About time for a new post, so why not one about Jameson Raid – yet another one on the NWOBHM “should have made it” list. And another one on the New Wave of British Heavy Metal revival bandwagon being reformed, active gigging and, I believe, with a new EP in the works. Top stuff boys.
The band was spawned, like many others from the time, in the Birmingham/Black Country “hot bed” of heavy rock/metal which gave us so many other great (and often under-rated) bands. Named after a bit of a tear up in the Transvaal at the end of the nineteenth century) Jameson Raid gave us their first recording output just as NWOBHM was gaining traction. That was an EP entitled Seven Days of Splendour” which went down well enough with the rock journos of the time and gained some traction. Indeed, sufficient to get them on a Def Leppard tour in (I think) 1980 and a track on the infamous Metal for Muthas II compilation.
Briefly is looked oh so good for the band and the cusp of greatness was within reach. Or was it….fractures started to appear, people left, people joined, a second EP was issued, things more or less stumbled along though any attention/promise garnered with the debut EP and tour slipped away also and despite efforts to keep the band going through numerous line-up changes proved fruitless and time was called in around 1983 or so leaving another casualty of the NWOBHM scene who appears to have the talent to do much more with it perhaps victims of the fickle music industry.
Fast forward thirty years or so…..and Jameson Raid is back. What is seen as the “classic” line-up got together again. An album was issued – Just As The Dust Had Settled – and gigging recommenced. What hasn’t changed are the frequent line-up changes however the current personnel are about to issue a new EP entitled 9 Reasons and that can’t be a bad thing.
Check out the Jameson Raid web site here: http://www.jamesonraid.co.uk/
And if you want to get your hands on, and your ears around, some classic NWOBHM from them then you can do that with a simple click to bag a copy of Just As The Dust Has Settled.