After their masterful first album,
Diamond Head were largely touted as the most promising stars of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal. The band soon turned into its own biggest disappointment, however, with the release of 1982's
Borrowed Time: a textbook case of a misunderstanding record company tampering with a successful formula, and a band too naïve to know any better. "To Heaven from Hell" and "Call Me" are awkward attempts to meld
Diamond Head's
Black Sabbath-inspired riffage with more commercial melodies and choruses. Even worse, the band re-recorded blatantly inferior versions of two classics from its debut, "Lightning to the Nations" and "Am I Evil?" And while total disaster is averted on "In the Heat of the Night" and "Don't You Ever Leave Me," only the title track comes close to measuring up to prior expectations. ~ Eduardo Rivadavia