CHINA DOLL a.k.a. "How a band released just two songs in 1980 and managed to blow me away completely: The Review"

Well, way back in 1980, when the New Wave Of Brittish Heavy Metal movement was just starting to get big in the UK, fronted by bands such as Iron Maiden and Tygers Of Pan Tang, in some stinky gutter next to the penitenciary I imagine there was a 7" single lying in the dirt. No one had heard of it, no one ever will. Except for a bunch of people, over the past 30 years. I was lucky enough to be one of those people, people who have heard the pure greatness that is the CHINA DOLL "Oysters and Wine" single.

Two songs. TWO damn songs so amazing to me that they overcome about 80% of all the NWOBHM I have ever heard, and I've just about heard them all. I must've found this 10 minute masterpiece back in the autumn of 2012, when I was surfing the musical mothership that is the Cosmic Hearse blog, galloping through the NWOBHM section, downloading mediocre singles, all as unknown as this one. Finally, here is the review:

SIDE A: "Oysters and Wine"

The song pretty much begins with a simple and mellow riff that quickly bursts out into an awesome solo. Bass harmonies distinctively heard in the background, but then we have the vocals. Very good vocals. Very catchy lyrics, though a bit kitchy, you'll be humming them for quite some time. Amazing musical line, again, catchy as fuckkkkkkk. Solos everywhere, bass everywhere, it's just perfect.

SIDE B: "Past Tense"

Yeah, I know, lame title... so the B side starts off about 200% calmer, a ballad that begins with some sort of eerie chords and strange cowbell-like stuff in the background, and grows into a cool riff, with cool vocals, just as we'd come to expect by now. It's kinda like a trance for a couple of minutes, just sitting there and enjoying the shit out of the harmonies and the obvious bass in the background, then it all cools down, back to the intro bit, the freaky instruments, the slow chords. You are hit by hundreds of notes, just flying at you. It's a freaking solo, out of freaking nowhere. But boy is it cool, the kind that Acid Witch take and add ten fuzzy distorted effects and make it their own, and it works just as fine. The some more lyrics, then another solo. Then some more solo. Then it fades out.

Here you go.