Plasmatics - Metal Priestess

All Music Guide

This six-song EP is even shorter when any Plasmatics fan realizes that the four new songs recorded by Svengali manager Rod Swenson and producer/engineer Dan Hartman are augmented by live versions of two songs from the previous 1981 release, Beyond the Valley of 1984. Guitarists Richie Stotts and Wes Beech set a solid, crunchy tone behind Wendy O with two new drummers: Tony Petri on the two live tracks, "Masterplan" and "Sex Junkie," and Joey Reese on the studio material. Keep in mind that's four drummers in the two-year span between Stu Deutsch on New Hope for the Wretched and Alice Cooper drummer Neal Smith on the studio material on Beyond the Valley of 1984 (that 1981 album's two tracks recorded live in Milan don't identify if the drummer is one of the four -- and if you add the drummer from the Capitol Records debut in 1982, the Coup D'Etat album, it brings that total to five). Chris "Junior" Romanelli replaces Jean Beauvoir, whose image and musicianship was pretty irreplaceable. St...ill, Dan Hartman does a great job of capturing a solid hard rock sound and Wendy O is truly significant as a more-than-competent metal vocalist. It's a transition from the previous attempts at punk and smart reinvention. Beauvoir would come back five years later with his excellent solo project, Drums Along the Mohawk, followed two years later by Jacknifed. His presence and musicianship could have added to these four studio sides, though they hold up well on their own. There's not much difference between Wendy O's snarling on the doomsday song "12 Noon" or "Doom Song," which is yet another doomsday song, this one with Richie Stotts' brilliant, slashing guitar lines. The metal arena gives Stotts a chance to shine, and he is an underrated talent, as was Wendy O. The combined energies of these individuals always took a back seat to Swenson's imagery and public relations. The material by Stotts and Beech is fun and fits the bill, though a separate live album would have been preferable to the cutting and pasting. Still, Metal Priestess holds up and is a worthwhile addition to the small but influential Plasmatics output. It was later combined on CD with its sister release from 1981, Beyond the Valley of 1984. - Joe Viglione, All Music Guide Read more Less