Demon
The Plague

In 1983, the Demon released ""The Plague", their third album after the excellent "Night Of The Demon" and "The Unexpected Guest".
Unlike the previous albums, characterized by powerful yet melodic heavy metal, the band opts for a more progressive style, although the hard'n'heavy vein is still very evident.

The album opens with the title track, which, after a brief keyboard intro, showcases the features of the whole album: a melodic hard rock with catchy sections and heavier ones. The guitar-keyboard interplay is notable, as is Dave Hill’s excellent vocal performance, which I modestly consider one of the most beautiful and underrated heavy voices ever. Following the title track is "Nowhere To Run", where the band attempts a melancholic AOR, with surprising results.
Despite the beauty of these songs, the album's most beautiful track is probably the next one, "Fever In The City", a poignant ballad over seven minutes long featuring slight psychedelic nuances. Noteworthy is the finale, where keyboards and guitar take center stage. Following "Fever In The City" are "Blackheath", divided into two parts and characterized by more powerful hard rock, and "The Writings On The Wall", echoing the style of the previous album "The Unexpected Guest".

The album closes with two songs of quite different genres. The first is the psychedelic ballad "The Only Sane Man", reminiscent of Pink Floyd during The Wall period. As usual, even in this song, Dave Hill, perhaps here at the peak of his expressiveness, delivers a great vocal performance. The last true song is "A Step Too Far", distinguished by its bright and energetic hard rock. This song provides the guitarist Mal Spooner’s best performance on the album, with three long and virtuosic solos interspersed with two vocal verses.
Closing the album is a brief outro that reprises the keyboard theme of the title track.

Ultimately, we are faced with the most beautiful album of a band among the best of the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal, which throughout its career has made very few missteps, a rarity in the hard'n'heavy world. Of course, there was a drop in quality following the death of guitarist Mal Spooner (1985), but the Demon will still go down in history for producing wonderful masterpieces like the first four albums.