Night Of The Blade

Tokyo Blade are one of those bands where I have a hard time getting my head around where they are from. See, in my brain I always think that the band was from California along with the other early Metal Blade bands. I mean, I feel like the band would have fit in nicely on the first Metal Massacre compilation, and therefore my first instinct is to think of them as an early American Heavy Metal band alongside the likes of Armored Saint and Lizzy Borden. But that is wrong. Tokyo Blade were from Salisbury in England, so they are obviously a New Wave Of British Heavy Metal band...and while it wasn't planned as a part of my NWOBHM Chase of 2022, it still fits the bill so we are counting it towards my goal for the year.

While I was aware of the Tokyo Blade name as a kid, I don't think that I ever heard any of their records at the time. I'm pretty sure that my exposure was limited to the song Lightning Strikes from the Banzai Axe comp. I downloaded a few of the bands early records about 15 years ago, and I'd give them a casual listen here and there over the years, but I never really invested myself too deeply into them. Last year, however, the Night Of The Blade record hit me hard and I listened to that thing a lot. I couldn't get enough of it. When I saw a copy on Discogs at a very reasonable price I jumped on it.

Since Tokyo Blade is a NWOBHM band, I was tempted to go for the original UK pressing on Powerstation Records, but with my obsession over the green Combat labels, that was obviously the only way that I was going to go here.