Thankfully, the Killer Dwarfs sound had matured by 1986, taking them out of those early 80’s days of North American metal, which when looking back through history and time, was not of good quality, let’s be honest, the material on ‘Stand Tall’ is much better.
Written by: gdmonline
ARTIST: Killer Dwarfs
ALBUM: Stand Tall
LABEL: Maze
SERIAL: ML8012
YEAR: 1986
CD REISSUE: Reissue List
COUNTRY OF ORIGIN: Canada
LINEUP: Russ Dwarf – vocals * Mike Dwarf – guitars * Bad Ronbo Dwarf – bass * Darrell ‘Darnell’ Dwarf – drums
TRACK LISTING: 01 Stand Tall (Stick To Your Guns) * 02 Human Survival * 03 Up To You And Me * 04 Borderline * 05 Through Animal Eyes * 06 Keep The Spirit Alive * 07 Believe In Me * 08 Do Or Die * 09 Out In The Streets * 10 Bite The Hand That Feeds
WEBLINKS: Site Link
Background
Having just written an article on the debut Killer Dwarfs LP, we now move onto their second effort: ‘Stand Tall’. The band still hadn’t cracked the big time at this stage (being 1986), signed to the relatively small label Maze.
The label included Saga on their books during their early days, while in the U.S it was Grudge Records that carried the distribution.
I’m not quite sure what the Dwarfs were doing in between albums (1983 to 1986) as original members Bryce Trewin and Ange Folero left the band shortly after the 1983 debut. Russ Graham and Darrell Millar were joined by guitarist Mike Hall and bassist Ron Meyer, and this essentially became the best known line-up of the band.
The Songs
Thankfully, the Killer Dwarfs sound had matured, taking them out of those early 80’s days of North American metal, which when looking back through history and time, was not of good quality, let’s be honest. By 1984, the scene generated better quality acts, and with much better production values, the music became a lot more enjoyable, and commercial.
‘Stand Tall’ to me, has a lot in common with L.A band Great White, maybe a little bit of Ratt and also Lion (musically, not vocally).
Russ’ vocals had lost that annoying high-pitched tone, which kinda put me off the debut, but here the songs are a lot more cohesive. ‘Stand Tall’ is a great opener, and there’s a video for it too. The guitar tone is similar to the stuff on Lion‘s ‘Dangerous Attraction’ LP, which says something.
‘Human Survival’ is a definite Great White copy-cat, and would become something of a template heading into their Epic Records tenure. The rest of the album maintains a high standard and is enjoyable throughout.
In Summary
This album was produced by the band, so it looked as if they did something right because Epic Records eventually came calling, and kept the band on their roster right up until 1992.
As far as I’m aware, Jamie Vernon’s Bullseye Records (Canada) reissued the CD in 2003, and it’s a remaster too. Maze originally issued it as a CD back in 1986 (serial MLCD 8012) but it’s long out of print.
The records which followed: ‘Big Deal’, ‘Deadly Weapons’ and ‘Method To The Madness’ are all worth refamiliarising with again. We will probably write up the others we haven’t covered yet, to close off the great chapter of Canadian rock that was the Killer Dwarfs.
Killer Dwarfs on Video
Click to go to YTM album page.
