To jeden z tych NWOBHM zespołów które w latach 80tych miały spory w kład w tworzeniu ówczesnej metalowej sceny charakteryzującej się mocniejszym i agresywniejszym brzmieniem ,The Pack Is Back album z późniejszego okresu działalności zespołu  którego początki sięgają aż roku 1974go i choć The Pack Is Backni nie może równać się z  Wiped Out cz też All for One to naprawdę dobry materiał  stan okładki bdb stan płyty bdb

Let me tell you the story of Eddie Weinbauer. He’s the typical mid-'80s long-haired heavy metal maniac teenager with problems at high school, limited intelligence and an untidy room. He drives his mother crazy with the volume of his beloved music and loves a girl madly, but she belongs to his rivals’ gang. His room has plenty of posters hanging on the walls of bands like Judas Priest, Kiss, Ozzy Osbourne, Twisted Sister, Mötley Crüe...and surprise! Raven’s “The Pack Is Back” cover poster and a photo of Mark Gallagher with make-up and weird clothes as well! That’s the story of the 1986 movie “Trick Or Treat”, which was just another lame imitation of the Wes Craven classic “A Nightmare On Elm Street”. The film is quite mediocre with plenty of goofs and cheesy songs by Eddie Clarke’s pop band Fastway. Apart from that, the movie makes clear Raven achieved certain fame and success in the U.S.A. mid-'80s adventure.

The extreme pressure from a commercial record label such as Atlantic forced Raven to sell out and modify their sound into something completely opposite from their original music and attitude. That significant change already began on the previous record “Stay Hard”, although the commercial attempt wasn’t so evident and explicit as here. The brutal progressive speed metal of the Newcastle trio turns into something less aggressive, heavy and violent. As you can listen on “Screaming Down The House”, “Get Into Your Car” and the opening title track, now vocals and insistent choruses are taking complete control of the compositions while the instrumental parts are relegated to the background. The main lines are repeated endless times during each track to make people remember them, inevitably catchy. But that doesn’t mean that the talent and distinctive technique of the band has been forgotten: “Rock Dogs” and “Young Blood” demonstrate Mark Gallagher is still able to perform killer riffs and harsh hooks along with very solid elaborated pickin’ parts. The musicianship and skills of Raven are still outstanding and admirable. The tunes are slightly easier and more simple than before to sell more records, but consistent and musically strong enough to satisfy. Definitely with a tougher production and less exhausting vocals this same stuff would have sounded completely different and heavier. But there’s a bunch of new elements in these songs that make clear the intention of the group and the nature of the numbers. Some that I could have never expected from these guys, like that horn section of trumpets, saxophones and trombones, synthesizers and Casio keyboards, that omnipresent choir and the silly Spinal Tap-style lyrics. “Hyperactive”, “Don’t Let It Die” and “All I Want” feature all those characteristics that make it hard to take them seriously. The result is not that bad actually, but simply bizarre and inappropriate for the genuine concept of Raven as a true speed metal band.

So yes, this record has really great moments and many listenable cuts, catchy words that will get engraved in your mind at once (“Nightmare Ride”, particularly) and you will have no other chance than singing along. The only cover of the pack is the The Spencer Davis Group classic hit “Gimme Some Lovin’”, which was a very nice surprise and quite unpredictable. The arrangements are totally alternative and different from the original, so the band is not just playing the same structure note by note and they introduce their own style to it. However, the weakest spot is the scandalous lack of aggression and violence I mentioned before. There’s still passion, energy and power, but following the wrong direction. It was obvious that such an unnaturally radical change would be no good for the band whose music is decent, but doesn’t seem to come from their hearts and souls. They just tried to please the greedy Atlantic bosses. That terrible change didn’t include the music, lyrics and production only, the guys emulated their admired heroes Slade and Sweet by wearing motley glam clothes and extravagant make-up in the style of Nikki Sixx, Vince Neil, Bret Michaels and Jani Lane. It didn’t work at all, not even with the priceless support and contribution of legendary audio engineer and producer Eddie Kramer, who did a great job that fitted the nature of the songs and the commercial intention of Raven by that time. John, Mark and Wacko made a brilliant performance and versatile songwriting work, demonstrating they could sound convincing and satisfactory under pressure in a different musical path. There’s no doubt about it that’s something remarkable along with the amazing instrumental display on each track, immaculate and perfect. There’s many differences from their previous stuff though, in particular John Gallagher’s voice is not so insane and high, leaving his lunatic tenor screaming behind to concentrate more on defining the backing vocals and the choir. The rhythms are loose and dynamic, but not that fast compared to their earlier double bass drum beating tempos. The merciless, raw riffing sequences became mellow, soft and kinda inoffensive here.

Fortunately, Raven realized their huge mistake before it was too late and in November and December of that same year they would get rid of those stupid pop elements and ways to bring back their raging speed metal. Many other NWOBHM bands failed on their commercial attempt, but at least Raven did something amusing and enjoyable, even if it’s comical and silly at times, there’s some fine moments. I’m afraid this decent album is condemned to be the black sheep of Raven’s discography, but I recommend it to anybody who still hesitates and doubts the possibilities of the Newcastle trio wearing make-up and glam clothes, you might get a big surprise! So our friend Eddie Weinbauer didn’t really have a bad taste in the end. In fact, you can see Exciter’s “Unveiling The Wicked” and Megadeth’s “Killing Is My Business...And Business Is Good!” among his LP collection in one of the movie scenes. The ending of that film was happy, but Raven’s Atlantic years' risky adventure was rather bitter. Luckily, they could get over it and offer amazing music to this date.