Saxon

This is the first album by the band formed in Barnsley, Yorkshire, in November 1975. Until July 1978 they were Son of a Bitch; Carrere judged that name unusable on radio and the group became Saxon, so this record is the first thing to carry the name. It was made at Livingston Recording Studios in Barnet, on the edge of London, between January and March 1979. John Verity produced it — the former guitarist of Argent, whose group the band had toured with. The line-up is Biff Byford on vocals, Graham Oliver and Paul Quinn on guitars, Steve Dawson on bass and Pete Gill on drums. Two singles followed: "Big Teaser" in July and "Backs to the Wall" in November. AllMusic's Eduardo Rivadavia called the album "the quiet before the storm" and wrote that the label had struggled to capture the band's heavy metal sound. It is usually heard that way — as the record made just before Wheels of Steel took them to number five in Britain and gave the new wave of British heavy metal one of its defining sounds.