Head Hunter

iTunes Editors’ Notes

For its 1983 breakthrough album Head Hunter, Krokus joining forces with producer Tom Allon, who not only produced all of Judas Priest’s albums from 1979 to 1988 but also engineered the first five Black Sabbath records. In short, Allon understood heavy metal sound design better than just about anyone, and his expertise illuminated the riffs of “Headhunter,” “Eat the Rich,” and “Ready to Burn.” The songs on Headhunter are twice as fast and hungry as anything Krokus had previously done. Not only did Allon help inject the band with a dose of nitro, but singer Marc Storace unleashed a newfound intensity. Listen to the vocals on “Headhunter” and “Ready to Burn,” and you can practically see his eyes going red and the veins on his neck splitting open. There were still a few AC/DC-esque romps (especially “Stand and Be Counted,” a blatant but enjoyable facsimile of “Highway to Hell”). But Headhunter is defined more by “Night Wolf,” which connects Krokus to the development of speed metal.