Headhunter

Released

These ballroom blitzers have a reputation as Switzerland’s answer to Australia’s favorite high voltage rock ‘n’ rollers AC/DC. That isn’t entirely fair — they both started around the same time — but this, their most popular record, doesn’t exactly dispute the claim. While Mark Storace’s Brian Johnson shriek comes to the forefront on “Eat the Rich,” the leadoff title track and the windswept-hair grandeur of MTV hit “Screaming in the Night” show they could go both fiercer and more melodramatic than their down-under counterparts. And, by keeping one foot in boogie rock, they prevent the more Sunset Strip-sounding cuts from getting obfuscated by the hairspray. Perhaps not at the head of the eighties metal class but this minor classic is still worth hunting down.

Jeff Treppel