Melted Down (2024)

The debut album from Tantrum, “Melt It Down” from 2018 as you’ve never heard it before!  Completely remastered with updated artwork… but wait… there’s more!  Buckle up, Buttercup; it’s story time.  Way back around the time of snaggletoothed tigers and mooly wammoths, our man Markuz was asked to audition for Tantrum by recording vocals onto three vocal-less tracks (Melt it Down, NWOBHM, and Last Man Standing).  After recording the audition tracks and sending them over, he sat down (we’re guessing he had been standing up until this point) and listened to the full album.

“OH NOES!” he thought.  “I’m not really liking this!”

Turned out that the melodies on the album weren’t what he would have come up.  The vocal style didn’t fit with his own.  After listening to the album a couple of times, trying to find the space within the songs to allow his own style to shine through.  But the original vocals were messing with his head… he couldn’t find the space because, well, the songs already had their own vocals.  And so, thanks to alien technology and a magic lamp, Markuz removed the original main vocal track from the album and, quite literally, recorded vocals on the entire album to see if his style would fit.

The guys in the band at the time were happy enough with it that they offered him the job.  And only the folk in the band (and several thousand folk walking around the Clyde Valley within a half-mile radius of Markuz’s Tannoys) have ever heard it.  Now, we need to be very clear here… this is not a full studio re-recording of the original album.  All of the original instrumentation is intact, and you instead get to hear the full album with single-take vocal tracks AND a remastering to give it a little bit of extra beef.

Everything you hear is a single take – no retakes. If the vocals run over the top of other vocals, then each section was recorded on its own (single take of all the verses in one go, single take of the choruses in one go, etc), otherwise the entire song was recorded as a single take.

The vocals are loud because it was an audition, there are bum notes, there are bits he’d have done differently if he’d known the songs more, and there are incorrect words here and there… but this was originally ONLY done for himself and to let the band hear what their entire album would sound like so they wouldn’t rush in to asking him to join if his style wasn’t for them.

Warts and all.

Mark Reid – Vocals
Steve Waddell – Guitars
Stoo Condie – Guitars
Ritchie Davison – Bass
Billy Angus – Drums

Engineered by Robin Young
Mixed by Robin Young and Stoo Condie
Produced by Robin Young and Stoo Condie
Reastered by Mark Reid
Artwork and design by Mark Reid
Original art and concept by Steve Waddell