CDVS: W.A.S.P. vs. Aldo Nova

As evidenced by Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon and Barefoot Hockey Goalie's Darious: A Rock Opera, the concept album is generally reserved for bands at the peak of their musical prowess or bands without enough prowess to care. W.A.S.P., however, is neither, having ridden the riptide of glam-metal fervor to international renown with 1983's Animal: Fuck Like a Beast but subsequently tumbling to a popular appeal approximately rivaled by that of peanut butter and mayonnaise sandwiches. Actually, the closest equivalent of The Neon God, Pt. 1 may be Lou Reed's The Raven, which saw the leathery hipster attempt to revive his career with a musical reinterpretation of Edgar Allen Poe's gothic poem.

But while Reed's Raven had fans screaming "Nevermore!" W.A.S.P. fans will be pleasantly surprised by The Neon God, which weaves a tale that should be familiar to even the casual headbanger. In short, a troubled adolescent is abandoned by his deadbeat parents at an orphanage, where--after butting heads with the abusive head mistress, Sister Sadie--he discovers he has the power to manipulate people's minds. Granted, it's basically the same story that's espoused on Iron Maiden's Seventh Son of a Seventh Son, but on the strength of Blackie Lawless's peerless caterwaul and bombastic anthems like "Sister Sadie (and the Black Habits)," W.A.S.P. delivers a surprisingly powerful sting for a washed-up hair-metal relic.

To his credit, Canadian guitar prodigy Aldo Nova never attempted a concept album, but he did exert an oft-overlooked influence on the development of heavy metal. The bridge between the so-called New Wave of British Heavy Metal and American pop-metal, Nova's self-titled 1981 debut went double platinum and produced the MTV mainstay "Fantasy" (a video that featured the spandex-clad Nova firing a laser beam from his guitar before leaping on stage in front of a crowd of frenzied fans). But despite embracing the sexual hedonism endorsed by his American counterparts, Nova's suggestive lyrics and polished fret work were quickly overshadowed by the likes of Def Leppard, Motley Crue and, yes, W.A.S.P.

Nova's real downfall, though, came with his future work, which included four subpar albums and a collaboration with Jon Bon Jovi on the Young Guns II soundtrack. Nova also produced fellow Canadian Celine Dion's 2002 comeback album A New Day Has Come and co-wrote Clay Aiken's regrettable hit single "This Is the Night." Compared to all that, The Neon God sounds like manna from heaven.--Newt Briggs