They Have Snow Giants! Dust Attack Hard On NYC's Hardest' Finest

A recent (well, semi-recent, time flies here at One Buck Records) mention by art afficionado Koen in the comments to Sniff'n'The Tears Art Gallery of Frank Frazetta, the king of fantasy and sword-and-sorcery drawings, reminded me to post this in the future, and as ever, the future is now. Frazetta's Snow Giants graced the album cover of Dust's second and last album, Hard Attack. Here's the thing: It's a great, eye-catching painting, but whether it represents the album well is another question. In between Frazetta's art and the album title, you'd expect a heavy metal album, possibly with fantay thus prog overtones. 

Well, Hard Attack isn't that, or not only that, really. Funnily enough, their self-titled debut album is a much harder album than Hard Attack. It also has some godawful, offputting artwork, so, using Frank Frazetta was a huge step up in the art department. But that's not the only step up. While I struggle to make it through Dust, Hard Attack is a great album because it is not only pedal-to-the-metal hard rock, but is a nicely varied album. If you've been here for a bit, you know that Dust appeared on Country Dreamers, my compilation of non-country acts doing country songs, and "How Many Horses" is a highlight from Hard Attack, as is "I Been Thinking", the second country number here, a plaintive ballad full of singing pedal steel from bass player Kenny Aaronson. 

"Walk In The Soft Rain" is almost power pop, while the very short "Entrance", which despite the title is essentially the album's exit music, is only acoustic guitar. Opener "Pull Away/So Many Times" is probably the most proggish of the tracks, alternating acoustic sections with rock interludes, while ballad "Thusly Spoken" is almost soft rock, albeit a lot more muscular than its brethren, and "All In All" is a dead ringer for middle-period Who. And for all those who liked the debut's simpler thrash stuff, there's heavy rockers like "Learning To Die".  

What really set this power trio apart from other groups is their strong sense of melodicism. The songwriting duo of singer and lead guitarist Richie Wise and former manager Kenny Kerner produced not only this album, but went on to a storied producing career, including the first two platters from Kiss. Aaronson went on to play in Stories and then to record or tour with an absolute murderer's row of artists (Dylan, Edgar Winter, Hall and Oates, Blue Öyster Cult, to name but a few) before becoming a New York Doll, while drummer Marc Bell went on to become Marky Ramone. Not bad for these three very young men...from Dust they came...but to Dust and Hard Attack we shall return, for it is - how would the young'uns say - a total banger...