The first of two new box sets contains the four albums that singer Doro Pesch made with her band Warlock. The second has her six subsequent solo records. In all of this, there is one certainty: her ability to belt out a metal anthem with conviction.
Famously, at Donington in 1986, Warlock suffered the indignity of playing below comedy act Bad News. They deserved better.
In the Warlock box set, I Rule The Ruins (6⁄10), the band’s 1984 debut Burning The Witches stands out as a minor classic of NWOBHM-inspired mayhem. With Doro sounding uncannily like Geddy Lee, the album has lost none of its naive charm.
Warlock’s purist headbanging principles were unaffected by a move from indie label Mausoleum to a major, Vertigo. The following albums – Hellbound, True As Steel and Triumph And Agony – were as resolutely loud and proud as their titles implied.
However, in her early years as a solo artist, Doro tried new ideas – with mixed results. The Doro box set, World Gone Wild (5⁄10), begins with the straight-up hard rock of her ’89 solo debut Force Majeure, but 1991’s True At Heart is soft-focus AOR, and 1995’s Machine II Machine a deluded attempt at alternative rock.
It was only with her recent albums, such as 2012’s Raise Your Fist, that Doro got back on track, the Metal Queen reclaiming her crown.
