VARIOUS ARTISTS: Thunda From Downunda

Executive Producer: Who Cares?

Released: 1986

Because it's Australia Day, I felt obliged to take a look at an album that truly represents our country's musical heritage. But instead, I have decided to bring you this. Thunda From Downunda has got the lot: a cheesy title reflecting some kind of "Australian-ness", Ned Kelly, and a totally pointless version of the national anthem played through an over-driven guitar.

I originally got this off eBay as a collector's item with no intention of ever playing it until a colleague dropped me an email about it. Without even having to listen to it I knew what I was letting myself in for. The title, the cover art and the inane lyrics to some of the songs by a group of bands very few people have ever heard of all screamed "cheese" but they were screaming it in a pretty bad way.The cover of Thunda From Downunda features a guy in a Ned Kelly helmet, a leather jacket and a bullet belt, except instead of bullets in some of the slots there are TRS plugs! If that wasn't enough, on the back he's standing on top of a sand dune, throwing the horns. AND HE'S WEARING BROWN TROUSERS! I knew there was a reason I didn't buy this when it came out in 1986.

With the art out of the way, let's take a look at the music. Thunda From Downunda features ten tracks from eight artists, only half of whom I've actually heard of or remember. All the songs feature that typically thin 80s metal production that even more accomplished acts like Mortal Sin and Virgin Soldiers had to endure due to the fact that no one in Australia back then knew how to produce metal. Unlike those more accomplished acts, most of the groups collected on "The first all-Australian heavy metal compilation" really have nothing to recommend them.

Red Alert is the first of these and lo and behold it also happens to be the musical venture of the fellow who put the record out. They therefore get two songs on here, the first a bog-standard NWOBHM-inspired shout-along number and the second a ballad so dire that my awful meter buried its needle and stopped working. Lightning Rock was a band that seemed to be on every bill there was for a few years. Their track "The Quest" is energetic, anthemic 80s metal that's likeable but forgotten as soon as it's over. Godspeed was one of the first Sydney bands to try their hand at speed metal and their two contributions are both pretty reasonable. The first of these, "Lest We Forget", is apparently a tribute to Randy Rhoads and as such contains a suitably extended instrumental break with piles of guitar soloing. Side One is closed by a perfectly odious and completely unnecessary rendition of "Advance Australia Fair" by guitarist Warren Mason, who would later go on to join BB Steal. I have no idea what this track is meant to achieve, but that's a criticism I could expand to cover the entire album.

The Lotus track "Heavy Petting" opens side two in an impressively heavy and speedy fashion, showing them to have been the most prominent and competent band on the whole collection. After such a promising start, the second half of the album ends up being even worse than the first. The very strange and terrible "Honeymoon in East Berlin" by a mysterious bunch of clowns called Metal Mercenaries plumbs nether regions of awfulness unexplored by man or god. If the Sex Pistols had come from Blacktown, and had even less talent, they would have sounded something like this band. The next two songs aren't even metal. "Mesmerized" by Scott Abrahams (a guy who would go on to sing for a Hush reunion a couple of years later, or so I believe) is just bad rock and"Feelin' Fine" by Dearrow isn't much better. Things lift a little at the end thanks to Godspeed returning to close things off with "We Are Forever", a somewhat ironically named song considering nothing on here is particularly memorable.

Thunda From Downunda was, according to the survey sheet that came with my copy, supposedly the first release from a label that was to be "releasing Heavy Metal from around the world which is unavailable in Australia" (sic). Somewhat unsurprisingly, however, both Ocker Records and this compilation disappeared virtually without trace. To paraphrase the Metal Mercenaries, nice idea, shame about the result.

1. Red Alert - Red Alert
2. Lightning Rock - The Quest
3. Godspeed - Lest We Forget
4. Red Alert - To Love You
5. Warren Mason - Advance Australia Fair
6. Lotus - Heavy Petting
7. Metal Mercenaries - Honeymoon in East Berlin
8. Scott Abrahams - Mesmerized
9. Dearrow - Feelin' Fine
10. Godspeed - We Are Forever

Rating: 38%