ZION - THRILLSEEKER

Zion kicked around the metal underground from the early 80’s until they released their spectacular ‘Thunder from the Mountain’ album in 1989. That album should’ve faired a lot better than it did with great production courtesy of David Zaffiro and tremendous songwriting. I remember just playing that disc to death. As a matter of fact I own two of the original Image Records releases on Compact Disc. I’ve always wished they had played Cornerstone one of the times I attended but no dice.

That brings us to this release entitled ‘ThrillSeeker.’ I am not really sure why this compendium of odds and ends was released. I mean why not just re-release their debut with some bonus tracks? That would be a lot more preferable than this compilation of ‘left over’s?’ or unused material.

The first two tracks ‘Who Pulls the Strings’ and ‘Kick in the Gates’ claim to be ‘Live.’ Now I would assume that to mean ‘Live Concert Recordings.’ Honestly there is NO WAY these tracks are live. NONE! The intro’s and outro’s are, but the actual performance is clearly from the ‘Thunder From the Mountain’ disc. The ending of ‘Who Pulls…’ segues right into ‘Kick in the Gates’. There is some in-between song banter which is clearly live, but again THE PERFORMANCE IS NOT! How can this be labeled live? I feel ripped off!

It reminds me of one of those MTV video’s where the band is performing in front of an audience and you hear audience noise, but clearly the song audio is the studio version. Iron Maidens ‘Stranger in a Strange Land’ comes immediately to mind.

There is a bass/drum solo which clearly is live in concert. The difference in audio quality is enormous between that track and the first two. There are a couple of short clips which run under a minute each. You also get a couple of Zion cuts from their (1985?) release entitled ‘Rock for Eternity’ tape. There are also some pre-production versions of ‘Roll the Rock’ and a track entitled ‘The Big Fall.’ It sounds to me that ‘The Big Fall’ morphed into ‘Kick in the Gates.’

Lastly the track ‘ThrillSeeker’ from “Thunder from the Mountain” appears.

I like Zion and have always thought that Rex should’ve stayed with them. They could’ve pushed a disc that was much better then the following X-Sinner material.

Again I ask why this disc was released, horrendous cover art and all. Then I must ask who compiled this material which frankly is clearly second rate. Save your money, this disc isn’t worth it. Put out ‘Thunder from the Mountain’ and make a nice package out of it, which would be worth it. This one ain’t.

3 axes