One of several bands going by the very popular name of Warrior (the New Wave of British Heavy Metal alone gave rise to at least four different ensembles!), this quintet hailed from Tyneside, England; recorded for Neat Records; and featured vocalist Eddy Smith, guitarists Dave Dawson and Tony Watson, bassist Baz Smith, and drummer Rob Mills. Formed circa 1980, they had their song "Flying High" featured on Neat's Lead Weight compilation the following year, then made their single debut with 1982's "Dead When It Comes to Love" (b/w "Stab You in the Back" and "Kansas City"), and concluded their relationship with the label with the self-explanatory, cassette-only release, Live in a Dive. All of these boasted a fiery, very raw, blue-collar heavy metal style reminiscent of Sabre, Weapon, and perhaps very early Tygers of Pan Tang -- in other words, hardly fodder for major-label or radio airwave exposure. Warrior nevertheless proceeded to finance a couple of additional EPs on their own (1983's misleading For Europe Only and 1984's embarrassingly weak Breakout), and even threatened helpless humans with an actual album at some point, but thankfully stumbled to a career halt instead. ~ Eduardo Rivadavia