Tank will release a deluxe edition of their 1982 debut album Filth Hounds Of Hades on August 14 via Cleopatra Records, marking the first release in a planned series of Tank reissues on the label. The expanded set arrives as both a CD and vinyl edition, trailed by a video for the original album track “Turn Your Head Around.”
Tank was formed by Algy Ward — formerly of The Saints and The Damned — alongside brothers Mark and Peter Brabbs. Frequently described by the U.K. press as Motörhead’s baby brothers, the three-piece enlisted Motörhead guitarist “Fast” Eddie Clarke — fresh from the band’s own tumultuous years of success — as producer for the sessions. When Filth Hounds Of Hades hit stores in early 1982, Sounds magazine described Tank as harbingers of “a new, frighteningly brutal breed of breakneck rock. Here is metal that takes everything to the limit… Metal for maniacs.
“All ten numbers are played tight and dirty and given a tough sympathetic production from Fast Eddie. Left-hook follows right-hook with scarcely time to draw breath in between. But Tank’s brand of rabid Lemmy-rock is loaded with enough lunacy and individual touches to allow it to stand up on its own merits.”
Mark Brabbs recalled: “Eddie did a good job. We’d toured Europe, we’d really worked those songs, so when we got into the studio to record Filth Hounds Of Hades, we knew what we were doing. It had the rawness and attitude that we actually had as youngsters, so it’s thanks to Eddie for… just letting it happen.”
Instantly proclaimed one of the finest debuts of the entire NWOBHM movement, the album was an immediate hit across Europe — Brabbs recalls the band being mobbed when they played a festival in Finland. The deluxe edition appends the original 10-track album with the band’s very first demo (also produced by Clarke), alternate versions and non-album gems from the band’s first two singles, a John Peel radio session recorded in March 1982, and eight live tracks taped in Dortmund, Germany, during Tank’s maiden European tour.
Filth Hounds Of Hades deluxe edition track listing:
- Disc 1 — 01. “Shellshock” / 02. “Struck By Lightning” / 03. “Run Like Hell” / 04. “Blood, Guts and Beer” / 05. “T.W.D.A.M.O.” / 06. “Turn Your Head Around” / 07. “Heavy Artillery” / 08. “Who Needs Love Songs” / 09. “Filth Hounds Of Hades” / 10. “(He Fell In Love With A) Stormtrooper”
- Bonus (Disc 1) — 11. “Don’t Walk Away” (Live) / 12. “The Snake” (Single) / 13. “Steppin’ On A Landmine” (B-side) / 14. “Don’t Walk Away” (Single A-side) / 15. “Shellshock” (B-side) / 17. “(He Fell In Love With A) Stormtrooper” (Single Version)
- Disc 2 (Live 1981, Dortmund) — “Shellshock” / “Steppin’ On A Landmine” / “Blood, Guts and Beer” / “Run Like Hell” / “Don’t Walk Away” / “Filth Hounds Of Hades” / “(He Fell In Love With A) Stormtrooper” / “The Snake” [CD Only tracks: Shellshock, Steppin’, Run Like Hell, Don’t Walk Away, Filth Hounds, Stormtrooper, The Snake]
- Disc 2 (Radio Session, March 1982) — “Hammer On” / “Don’t Walk Away” / “Heavy Artillery” / “(He Fell In Love With A) Stormtrooper” [CD Only]
- Disc 2 (Demo) — “Shellshock” / “Run Like Hell” / “Blood, Guts, And Beer”
Original Tank frontman Algy Ward died in May 2023 at the age of 63 following serious health issues. Guitarist Peter Brabbs died on July 5, 2025, at the age of 68. The deluxe edition of Filth Hounds Of Hades is the first of multiple planned Tank reissues on Cleopatra Records.
