Recordings: Various Artists, “Heavy Metal: Music From the Motion Picture” (Epic, 1981)

By Will Barboza

The year is 2999 and the listener is taking a journey through a galaxy filled with lasers, nude robots, nude people, space cocaine, psychic soldiers, and barbarian princesses. Welcome to the world of “Heavy Metal,” and buckle up! A collection of short animated films adapted from stories in Heavy Metal magazine, with music by a diverse collection of artists and genres dining out on pulpy source material, “Heavy Metal: Music from the Motion Picture” is a cosmic journey that soars like a flying car.

The movie and magazine both explore worlds filled with space ninjas, bounty hunters, zombies, wizards, and just about everything else found in a trashy sci-fi or fantasy novel. The movie, a cult classic, emphasizes cool over coherent and the soundtrack matches this tone. Riggs, Don Felder, Black Sabbath, Cheap Trick and others come together to create a musical mutant. Each song builds off the other, occasionally giving the listener a break with a slower song and then ramping back up again.

The name “Heavy Metal” implies relentless hard rock, but this isn’t the case. The soundtrack has a blend of styles; for every soft rock ballad providing a breather, there’s a head-banging anthem waiting in the wings, and the variety keeps the soundtrack interesting.

The biggest standouts come from Cheap Trick. “I Must Be Dreaming” and “Reach Out” deliver thumping choruses and energetic melodies that stay with you long after the tunes are finished. They also highlight the comic book aesthetic of the film; in particular, “Dreaming” makes the listener feel as if they’re pulling-G’s in an F-14.

Another winner is Devo’s “Working In A Coal Mine,” which is a great contrast to the rest of guitar-heavy soundtrack. Odd vocal stingers and a jazzy bass make the song unique among the harder-rocking tracks.

The best thing about the soundtrack, however, is the way it echoes the movie’s themes. In “Heavy Metal,” Sammy Hagar sings, “It’s your one-way ticket to midnight/Call it heavy metal/Higher than high, feelin just right.” Like the guy with the lamp shade on his head at the party, the album is primarily concerned with having a good time. But some tracks dig deeper. In “Veteran Of A Thousand Psychic Wars,” Blue Oyster Cult sings, “You see me now a veteran of a thousand psychic wars/I’ve been living on the edge so long, where the winds of limbo roar/And I’m young enough to look at, and far too old to see.” The song follows the story of a future warrior so exhausted by constant fighting that he lies down to die. The death rattle of a psychic soldier is the type of tale found in almost every issue of Heavy Metal magazine and this synergy is why the album is more than a collection of fun backing tracks and a companion piece to the movie.