Ah, the Tygers of Pan Tang. There right from the start of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal days.
Looked on track to have the huge success of the likes of Iron Maiden with those first three killer albums and the superb Jon Sykes on board.
Then it fell apart with Sykes clearing off to Thin Lizzy and the Tygers putting out the rather shabby The Cage.
They’d re-appear a couple or three years later after various line-up changes with The Wreck-Age in 1985 and Burning in the Shade in 1987. Those albums, together with a CD of demos, has just been released in a nice box set by Cherry Red/HNE.
And a proper couple of career killers the albums are. The Tygers going from the excellence of the full on heaviness of Wildcat, Spellbound and (especially) Crazy Nights to insipid, turgid, uninspired wimp rock of the lowest order.
Neither Wreck-Age or Burning in the Shade has anything to recommend them. Well, Wreck-Age does try a little here and there to emerge from the pit of awfulness with the title track and some occasional flashes of guitar. However the over-use of cloying harmony vocals is ridiculous.
As bad as Wreck-Age is they manage to be even worse on Burning in the Shade. It’s unlistenable. As an example of how far they’d gone in to wimp rock/cloying ballad territory, if your ears can take it, have a listen to Maria.
After listening to both albums back to back I couldn’t face spinning the demos CD. Enough was enough.
Whether it was record company pressure to be more commercial or a conscious decision by the band to go in this direction I have no clue. Whoever did have the idea, it was a very bad one.
If you want to punish your ears, the box set is on Amazon here:
https://amzn.to/3QQYrDi
Or if you’d prefer “proper” Tygers of Pan Tang those early classics are available in another box set:
https://newwaveofbritishheavymetal.com/tygers-of-pan-tang-the-mca-years
And their most recent album, Ritual, released in 2019 is more than worthy:
https://newwaveofbritishheavymetal.com/tygers-of-pan-tang-ritual-review
Wreck-Age and Burning in the Shade best forgotten about.