Retro Recommendation has dedicated multiple editions to the New Wave of British Heavy Metal (NWOBHM) movement. Not only have the debut albums from Angel Witch and Def Leppard been discussed, but the entire month of November in 2012 was dedicated to albums from the movement.

There are so many lost treasures to discover during that time period, which is crazy considering its prime was contained to two or three solid years.

Praying Mantis can be included in this list of forgotten classics, most notably their first album, Time Tells No Lies.

Time Tells No Lies, in simple terms, can be related to something in the vein of Def Leppard’s On Through The Night. The songs are catchy, avoid hokey Satanic lyrics, and have a mainstream appeal. Praying Mantis were swept into the NWOBHM wave, but they weren’t like many other bands from that movement. Their songs are heavy, for sure, but they bring in harmonic guitars a la Thin Lizzy and a ‘70s-styled vocal approach. It made for an album that was as tuneful as it was rowdy.

Out of the four members, three of them contribute lead vocals to at least one song. It was a big thing that many rock bands, including Blue Oyster Cult and the Eagles, did throughout the 1970s. Few, if any, NWOBHM bands tried that with their vocals. While guitarist Tino Troy handles the majority of them, bassist Chris Troy gets three songs, and second guitarist Steve Carroll sings lead vocals on two tracks.

Each musician has a strong voice, though Carroll’s is much rougher than either Troy, and that shows on “Cheated” and “Running For Tomorrow.”

All three guys also harmonize on vocals, which give life to drab choruses that usually just repeat the song title. Harmonized vocals were a throwback back in 1981, but they make it seem less cliche than it could have turned out. They match up well to the guitar work from Tino Troy and Carroll, who drop leads like raindrops in Seattle. If crazy solos is what one is looking for, “Children of the Earth” and “Lovers to the Grave” will satisfy those desires.

While their peers were hawking religious and mythical themes in their music, Praying Mantis took a real-world approach by giving some of the songs an ecological perspective. Though it might not seem that way, a song like “Children of the Earth” is about protecting the rainforest. The titles “Running For Tomorrow” and “Flirting With Suicide” don’t seem like they have anything to do with the environment, but both of them are about specific animals (fox and praying mantis, respectively). It wasn’t a usual sight to see a band dealing with these topics in the early ‘80s, a factor that plays to Praying Mantis’s benefit.

What Praying Mantis proved with this album was that they could write accessible music with an edge. From their blistering cover of The Kinks’ “All Day and All of the Night” to the knockout blow delivered by “Panic in the Streets,” they had a firm idea of what they wanted to get out of their first album. While they muddled their lineup with constant changes and incorporating keyboards in for a brief spell, Time Tells No Lies is the band at their absolute peak. Though their later albums were not terrible, none could quite match up to their debut.

Praying Mantis are still going, though their lineup looks different from the one used for this album. The Troy brothers are the only long-standing members keeping the Praying Mantis name alive. It’s a shame that they failed to reach the height of their potential, as out of all the NWOBHM bands, they had the right style and sound to make it big like Def Leppard.

For putting a melodic, and slightly commercial, spin on the NWOBHM sound, Time Tells No Lies gets the nod for this week’s Retro Recommendation.

“Lovers to the Grave” Video