• AllMyVinyl #8
• Band: W.A.S.P.
• Album Title: The 7 Savage – Bonus Tracks Disc
• Release Date: 27 Oct 2023
• Date purchased: 27 Oct 2023
• Location purchased: Gift
• Color of vinyl: black
• Number of discs: 1
• Links: [ Wikipedia | Discogs | Band Website ]

Last year (2023), WASP released a box set, which contained new pressings of their first five studio albums, plus a live album, and a disc of bonus tracks.  That’s what this entry is – the bonus track disc.  Alphabetically it falls here as the box set is “7 Savage – Bonus Tracks & B-Sides, The”.  While I’ve had this box set for awhile, I admit I haven’t actually listened to the bonus tracks.  I did listen to all the studio albums when I got the set, but I put aside the live album and the bonus tracks until later – and never got back to them.  Today’s the day for the bonus tracks.

This probably won’t be as long as the entries I’ve done for other albums, because the bulk of these things are covers and B-Sides (hence the name), and aren’t the strongest songs.  The collection isn’t bad by any stretch, but there’s no real “oh my GOD – this is a total banger” on here.  I suppose perhaps if you know WASP history, the first song was their legendary “Animal” song, which got them a ton of flak when it was new.   Probably had a lot to do with them being prime evidence by the PMRC in the mid 80’s.

The covers on here are “Paint it Black” (Stones), Mississippi Queen (Mountain), Locomotive Breath (Jethro Tull), When the Levee Breaks (Zeppelin), For Whom the Bell Tolls (London).  Of these, I think I liked Paint it Black & Locomotive Breath the best.  Locomotive probably cuz the original isn’t really a metal song (despite the Academy and Grammy metal awards), so it sounds different enough to be a bit more interesting to my ears.  I also really liked the B-Side Flesh & Fire as well as the song “War Cry”.  War Cry I didn’t know before, but it’s a B-Side from my favorite WASP album (The Headless Children), so that shouldn’t be a surprise.  Then there’s the really silly “Douchebag blues”, which his a bit of a NSFW song based on language. ;)

Nothing on this album will change the needle (ha) for people who aren’t WASP fans.  If you’re not already a fan of the band, I don’t see anything on here making you want to run out and get their stuff.  However, if you are a fan (which you must be if you bought a $200+ box set), you’ll like the collection.

I’m really hoping Blackie keeps going with these sets into the more modern era of WASP, as there’s some really good albums that came after this in the discography.  However, I’ll get into the individual albums from this existing box set when they turn up later in the project. One of my fav WASP song comes from a Greatest Hits album put out in Europe only in the mid 90’s, so I’m hoping that one is on the next set’s bonus disc (Sunset & Babylon).

This box set was a limited edition of 2,000 copies.  My specific copy is #790 of 2,000.  After it came out and sold out in two seconds, a second pressing was made.  As far as I can tell, the only difference between the first and second sets is the newer printing doesn’t have the numbered paper – the albums are identical.