Description
Gatefold jacket, red vinyl. 200 copies. Freshly mastered from the original tapes!
The history of Finnish Heavy Metal wasn’t all Sarcofagus and Oz in the 80’s. Stockholm-based Hiroshima may have had a Swedish vocalist, but the rest of the ranks were Finns, relocated to Stockholm like Hanoi Rocks.
Guitarist brothers Kari Varonen and Ismo Waronen founded Hiroshima with Rape Pikanen, Jorma Uusitalo and Erkki Tallavaara in the infamous immigrant harbour of Flemingsberg, Stockholm, in 1982. At a couple of shows before the line-up stabilised, the band used the title Alwari-X, because before relocating to Sweden, Rape Pikanen had been drumming for the first Finnish glam rock band Alwari Tuohitorvi. After trying out a few bass players, the group hired Jouko Kinnunen as the band’s permanent low frequency specialist. Singer Tony Hedin, the band’s only Swedish member, joined the ranks during the same year. The band recorded an eight-song demo in eight hours at Stockholm’s Decibel Studio in 1983. The demo, on which the line-up was already the same as on Taste of Death, led to a recording contract.
Thanks to playing shows and gaining recording experience in the studio, the band
swiftly transformed into a hard rock force to be reckoned with. At this point the set list
was already built upon original material. The band scored a recording contract in 1984 with Finnlevy, and things were looking up to this young Scandinavian quintet. The same year they put out their debut, Taste of Death, which was a memorable blast of heavy metal and featured the Finnish guitar legend Albert Järvinen on one of the tracks.
However, fame and fortune passed the band by, and Taste of Death remained their only record. As years passed, collectors, heavy metal fanatics and cultists found this little gem of a metal album. Svart Records are happy to reissue it, this LP release being the first time in 33 years it’s being brought back from the grave.
