Seven Inches Of Splendour

Jameson Raid were a New Wave Of British Heavy Metal band out of Birmingham in the late 70's / early 80's. They released two 7 inches during their career and shortly after my friend Jeff put the band on my radar back in 2021, I obsessed about them for six months and I grabbed one of their records. Man, I love this shit... young bands that just love what they are doing. They probably made a bit of noise in the scene at the time, but they never got major label recognition and therefore tend to get forgotten as the years tick by... so finding stuff like this gives me such a charge of discovery.

Like I'd mentioned, the band only released two 7 inches back in the day (and I'm not sure that I care to bother checking out their newer stuff from 2014/2015) and having one of their records already, I was itching to pick up the other and complete the collection.

There were two pressings of the Seven Days Of Splendour 7 inch... the first with a white cover and the second with a black cover. While I would have liked to grab a copy of the white cover, once I had the oppotunity in front of me to grab the second press I couldn't let it pass me by and I jumped on it.

NWOBHM Raid

As we were closing in on the end of 2021, I was quickly trying to scoop up some last minute records that made a big impression on me over the previous twelve months. However, ordering from overseas sellers during the postal nightmare of December probably isn't the winning combination for a successful delivery before the end of the year. While I might not have made it before the new year deadline, there is no denying that this Jameson Raid record was my favorite discovery of 2021.

Jameson Raid was from Birmingham, and released two 7 inches in '79/'80 as the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal was really starting to kick into high gear. The band has never really made it onto my radar until my friend Jeff mentioned that I should check them out last summer... although, the band did have a song on the second Metal For Muthas comp, listed as "The Raid", so technically I guess I had heard them before. One of the cool things about the NWOBHM is that there were so many small and independent bands from that period that each time I dig in a little deeper, I keep finding buried treasures like this. When Jeff told me to check them out, I wasn't really expecting too much, so it was a surprise when they hit me as hard as they did.

This shit is great, and even though newer hardcore bands ruled my playlist last year, those two Jameson Raid records were still the best thing that I uncovered. I desperately wanted those records, but to find one in very good condition was going to cost me some money. I kept checking the listings on Discogs for the band's second 7 inch, End Of Part One, through the last half of the year, and when a cheap copy wasn't falling in my lap, I finally just threw in the cash that I needed to get the job done. No regrets. This record rules.