Neat Records

Neat Records was a record label based near Newcastle, England. The label was established in 1979 by David Wood, who was the owner of Impulse Studios in Wallsend, Tyne and Wear, England. A key figure in the establishment of the label was Steve Thompson. Thompson was house producer at Impulse at the time and helped set up Neat, became the A&R manager and produced all the initial recordings, as well as managing the publishing arm, Neat Music. The label was sold in 1995 by its then owner, the former Tygers of Pan Tang vocalist Jess Cox, to Sanctuary Records.

Neat Records was arguably the most instrumental label in the revival of heavy metal in the early 80s in the UK. The movement was known as the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal or NWOBHM for short. The label is most notable for the early releases of Newcastle band Venom who are widely credited with the invention of black metal. While none of Neat Records' acts really broke through to the mainstream themselves, Venom, Raven, Blitzkrieg and Jaguar particularly are acknowledged as major influences on a host of major American thrash metal bands such as Metallica, Megadeth and Anthrax. In fact Metallica have even covered Blitzkrieg's self-titled song "Blitzkrieg" and Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich has claimed "Whiplash" to be a deliberate attempt to emulate Jaguar's song "Stormchild" which was written by Jeff Cox. This was disclosed to interviewer Robin Askew from 'Venue' magazine during an interview with Lars Ulrich, and subsequently published in the magazine.