar work and gutsy vocals ripping through basic but cutting lyrics, also checkout 'John Gallagher's' screeching towards the end of the track- Pure brilliance. The pace is stepped up even more for the 'Speed Metal' 'Motörhead' style 'Don't Need your Money', an absolute storming ripper, lyrically hardly a masterpiece, but hell this is an early blazer of the highest calibre. Slightly less potent is 'Over the Top', as its a tad repetitive and overall sounds reminiscent of fellow 'NWOBHM' group 'Tank'. The tempo drops for the medieval sounding instrumental '39 – 40', this is used cleverly and successfully to break the album up, and leaves you off balance for the brilliant 'For the Future'. A fiery number, that while being catchy continues to be shredding and powerful and is similar in approach to 'Manowar' with its "blood and steel" lyrics. The catchy sing-a-long known as 'Rock until you Drop' is another highlight, with its sweet plodding rhythm and rowdy chorus. 'Nobody Knows' sounds too similar to 'Hell Patrol' but doesn't better it, with its ordinary lyrics and slightly disjointed approach. Two songs from UK 'Seventies Glam Rockers', 'The Sweet', are covered 'Hellraiser' and 'Action' (the latter a hit for Def Leppard), both of which are done with a harder edge than the originals. The album closes with two belters, 'Lambs to the Slaughter' feels like a lost 'Priest' classic with soaring vocals and a heavy 'British Steel' sound, while the concluding track 'Tyrant of the Airways' is a masterful 7 minute epic that again is in the early 'Priest' style and cleverly features a 'Maiden' sounding mid track slow down and some nice overdubbed sound effects.

The re-released version of this album from Neat Records includes 8 bonus tracks which makes it well worth picking up. First up is 'Wiped Out' the title of their next album and a strong number which holds a steadfast lively rhythm throughout, lyrically its pretty simple but still a choice rocker, well within the style of this album. Next up is 'Crazy World' the 'B' side from 'Hard Ride' a decent enough track for a flip side, but overall a tad disjointed and under produced to make the. Much better is 'Inquisitor', this could definitely make it onto any of 'Ravens' studio albums, an energetic cracker with solid gutsy lyrics, powerful vocals and hearty chorus. They do another rendition of this track featuring 'Udo' and 'John Gallagher' exchanging leads, it's very good and can be found on the re-released version of 'All for One'. The following four tracks are from a "Radio One Session" all are passable versions that stay very truthful to the originals but feature a pretty flat production which does spoil them. The exception being 'Hold Back the Fire' which is a tame mid tempo number and doesn't feature on any studio album. Last off is 'Let it Rip' a decent pulsating rocker with trademark screeching vocals, fine rhythm and firm fret work, lyrically it could be a better though.

'NWOBHM' don't get much better than this, yes the production could be better, but if a headbanging session is what you are looking for this should be lined-up on your turntable, as it's undoubtably one of the best albums of it's genre.