Album review: FIGHT – War Of Words/A Small Deadly Space

BGO Records [Release date 27.09.19]

BGO Records re-issue Fight’s two albums on one CD with sleeve notes by Neil Daniels. Fight featured Rob Halford, fresh from leaving Judas Priest in 1992, and he was joined by Priest drummer Scott Travis, along with guitarist Russ Parrish (he left the band after the first album) who is now better known as Satchel in Steel Panther!

‘War Of Words’ was originally released in 1993 and is certainly the strongest of the two albums, aided in part by Rob Halford writing all the songs on the album. The album starts with the pummelling metal of ‘Into The Pit’ and ‘Nailed To The Gun’, and the album never really lets up from that point. Even the slower songs like ‘Life In Black’ have a brooding menace, thanks in part to Halford’s vocals. A classic bit of 90’s metal that mixed Pantera’s brutal approach to metal and a touch of Judas Priest.

‘A Small Deadly Space‘ followed in 1995 with Mark Chaussee replacing Parrish, and this album saw Halford co-write all the songs, bar the hidden song ‘Psycho Suicide’. Not as strong song wise and some clunkers for sure like ‘Blowout In The Radio Room’, where Halford sounds a little like Ozzy! ‘In A World Of My Own Making’ is a stand out, starting with a gentle vocal and piano, before it kicks into a slow, Sabbath-like stomper. More of this and we could have had a better album overall.

Nicely packaged by BGO Records, it is good to see the Fight albums available again and certainly ‘War Of Words’ is one the best albums to feature Rob Halford. ****

Review by Jason Ritchie

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Power Plays w/c 9 December 2024

In this sequence we play ‘The Best of 2024′ GRTR! reviewer selections

Featured Albums w/c 9 December 2024

09:00-12:00 The Best of 2024 (Melodic Rock)
12:00-13:00 The Best of 2003-2024 (Melodic Hard Rock)
14:00-16:00 The Best of 2024 (Singer Songwriter)