RAVEN - STAY HARD 12" Vinyl LP Album

- Genuine MWOBHM, Heavy Metal

Pyramid Sound Recording Studios is a long-running Ithaca, New York recording spot launched by Alex Perialas (the guy with the “your snare will be heard” philosophy). From the mid-1980s into the early 1990s, it became a thrash-metal magnet—bands like Anthrax, Overkill, Testament, Nuclear Assault, and S.O.D. rolled through to capture that tight, aggressive East Coast bite. It didn’t stay boxed into metal either: later decades saw punk/hardcore and other genres pass through the same rooms, because good engineering doesn’t care what jacket you’re wearing. The studio’s downtown location (105 E. Clinton Street) has even had its share of real-world drama tied to nearby construction over the years—because of course the universe can’t just let a legendary studio exist in peace.

Alex Perialas is an American audio engineer, mixer, and record producer who helped lock in the tight, punchy thrash sound of the mid-1980s through the early 1990s from Pyramid Sound Studios in Ithaca, New York—working with bands like Anthrax, Overkill, Testament, Nuclear Assault, S.O.D., and Flotsam & Jetsam. Later on, his work stretches into other lanes (Bad Religion, Pro-Pain), and he’s also been tied to teaching sound recording at Ithaca College—because apparently someone had to explain to the next generation how to make guitars sound like a chainsaw with manners.

George Marino is one of those behind-the-glass legends who made heavy music feel larger than the room it was playing in. Before the mastering console became his throne, he was a Bronx guitarist doing the NYC band grind in the 1960s with groups like The Chancellors and The New Sounds Ltd. Then he went pro for real: starting at Capitol Studios in New York (1967), and eventually becoming a long-running force at Sterling Sound (from 1973 onward). For a collector like me—living in that sweet spot where 1980s heavy metal, hard rock, and a dash of prog-minded ambition collide—Marino’s credits read like a stack of essential sleeves: Holy Diver (Dio), Tooth and Nail (Dokken), Stay Hard (Raven), Master of Puppets (Metallica), Somewhere in Time (Iron Maiden), Among the Living (Anthrax), Appetite for Destruction (Guns N’ Roses), Slippery When Wet (Bon Jovi), and Blow Up Your Video (AC/DC). That’s the kind of resume that doesn’t just “master” records—it weaponizes them, but with taste. George Marino Wiki

Bob Defrin, gets filed in my head as one of those behind-the-curtain operators who quietly shaped what a whole era thought “rock” was supposed to look like. Work at Atlantic Records put him in the blast zone where sleeve art wasn’t decoration, it was stage lighting on paper. Late 1970s into the 1980s, his art-direction fingerprints show up around AC/DC as the logo era locks in (1977’s Let There Be Rock, then the blood-and-thunder run through If You Want Blood You’ve Got It in 1978, Highway to Hell in 1979, Back in Black in 1980, and on into mid-80s titles like Fly on the Wall). Same period energy spills into other big-label moments too, like Foreigner’s 4 in 1981, where the final cover design became the one the world actually remembers. By 1992 he’d gone independent with Bob Defrin Design in Amenia, New York—still doing what the best art directors do: making the music feel inevitable before the needle even drops.