Raven – Life's A Bitch (1987): The Atlantic-Era Comeback That Bared Its Teeth #raven

Raven - Life's A Bitch Metal 12" Vinyl LP

- Raven bares its teeth again on a nasty late-eighties NWOBHM hard rock slab

The front cover is almost brutally simple: black field, chrome Raven logo, huge white fangs, and the album title burning in the middle like someone set the lettering on fire and called it design. It is not refined, thank heavens, but it works because it sells the record in one glance: teeth, heat, danger, and that slightly cartoonish late-eighties metal menace that looked fantastic under record-shop strip lighting.

Raven’s "Life’s A Bitch" was not the grand breakthrough fantasy Atlantic probably dreamed of, but it matters because it catches the band clawing back some of the grit after the glossy wobble of "The Pack Is Back". Sitting at the rougher, late-eighties end of NWOBHM and hard rock, the album hits like metal with scuffed boots: fast, wiry, loud, and slightly annoyed at the furniture. "The Savage and the Hungry" comes out swinging, the title track has that blunt Raven bite, and "On the Wings of an Eagle" stretches things without getting polite. Self-produced with Chris Isca at Bearsville, this German Atlantic pressing still feels like a band trying to sound dangerous again — thank heavens for small mercies.

"Life's A Bitch" (1987) Album Description:

"Life's A Bitch" did not turn Raven into Atlantic Records' great heavy-metal payday, and that is almost part of its charm. Released in 1987, it lands after the slicker detour of "The Pack Is Back" and sounds like John Gallagher, Mark Gallagher, and Rob "Wacko" Hunter deciding that enough varnish had already been spilled. The result is a late-eighties NWOBHM record with hard rock muscle, speed-metal bite, and a slightly bad-tempered sense of repair work. Not a comeback parade. More like the band dragging the engine back onto the garage floor and kicking it until it fires.

The interesting thing is not simply that Raven got heavier again. The real story sits in the contradictions: a major-label Atlantic LP recorded at Bearsville Studio, carrying a custom inner sleeve full of sweaty live shots, tiny support credits, a "Total Death" recording note, and a record label that tells more truth than half the front-cover drama. Open the rest and the album starts looking less like a failed commercial move and more like a stubborn bridge between NWOBHM's old street voltage and the thrash era that had already stolen the faster lanes.

Raven had been there early. Newcastle, 1974, the Gallagher brothers building a power-trio racket long before NWOBHM became a useful shop-bin label. By the time the scene was being filed between Iron Maiden, Saxon, Tygers of Pan Tang, Diamond Head, Venom, and half a dozen hopefuls with bad vans and good riffs, Raven already had that speed-crazed, body-checking thing going. They called it athletic rock, which sounds daft until the records start moving. Then it makes horrible sense.

In Britain by 1987, NWOBHM was no longer the fresh pub-floor explosion. Iron Maiden were operating like an empire, Motörhead kept grinding forward with grease under the nails, Venom had pushed shock and filth into stranger corners, and younger thrash metal had turned the old British attack into something sharper, meaner, and less patient. Across the water, Metallica, Anthrax, Megadeth, Slayer, and Testament were taking the speed Raven helped normalize and making it the new law of the road. Raven's role in that chain matters: not because "Life's A Bitch" rewrote the map, but because it shows one of the map-makers trying to survive the country that came after.

The sound is tight, bright, and restless. "The Savage and the Hungry" opens with the sort of forward shove that makes the earlier Atlantic gloss feel like a bad memory. The title track has a blunt chorus bite, all teeth and elbows, while "On the Wings of an Eagle" stretches the record out without turning into soft-focus nonsense. There is melody here, yes, but it is not polished into safety. Mark cuts through with wiry guitar lines, John pushes the bass and voice like both are running late, and Wacko keeps the whole thing clattering with that busy, physical drumming that always sounded one cymbal stand away from trouble.

Production-wise, this is where the old page copy needed a broom taken to it. "Life's A Bitch" was produced by Raven and Chris Isca, not by Roy Thomas Baker; that confusion belongs to the previous Atlantic era and its bigger, shinier headaches. The back cover pins the sessions to Bearsville Studio, recorded and mixed in November and December 1986 using the gloriously ridiculous "Total Death" Method. Ridiculous name, useful result. Chris Isca gives the record enough studio order to keep the guitars readable, while Raven keeps the bite from being filed down into harmless radio furniture.

The support credits tell their own story, and this is where the record collector's hands get interested. Thom Cadley appears as assistant engineer, Dennis King handles mastering at Atlantic Studios in New York, Tony Incigeri and John Gallagher share the cover concept, and Bob Defrin takes art direction. These are not decorative crumbs. They explain why the LP looks and sounds like a fight between corporate Atlantic tidiness and Raven's own impatience. The sleeve says flames, fangs, barcode, parental advisory, German manufacturing line, and tiny print that dares older eyes to complain. Naturally, older eyes complain anyway.

The custom inner sleeve is better than the front cover, and no, that is not a polite collector exaggeration. One side throws nine black-and-white live photographs across a white field: John with bass and vocals, Mark doing guitar damage, Wacko caught in the drum-storm, smoke and lights swallowing details just when the curious part of the brain wants to see more. The lower-left musician list and the dense thanks block along the bottom give the LP a working-band pulse. Jon and Marsha Zazula, Eddie Trunk, gear names, contacts, favours, the whole little support ecosystem. That stuff is history in small type.

The lyric side of the inner sleeve has no romance about it. It is a pale sheet packed with narrow black columns, song titles in uppercase, and Cat#: 781 734-1 tucked into the top right like a proper little identifier. The lower-right publishing and rights text does the unglamorous archival work. This is exactly why front covers are often the least honest part of a record. The label and inserts give you the fingerprints; the front cover gives you the sales pitch.

As for scandal, there is no grand controversy attached to "Life's A Bitch" beyond the expected late-eighties parental-advisory bark and the sleeve's cheerful fondness for flames, teeth, and miserable slogans. The bigger misconception is musical: some listeners treat the album as just another Atlantic-era compromise. That is lazy filing. It still carries the major-label finish, but the songs push back harder than that label suggests. "Overload" and "Juggernaut" have more steel in the jaw than the doubters usually admit.

This was also the last Raven studio album with Rob "Wacko" Hunter, and that gives the record a hinge-point feel. After this, Joe Hasselvander would enter the story and the band would head into a heavier post-Atlantic chapter. So "Life's A Bitch" sits in an awkward but useful place: not the raw Neat Records riot of the early years, not the slick gamble of "The Pack Is Back", and not yet the later self-produced rebuild. It is the sound of Raven trying to leave a bad haircut behind without losing the skull underneath.

Late at night, with the Side One Atlantic label under a desk lamp, the album makes more sense than it does in a quick digital skim. The green, white, and orange label, GEMA/BIEM box, LC 0121, 33 RPM mark, and Alsdorf-style runout clues all say: this is a physical object with a paper trail, not just twelve tracks floating in the usual internet soup.

Its influence on 1980s NWOBHM and heavy metal is not the easy kind where one album changes everything and writers pretend the sky cracked open. Raven had already done the heavy lifting earlier with speed, nerve, and the sort of stage attack that helped future thrash musicians realize British metal could run faster than its own boots. "Life's A Bitch" matters because it confirms that lineage after the scene had shifted. It is a stubborn aftershock, a late Atlantic LP with enough old Raven voltage left to remind you why the faster American bands had been paying attention in the first place.

Not perfect. Better than its reputation deserves. And far more useful to understand when the back cover, inner sleeve, and label are sitting in front of you instead of hidden inside some lazy thumbnail. Funny how the paper tells the truth once the marketing smoke clears.

References

RAVEN - Life's A Bitch 12" Vinyl LP Album Photo Gallery:

This gallery has that late-eighties Atlantic heaviness all over it: glossy sleeve, hard black areas, stage-shot inner sleeve, and the sort of bold lettering that looks as if it was designed to survive beer, fingerprints, and bad lighting. The front cover goes straight for impact, while the back cover and custom inner sleeve do the practical collector work: band photos, credits, lyrics, the usual paper trail. The Atlantic label close-up is where the pressing becomes more interesting, with Cat#: 781 734-1 sitting there like the little fingerprint that matters. The real fun, naturally, is deeper in the gallery where the inner sleeve, label ink, and production crumbs start talking.

Note: The photos on this page are taken from albums in my personal collection. Slight differences in color may exist due to the use of the camera's flash. Images can be zoomed in/out, for example by pinching with your fingers on a tablet or smartphone.

Album Front Cover Photo

This Raven front sleeve grabs the eye before the brain has even had time to object. Black background first, almost empty except for the usual little specks and surface flecks that glossy sleeves love to collect, because vinyl covers apparently exist to embarrass anyone with a camera flash. Across the top sits the Raven logo in hard metallic lettering, all rivets, chrome edges, and that lightning-bolt peak biting upward. It looks engineered rather than written, which is exactly the point: this is not a sleeve trying to be clever, it is trying to look like it could damage a coffee table.

The centre is all mouth. Huge fangs curve down from both sides, smaller teeth crowd the top and bottom, and the whole thing frames the title like a trap closing around it. The white-blue highlights on the teeth have that airbrushed late-eighties sheen, a little slick, a little comic-book, and slightly too pleased with itself. Still, it works. Life’s A Bitch burns in orange and yellow letters inside the jaws, with purple-blue shadowing around the flame shapes. Subtle? Absolutely not. Subtle left the building, probably after seeing the Atlantic marketing meeting.

What feels deliberate is the old metal-shop logic: logo at the top, threat in the middle, title screaming from the darkness. Nothing here asks the buyer to decode a grand artistic mystery. The sleeve says Raven are back to teeth and heat, not velvet ropes and polite hard-rock grooming. After the more polished Atlantic period, that matters. The design may be blunt enough to make a graphic designer reach for a chair, but for a collector holding the LP in hand, it has the useful honesty of a warning label. Big teeth, burning words, black space. Message received.

Album Back Cover Photo

Turned over on the desk, this back cover immediately does the thing a proper collector sleeve should do: it stops posing and starts giving evidence. The front cover sells the teeth-and-fire nonsense, fine, job done, but this side is where the useful dirt lives. Black background, two vertical flames climbing up the left and right edges, and a bottom line of burning words shouting “... THEN YOU DIE!” like some Atlantic office wag decided subtlety had died first. Slightly daft, yes, but it frames the credits well enough, and at least nobody tried to make Raven look tasteful. That would have been unforgivable.

The centre column is the prize. Not the tracklisting — useful, but hardly a revelation — the support names underneath are where the sleeve starts talking properly. Recorded and mixed Nov/Dec ’86 using the “Total Death” Method at Bearsville Studio, mixed by Chris Isca and Raven, with Thom Cadley as assistant engineer. Mastered at Atlantic Studios by Dennis King. Cover concept credited to Tony Incigeri and John Gallagher, art direction by Bob Defrin. Those little production crumbs matter more than the big marketing roar, because they pin the record to a real room, real hands, real late-eighties decisions. Naturally, the print is small enough to punish anyone over thirty-five. Very generous of them.

The corners are doing their own quiet paperwork. Top right gives the barcode, the yellow Atlantic distribution sticker, Cat#: 781 734-1, and France WE 381, all sitting there like the sort of details that separate one pressing from another when memory starts bluffing. Bottom left carries the Atlantic logo; the bottom edge runs the copyright and manufacturing line, including the German Record Service GmbH, Alsdorf credit. That is the kind of line worth photographing, because it saves arguments later. The layout is blunt, a bit overcooked, and faintly ridiculous in the best Raven way. Flames for drama, tiny credits for proof, and just enough corporate clutter to remind you this thing had to survive warehouses, shops, and bored distributors before landing on a turntable.

First Photo of Custom Inner Sleeve

Custom inner sleeve for Raven - Life's A Bitch showing nine black-and-white live photographs arranged across a white background. John Gallagher, Mark Gallagher, and Wacko Hunter appear on stage with bass, guitar, drums, smoke, lights, and crowd-energy poses. Printed musician roles appear at lower left, with a dense thanks list and support personnel text along the bottom. — This custom inner sleeve is exactly the sort of thing that makes the record worth pulling out of the jacket instead of just admiring the front cover like a tourist. Spread flat, it looks like someone emptied a Raven tour envelope across a white table and said, “There, that’ll do.” Nine black-and-white live shots are scattered at angles, not tidied into some precious little grid, and that works. John Gallagher is there with bass and vocals, Mark Gallagher is caught with the guitar doing its usual damage, and Wacko Hunter is represented by the drum chaos and raised-arms stage racket. It feels sweaty even in monochrome, which is more than can be said for plenty of over-groomed eighties inserts.

The design concept is simple: proof of work. Not glamour. Not some record-company fantasy of dangerous musicians pretending to brood in a warehouse. This is Raven as a working stage animal, with smoke, lights, open mouths, bent knees, bass necks, guitar angles, and enough movement blur to remind you that cameras were not always kind to loud bands. The centre photo is almost swallowed by a blast of white light, which is probably accidental, but it suits them. A little annoying too, because it eats detail just when the collector in me wants to see the gear and stage setup. Typical. The sleeve gives evidence, then immediately hides half of it in glare.

The lower left corner does the sensible job: John Gallagher listed for lead vocals and bass guitar, Wacko for drums, Mark Gallagher for lead guitar. No nonsense. Along the bottom sits the big thanks block, and that is where the sleeve becomes more interesting than the front cover. Names and support credits crowd together: Chris, Thom Cadley, Tony Incigeri, Jon and Marsha Zazula, Eddie Trunk, Megaforce and Atlantic connections, gear names, friends, contacts, and all the small print that shows how many hands, favours, calls, and sweaty backstage moments prop up an album. Hard to read? Of course. Inner sleeves enjoy making middle-aged collectors squint like idiots. Still, this is the good stuff: the paper trail, the little map of Raven’s world in 1987.

Second Photo of Custom Inner Sleeve

Custom inner lyrics sleeve for Raven - Life's A Bitch showing dense black lyric text printed in multiple narrow columns on a pale white inner sleeve. Song titles appear in bold uppercase across the page, with catalog number 781 734-1 at the top right and small rights and publishing text printed in the lower right corner. — This is the other side of the custom inner sleeve, and this is where the record stops shouting visually and starts making the eyes do unpaid labour. Spread flat, it is a pale sheet filled with tight black lyric columns, the sort of insert that looks harmless until the collector brain starts hunting the corners. The page has that familiar late-eighties record-company practicality: cram the words in, keep the print neat, leave just enough blank space to pretend the whole thing can breathe. It cannot. It wheezes a little. Still, much better than a plain sleeve, because at least Raven and Atlantic bothered to give the buyer paper, text, and something to inspect after the record comes out.

The design concept is brutally simple: lyrics first, decoration nowhere. Song titles sit in bold uppercase across the sheet, broken into columns that run from left to right like a small newspaper made for headbangers with patience. No live photos here, no fangs, no flames, no dramatic nonsense. Just the words. That makes it less exciting at first glance, but more useful in the hand. The top right corner carries Cat#: 781 734-1, a small but welcome identifier, because those little corner details are the difference between a sleeve you can file properly and one that starts an argument later. Naturally, it is printed just small enough to make you lean in like a fool.

The lower right corner is where the proper collector reflex kicks in. Tiny publishing and rights text sits there, including the ASCAP credit and rights-reserved notice, the kind of small-print debris that nobody mentions in glossy album histories but every archive page eventually needs. The pale background shows handling shadows and uneven photographic glare, which is irritating but honest; inner sleeves are working objects, not sacred tablets. This one has been folded, slid, gripped, and probably cursed at while trying to get the LP back into the outer jacket. Good. That is what makes it useful. The front cover sells the bite, but this lyric side gives the paper trail: catalog number, lyrics, rights text, and the physical proof that this was more than just a black sleeve with teeth.

Close up of Side One record’s label

Close-up of Side One Atlantic record label for Raven - Life's A Bitch, showing the green, white, and orange Atlantic label on black vinyl. The label lists Raven, Life's A Bitch, Side 1, Stereo, GEMA/BIEM, catalog number 781 734-1, LC 0121, 33 RPM, six Side One tracks, copyright text, and Alsdorf matrix markings in the runout area. — This is the collector shot that actually earns its place on the page. The front cover may shout with teeth and fire, but this Side One label is where the pressing starts giving up its fingerprints. Held close, the Atlantic label has that very familiar late-eighties European look: green upper half, white band through the middle, orange lower half, and the Atlantic logo sitting at the top like a little corporate badge of order in the middle of Raven’s racket. Practical. Slightly dull. Also exactly what is needed.

The centre text is clean enough to read without performing surgery on the image. RAVEN and *LIFE’S A BITCH* sit in the green field, with “STEREO” on the left, “Side 1” on the right, and the GEMA/BIEM box parked beside the spindle hole. Down in the orange section, the Side One tracks are printed with timings, followed by the writing and publishing note: all tracks written and arranged by Raven, published by G.B. only / 1-6 Packsong Music. The large Cat#: 781 734-1 sits near the bottom, doing exactly what a catalog number should do: stopping collectors from guessing. Always appreciated. Guessing is how half the internet became wrong.

The rim text is the usual tiny legal sermon, curled around the edge in several languages, and naturally it tries to disappear into the orange. At the bottom are LC 0121 and the 33 RPM triangle, small but useful details for identifying this European Atlantic pressing. Even better, the dead wax is visible around the label, with Alsdorf-style runout information partly readable along the left edge. That is the sort of corner-of-the-photo evidence that matters more than another heroic band pose. Not glamorous, no. But this label tells the truth: format, side, rights society, catalog number, speed, label identity, and pressing clues all in one round little bureaucratic battlefield.

All images on this site are photographed directly from the original vinyl LP covers and record labels in my collection. Earlier blank sleeves were not archived due to past storage limits, and Side Two labels are often omitted when they contain no collector-relevant details. Photo quality varies because the images were taken over several decades with different cameras. You may use these images for personal or non-commercial purposes if you include a link to this site; commercial use requires my permission. Text on covers and labels has been transcribed using a free online OCR service.