The Headless Children

The 'grown-up' album. One of those tick the right box releases that had both the clout of marketing together with a sound template of earlier work to build on and evolve from. The wrting is tighter, the tracks are more tactile and technical and the tone is consistent throughout. It is as good as their first 2 releases, quality-wise, whilst sounding completely alien, apart from a few tracks. But even the more raucous efforts like 'Mean Man' and 'Maneater' sound classier and more acceptable to non-fans.The best tracks are the aforementioned 'Mean Man', 'The Lost Child', 'The Headless Children', 'Mephisto Waltz' and 'Forever Free'. The rest are all very good but lack a certain spark to elevate them to the level of band classic. Out of the rest the best are 'Thundergead' and 'Neutron Bomber'.The extra tracks are all great too. At one time the only place you could get these were on the b-sides to 'Mean Man' and 'The Real Me'. The 2 live tracks are as good as live tracks but slightly redundant. The 4 original tracks are all excellent and worthy of inclusion on the album despite their tones being wildly variable to the album as a whole. 'For Whom the Bell Tolls' is used on The Crimson Idol in an acoustic capacity for the song 'The Gypsy Meets the Boy'. 'For Whom The Bell Tolls' is better.One of the first WASP albums I heard in my youth and a favourite of mine today. But even as a musical work it still stands up well in today's climate.

This record found WASP moving on lyrically from their first three studio albums whilst still maintaining all the usual bombastic musical & vocal fire! The likes of the title track, ‘the heretic' & the stunning ‘rebel in the f.d.g' are all more complex songs which hinted at the future direction they were heading in.There's not a bad track on the album, ‘forever free' is a great emotive ballad & barnstormer ‘Mean man' a nod back to the their early 80's fare. Interesting too that ‘for whom the bell tolls', one of the extra tracks, was later to be transformed into ‘the gypsy meets the boy' on masterpiece ‘the crimson idol'.The drum sound here is immense, guitar playing top grade & it goes without saying that Blackie's unique rock/metal voice is as gloriously manic as ever!

First noticed W.A.S.P. in the late '80s with the eye catching title of their Heavy Metal track "Inside The Electric Circus", sadly not on this album "The Headless Children". It is a hard act to follow, so like some other Metal groups they have more or less stuck to the same recipe: they sing and play like they mean it, which fans probably appreciate, and similar to AC/DC. actually do not make an abysmal failure. My verdict is still worth buying even after all time, unlike my last mistake with Take That where in the '90s (and the album Beautiful World in 2007 where the listed track Rule The World is not on it) the description abysmal ruled supreme in the music industry. Thank God for groups like W.A.S.P. the antidote to mediocre

Great late 80s metal album from Blackie Lawless and crew featuring guest musicians. Frankie Benalli and Ken Hensley.Two legendary musicians who passed away in 2020 Rip.

I'm so glad I found this copy of The Headless Children on Amazon as I rank it more highly than the farce of a remastering that Snapper Records have done. For those not in the know, the Snapper release has a part of the song The Heretic missing which, for me, ruined the album. This copy is perfect from start to finish. This WASP album, along with The Crimson Idol, is truly Blackie Lawless at his creative peak. There is not a filler on this album and the energy you feel is awesome. It's just a pity the partnership of Lawless and Holmes didn't endure.

Was a bit uncertain when I ordered this as to what the quality would be like.....No need to worry, 180g Pink/Red clear vinyl, top quality and sounds infinitely better than the CD I bought several years back to replace my original cassette version from 1989!Probably my favourite W.A.S.P. album, worth the purchase just for Side 1 which is classic, as well as 'Mean Man' & 'Forever Free' on Side 2.All in all, very pleased at just over £13, a bargain!

Heavy metal masterpiece from one of the most underrated metal bands of the time. Still going strong after almost 40 years.

This is a masterpiece of an album. Some call it there best ever. As a Wasp fan i will just point out that Blackie never got the respect he deserves for making such a great bunch of music. This is a album that you need in your collection. Buy it and Lean back and enjoy