Exciter – Heavy Metal Maniac: Before There Was a Rulebook

Released: June 14, 1983

Heavy Metal Maniac was recorded at The Dungeon in Aylmer, Quebec, in August 1982 and released by Shrapnel. Records the following June. Exciter were still the original Ottawa trio: John Ricci on guitar, Allan Johnson on bass, and Dan Beehler singing from behind the drum kit. History makes it easy to treat the album as a date on the speed-metal timeline. The more interesting question sits inside the music: how did three players and a bare-bones recording sound unmistakably like Exciter on album one?

The opening gives part of the answer. Wind, amplifier hiss and an explosion turn “The Holocaust” into a crude warning siren. “Stand Up and Fight” tears in before the smoke has cleared. Beehler does not settle into a tidy beat and sing over it. His snare cracks through the guitar, the cymbals wash across the top, and short fills shove the song from one section to the next. His voice comes from the same physical effort: a ragged shout that suddenly shoots into a high scream.

Ricci’s guitar completes the attack. He often lets the power chords ring instead of reducing everything to a tight palm-muted chug. That gives the faster songs a loose, scraping edge. The title track even has a little rock-and-roll swing in its main riff, though Beehler’s drumming keeps dragging it toward something harsher. Ricci’s solos come out as frantic clusters of bent notes and quick runs. They extend the racket for another few bars without stopping to make a clean melodic statement.

Allan Johnson keeps that racket from becoming thin. His bass sits high enough in John Belrose’s rough mix to add a blunt second edge beneath the guitar. On “Iron Dogs,” the trio slows into a thick, repetitive stomp while Beehler barks about mechanical beasts eating the city. The song eventually accelerates, but the slower riff tells you more about Exciter than speed alone. Repetition, distortion, and the sheer size of the rhythm section do just as much work.

“Black Witch” pushes the idea further. It opens with acoustic guitar, moves into a long, doom-paced section, returns to the quieter figure, and then breaks into a faster final passage. Nearly seven minutes is a lot of room for a band this direct, yet the arrangement never sounds decorative. The tempo changes give the album another shape without cleaning it up. Even at its quietest, the guitar tone and tape hiss leave grit around the notes.

The quicker songs provide the immediate rush. “Under Attack” begins with Beehler working the double bass drums before Ricci enters, making the drummer the lead instrument for a moment. “Rising of the Dead” locks its title into a blunt chorus, then Beehler tears above the band with one of his sharpest screams. “Cry of the Banshee” closes with the same disregard for neat separation: guitar, bass, cymbals, and voice crowd the centre while the solo scratches through the top.

The lyrics stay close to metal itself—fighting, evil, death, power, and the thrill of volume. On the title track, heavy metal is less a subject than a way of identifying yourself. That plain devotion matters. Exciter were working before speed metal had settled into a recognizable set of rules. They took ringing British-metal guitar, filthy amplification, double-bass drumming, and horror imagery, then played everything fast enough to expose the seams.

So how did three musicians establish such a clear identity so early? They made the recording’s limits part of the music. The narrow mix, ringing chords, crowded drums, thick bass, and Beehler’s strained delivery all point in the same direction. Heavy Metal Maniac sounds unmistakably like Exciter because all three musicians are trying to take up the same space, and Belrose leaves that struggle in the mix.

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