1313. Gary Moore / Run for Cover. 1985. 3.5/5

The years leading up to this particular album being released had seen Gary Moore take more of an interest in producing his own material rather than being a hired hand in other projects. He had spent time in and out of Thin Lizzy and other projects in the 1970’s with his good friends and fellow rock traveller Phil Lynott, but in recent years had settled down into a solo career that seemed to be taking shape. The hard-hitting “Corridos of Power” album had been followed by the delayed release of the album “Dirty Fingers”, one that truly showcased his wonderful guitar skills along with his writing capabilities. Then had come “Victims of the Future” which both lyrically and musically followed that album closely in style and substance. It had utilised almost two different bands worth of musicians however, including new collaborator Neil Carter, bass players Neil Murray and Bob Daisley, and drummers Ian Paice and Bobby Chouinard. More importantly, Moore had taken on the lead vocal role himself for the first time for a full album, which did give it a much better sound, as though it was an actual band despite the use of so many different players. Moore wrote the majority of the album himself with help from Carter, and it appeared as though he had found his feet for perhaps the first time.
And then, coming into that album’s follow up, he delved once again into the “many players” aspect of the writing and playing scenario, something that arguably gave the album a different feel than perhaps a direct follow up to the hard to heavy oriented sound of “Victims of the Future” deserved. Moore’s good friend and frequent collaborator Phil Lynott was back. With the disbandment of Thin Lizzy two years earlier, Lynott had formed another band called Grand Slam in 1984, but which had also broken up due to being unable to break into the current music scene, and being seen as a poor man’s Thin Lizzy. Moore had invited him back to participate on this album, which he does in several capacities. Also on board was Glenn Hughes, formerly of Deep Purple and Trapeze, who had just found himself fired from Black Sabbath for his substance abuse, something he shared with Lynott. Hughes was also a bass playing lead vocalist like Lynott, so the participation of both on this album is a little unusual and rather unique. Three different keyboardists are used, Bob Daisley appears again on bass guitar on one track, and four drummers play pieces along the way. From the outside it seems like a very disjointed way of progressing on an album. If it was to be just a session album then it could be understandable. But by this stage of his career, surely Moore would have been searching for stability in his lineup, both on stage and in the studio. It was something that had the ability to create problems, and eventually the proof could be found in the pudding of the album that it brought together, called “Run for Cover”.

The album consists of ten tracks, with Moore himself credited as sole writer of seven of them. Two have Neil Carter as co-writer, while the other is composed by Phil Lynott and his former band mates from Grand Slam, Laurence Archer and Mark Stanway. That song, “Military Man”, was written by these three for that band, which then fell apart before any album deal came through. Lynott brought it with him when he came into this album, and so it appears here, along with Lynott on lead vocal for the song. For as long as this album has been out, and given I have known this album for almost all of that time, this song has been praised as an important anti-war song, with Lynott’s embracing vocals an important part of riding the emotion through the song. It’s just that, this doesn’t SOUND like a Gary Moore song. He didn’t write it, he doesn’t sing it, he plays guitar on it, and that’s all. The style of the track doesn’t suit what he is best known for in his career as a solo artist. It sounds like a Phil Lynott track, and that just doesn’t line up here at all.
Lynott contributes to one other track on the album, both on bass and as co-lead vocals, and as it turns out it is another anti-war song, but this time written by Moore and with Moore carrying the majority of the lead vocals. And it has become one of his best known and most famous songs, released as an almost stand alone single almost four months before the release of this album. The song is “Out in the Fields”, and features Moore and Lynott on duelling vocals through the song, switching lines and backing each other through the chorus. Unlike “Military Man”, which is a slow build to the energetic and powerful conclusion, this song is immediately punchy with Moore’s guitar riff and Lynott’s rumbling bass line, the tempo is faster and the energy and vibe of the track is upbeat despite the contents of the lyrics. It’s remarkable that these two friends for over 20 years came from either side of the border of Ireland and Northern Ireland, and the things they had grown up with and must have seen during their lives growing up gave them a perspective together that makes this an incredibly powerful song. This is the signature song of the album.
Glenn Hughes contributes bass guitar on most of the remainder of the album, apart from one song by Bob Daisley. Hughes also sings lead vocals on four of those tracks. He doesn’t go by the “Voice of Rock” for nothing, as his vocals on those great Deep Purple albums in particular showcase. However, he doesn’t utilise that kind of range on these songs here, and yet he sounds terrific. Still, gives Moore’s ever improving vocals with each album, did he NEED Hughes on this album? Sure, its great that he wanted him involved, but it is still possible to wonder if his contributions could not have been performed by Moore. Certainly, when you hear the songs sung by Hughes here performed live with Moore on lead vocal, these is barely a discernible difference. Anyway, move on Bill, you are wasting valuable time. Let’s look at those four songs. “Reach for the Sky” has a true blues guitar bent about it, something that is perhaps exacerbated by Hughes’s vocals, as he has the ability to bring a real blues tone to anything he performs. But it is scarily reminiscent of the style of song that Moore eventually became entwined with during the 1990’s. The small portions of keyboard and synth do drag it back to the 1980’s, but as a rock blues tune it does act as a look into the future, along with Moore’s guitar solo which really only tops it off. Ah, if only we’d known then what we know now. “Out of My System” returns to a more typical hard rock tone with that 80’s keyboard again entwining its way into the song. There is an obvious desire to send this in a slightly more commercial direction. It was not released as a single but the way the song is written and performed you can hear it dripping of it in places. “Nothing to Lose” settles into its mid-tempo and chugs along for the entirement of the song, not climbing out of its groove, and only feeling lively when both vocalists combine into the bridge and chorus of the song. And the lyrics are barely inspiring, “Keep on rocking and rolling, keep on singing the blues”. And Hughes’s final lead vocal comes from the Moore and Carter penned “All Messed Up”, which could pretty much have been written about Hughes at this point of his career. Heavily addicted to drugs and alcohol, Glenn Hughes was an artist who appeared to be spiralling, and the lyrics here almost tell his story in real time. This is another song that sound much better in the live environment with a bit more grunt in the music and with Gary singing the vocals.
Moore sings the other four songs on the album, which as a result sound like the four most Gary Moore songs on the album. The title track opening song “Run for Cover” is a beauty, with Gary's squealing guitar emphasising where his vocals demand it does, the tempo and energy is at its best and the whole song is a great way to open the album. “Empty Rooms” is a power ballad, plain and simple. And yes it seems that almost every band in existence has to dabble with them. Neil Carter is particularly infatuated with them, and as a co-writer here he and Gary pull out all the stops to create a hitmaker. It was released as the second single before the album was released, where it failed to light any fires. “Once in a Lifetime” mirrors “Out of My System” in that it is an inoffensive 80’s styled rock song with more keys and synth as a basis of the song than you would prefer in a Gary Moore song when he could be contributing more guitar to the mix. Still, then we come to “Listen to Your Heartbeat” which tends to ruin almost everything that has come before it on the album. This is a soft rock almost pop tune, dominated by the synth and keys of the era with almost no appearance of Gary’s guitaring at all, and when it does appear it emulates the style that the track encapsulates. “Empty Rooms” is a legitimate power ballad song, and whether you like them or not Gary performs it well and it showcases a number of great elements of his and his band’s music. But this does not. It is obscenely dreadful. How it could be considered that this song was the way to finish an album is impossible to understand.

When it comes to “Run for Cover”, things don’t make a lot of sense until you consider the following. Because I often have a problem with this album due to the mix and match of musicians throughout. The mood changes that occur from song to song not only come from the change of musicians but the change of lead vocalist. This is something that obviously works in other bands, where different people in the band sing different songs. But here, it is almost like whole new lineups, and with the unique perspective of two different bass players and lead vocalists, their styles are so different in both bass playing and singing that it does sound like either two different albums or at times two different bands. This also was recorded in five different studios, and utilised five different producers, including Moore himself. I mean, it is difficult to make a coherent album with the number of personnel involved, even if one guy is the main songwriter and the ringleader of the circus.
“Run for Cover” was the last of the Gary Moore albums I got a copy of during that decade. Having discovered him late one Friday or Saturday night while watching Rage on ABCTV – it was the live version of “Wishing Well” that dragged me in – and having others of my friend group who were of a similar mind, I managed to get copies of all of his albums to that point in time. Except this one. Then came “Wild Frontier” and “After the War”, both of which I loved and love. And as far as I remember, I even got “Still Got the Blues” before I eventually got my copy of “Run for Cover”. So I had been exposed to a LOT of Gary Moore that, for me at least, existed at the top end of the spectrum.
So when I did listen to this album, I knew “Out in the Fields” and “Empty Rooms” and the title track. But as you may have already suspected while listening to this episode, this album I found very difficult to get into. It wasn’t like his other albums. It sounded disjointed. The songs didn’t flow together. The change in lead vocals on every single track was distracting. The style of each song differed from the other. And, in the main – I just didn’t really like many of the songs. I TRIED to like them, because pretty much everything else I had of his I loved. But this album just didn’t do it for me. And although I have listed here already several reasons why I “Run for Cover” just didn’t and hasn’t worked for me, I think that in the long run, this album is so different from what makes Gary Moore’s music so entertaining. It misses the key ingredients, and that means this batch of songs tastes like sewerage.
And, let me tell you, it hasn’t been for lack of trying again over the past week or so. 13 times I’ve listened to this album from start to finish, hoping something this time around would inspire me to find something that I had not in the previous 40 years. It failed to materialise. I still had the same impressions that I think I always have from this album. It’s okay, I haven’t minded having it on. But it would be very low on the choice meter if I was looking to listen to some Gary Moore to get me through the day.

1312. Stormtrooper of Death / Speak English or Die! 1985. 4/5

Is Stormtroopers of Death the most unlikely band project to ever release an album? That is probably too long a bow to draw, but it is true that the coming together and recording and release of this particular album is fantastical in the extreme. And it all comes to pass from the band Anthrax, who in June of 1985 were finishing off the recording of their second studio album “Spreading the Disease”. The story is told that, after finishing his guitar tracks, Scott Ian would draw pictures of a character that he named Sargent D, who took the form of an undead, cigar-chomping G.I. He would then compose slogans for Sargent D such as "I'm not racist; I hate everyone" and "Speak English or Die". Ian began to write lyrics about the character and about his thoughts. Once Anthrax had completed the recording of their new album there was still some studio time left, and so Ian decided to use it to have some fun. He pulled aside his Anthrax bandmate Charlie Benante to play drums. Now they needed some other personnel, and they knew just where to go. Former Anthrax bass guitarist Danny Lilker was out and about trying to get his new band, Nuclear Assault, up off the ground, but when Ian called him to see what he was doing he had a gap in his schedule, and he came down to the studio. Also on the call list was another friend Billy Milano who was lined up to do some vocals.
On July 1, 1985, the four recorded what could loosely be termed a demo tape in the studio. Titled “Crab Society North”, it was recorded by plugging a Walkman into a speaker, and then just cutting loose with their material. The demo tape was 14 minutes and 21 seconds, and contained 63 songs, ranging in length from 1 second to 58 seconds. Very little was eventually used from this one day jam, but one thing that did stick was coming up with the name of the band – Stormtroopers of Death, or simply S.O.D.
For the next four days, from July 2 to 5 1985, the four members of the newly named band put together the 21 tracks that would form what would be known as their debut album, and recorded and mixed it. Upon its release it was instantly controversial due to their deliberately offensive explicit lyrics. Scott Ian said from the outset that the songs were written as a big inside joke, adding: "Some people thought we were racist, and those people are stupid”. Even more remarkable, this album, completed in four days at the end of the sessions for Anthrax’s “Spreading the Disease” album, actually beat that album to its release by two months. And in its own way went about creating its own genre, with the joy and amusing anecdotes that was titled “Speak English or Die!”

When it comes to this album there are a couple of things that have to be addressed. The first is the lyrical content on many of the songs, controversial topics and opinions sprouted in songs such as "Pre-Menstrual Princess Blues", "Pussy Whipped" and "Fuck the Middle East", addressing homosexuality, women and foreign cultures. Dan Lilker stated at the time that "The lyrics were never intended to be serious, just to piss people off. Furthermore, in an interview with Songfacts in 2014, when asked "If Speak English or Die came out today, do you think that because of the political correctness of today, it would go over the same?", Lilker responded, "It probably would have had a harder time just because people seem to be more uptight now. Nevertheless, it was what it was, which is saying it is what it is, but back then. And I don't regret it. Maybe minor aspects went overboard with certain lyrical things, but then again, we didn't really mean them. Perhaps if people realise that, then it's just more funny”. And this is worth considering if you are new to the album. The lyrics may not be politically correct but they are not the serious thoughts of those who wrote them. They were written to gain a reaction and to be considered as a running joke commentary. Not all of course will see or take it that way.
That comes from the first track, following the instrumental opening of “March of the S.O.D” introduces us to the man himself “Sargent D and the S.O.D”, who takes all in his wake, espousing “Their cause is justified, their reason is clear, the word "revenge" is all that they hear. They'll make you wish that you didn't exist cos Sargent "D" is coming and you're on his list”. A great stomping track, that continues into “Kill Yourself” with inspiring lyrics such as “You're a loser, there's nothing left for you, A worthless loser at everything you do. Kill yourself now!”. “Milano Mosh” gives lead vocalist Billy Milano the chance to stomp around a bit himself. “Speak English or Die” lives on that threshold. “You come into this country, you can't get real jobs, boats and boats and boats of you, go home, you fuckin' slobs”. Let’s face it, real opinions such as these are still sprouted in the modern day by Joe Public, let alone those who are somehow voted into our governments. Every extremity has been covered by the band in the opening four songs.
Without trying to cover the entire range of the 21 tracks that cover the almost 29 minutes of this album, there are some really great pieces on this album. “United Forces” is a beauty, another real stomping track with a great riff and easy singalong lyrics. The short, sharp attitude of “Chromatic Death” punctuates and enlightens along the way. “Freddy Krueger” is just a brilliant thrash hardcore track that combines the best of both world and throws it into the mix perfectly. A ripping moshing song. “Milk” is perfect in the same way, expressing the disappointment that one can’t have a normal breakfast because Mum hasn’t bought milk. I imagine my 17 year old son would probably think exactly what this song expresses whenever he has drunk all the milk in our house.
Every other track, from the 2 second and 5 second squats to the lengthy 80 seconds bursts, all make for a fabulous listening experience, one that combines anger and angst with moshing and a good time.

I first came across this album as we began the new decade. As avid listeners to this podcast will know, I very recently spoke about Anthrax’s album “Persistence of Time”, and the fact that the band opened their tour for that album in Australia, which I got to see. As a lead up to that I had tried to gather together as much music from the band as I could, which had included the “I’m the Man” EP as well as being directed to this album. And it is fair to say that it struck a chord from the outset. It merged in with other band and albums that I was beginning to be introduced to at that time and over the next couple of years. Part of the Anthrax mantra had been to have a fun, corny time with their music on stage, and this certainly melded in with that.
Did I care about the fact that it used language and spoke about controversial subjects? No, not in the slightest. It would be easy to say that I wasn’t offended by anything on this album because none of those things affected me. But the truth is that it was all obviously in jest, in creating a storm by expanding these things in a greater context. If people are offended by anything here – either 40 years ago or in the present day, where offence seems more prevalent – then simply don’t listen to it.
I’ve had this album out again over the past couple of days, and it is as enjoyable as I have always found it. For me it will always be a novelty, something that is fun to put on every now and then and enjoy it for what it is, and then send it back to the shelves to wait until the next time. I am more likely to reach for an Anthrax record than I am an S.O.D. album, for no other reason than the substance of the songs.
S.O.D. toured in support of the album in 1985, opening for Motörhead and The Plasmatics, among others. They had apparently planned a follow-up titled USA For S.O.D., which was ultimately scrapped and never recorded. After their tour ended, Lilker carried on with the band Nuclear Assault while Benante and Ian continued with Anthrax. Milano formed the spin-off band Method of Destruction, known as M.O.D. It was not the end of the S.O.D. story but it doesn’t pick up again for a few years down the track.

1311. Black Sabbath / Tyr. 1990. 4/5

Following the decision of Ronnie James Dio and Vinny Appice to leave the band in 1982, the remainder of the 1980’s decade was a tough time for the band Black Sabbath, and moreso for its one remaining bastion, guitarist Tony Iommi. Through countless band member changes and record company changes and management changes, Iommi had to fight endlessly to keep the Black Sabbath name alive. Those different lineups had included multiple lead singers, bass guitarists and drummers, and while each of “Born Again”, “Seventh Star” and “The Eternal Idol” had its good moments, in general it was hard to keep up with what was happening with the band.
Better news came with the release of the album “Headless Cross” in 1989. Retaining the services of Tony Martin on lead vocals gave the band some credibility, and the recruitment of legendary drummer Cozy Powell an experienced musician to help compose and record with. The album was a return to form, and had featured a guest slot from Iommi’s mate Brian May as a part of the process. Despite reaching 31 on the UK charts, the band’s tour of the US was cancelled after just eight shows due to poor ticket sales. The European and Japan tours were more fruitful, while a 23-date tour of Russia with Girlschool gave them the distinction of being one of the first western bands to tour the country.
The band looked to strike while the iron was moderately warm and get back into the studio to record the follow up. Neil Murray, who had done some of the touring for the previous album, was now on board as a member of the band, and along with keyboardist and longtime Iommi friends and music partner, completed the line up for the new album. What was to come was something out of the box, and almost complete change of mindset. “Headless Cross” had arguably been the heaviest album by the band since the early 1980’s, and with lyrics that followed along that path. On the album that became “Tyr”, the music does not have the doom environment that the band had formerly invented. Here is an album that eschews much of that process for songs that have a far more keyboard oriented sound, almost reaching for a sound that mimics power metal without the speed or express synth sound that genre pertains to. And while this beckoned to turn off what remained of the Black Sabbath fan base from the outset, for those that hung around to see what it might hold, it became an album that held far more substance that what most fans know.

When it came to this album, the title, along with the name of several of the songs on the album, are based around Norse mythology, which led to many critics and fans believing that this was a concept album, something that Neil Murray discounted in an interview in 2005. He was quoted as saying that while some of the songs appear loosely related it was never written nor intended to be a concept album. However, the album’s departure from the darker lyrics of Headless Cross was discussed by Tony Iommi in his 2012 autobiography Iron Man, where he said this: “For our next album, Tyr, we went back to the Woodcray Studios in February 1990, with me and Cozy producing it again. On ‘Headless Cross’, Tony Martin had just come into the band and he assumed, oh, Black Sabbath, it’s all about the Devil, so his lyrics were full of the Devil and Satan. It was too much in your face. We told him to be a bit more subtle about it, so for Tyr he did all these lyrics about Nordic gods and whatnot. It took me a while to get my head around that”. It has been said that the album was originally intended to be titled “Satanic Verses” but for the same reason was discarded.
The album opens with “Anno Mundi”, a song that channels different versions of the band through its history. It is true that this doesn’t sound like that pure Iommi heavy styled riff from the original iteration of the band, but there are moments when you can almost believe that it harkens from the Dio years. It probably doesn’t harm this thought because of the similarity in voice between Dio and Tony Martin, but the song itself is of an epic type that that era of Sabbath wrote. It acts as a terrific way of drawing you in to the album from the outset, the soaring Martin vocals dominating throughout. This is followed by “The Law Maker”, a more traditional heavy song with the up-tempo speed and vibe, highlighted by Iommi’s riff and solo and Martin’s vocals showcasing his ability to adapt to whatever is thrown at him. The solid rhythm held together by Powell and Murray make this a simplified song but by no means an average one. “Jerusalem” has a very choir backed feel to the track, it sounds almost like it should be being listened to in a church, or at the very least a cathedral. It has that style and substance about it, replete with multi-layered vocals backing. “The Sabbath Stones” continues in the direction that “Anno Mundi” travels in, a heavier and perhaps more traditional epic track that still holds true to what the album opener was pushing as the album’s theme, with the quiet melodic breakdown in the middle of the track before building again to its conclusion. Martin’s vocals again showcase their best qualities while Cozy’s heavy hitting drumming powers forth.
The instrumental open of “The Battle of Tyr” opens the second side of the album by segueing into “Odin’s Court”, in itself a short quiet clear guitared moment that acts as the segue into “Valhalla”. Treating this three song set as one track is probably how most fans would approach it, with the first four minutes of “The Battle of Tyr” and “Odin’s Court” mostly forgettable, and “Valhalla” itself actually proving to be a far more inspiring song. And that is not to say that that four minutes is wasted space or clear air – it's just that even when listening to the album now, you are just waiting for the entrance of “Valhalla” to get the second side of the album to kick into gear. And then, we have what follows.
It is interesting that the band, in particular Tony Martin, has come out as saying that they do not regret putting the song “Feels Good to Me” on the album, and that they indeed like the track itself, but that it is quite different from everything else on the album. In an interview some years later, Martin was quoted as saying that the record company pretty much demanded that they include a song that was of a particular... standard... in order to release as a single. And indeed, that is exactly what it sounds like. It is composed to be a single release. It has practically none of the characteristics of every other song on the album. It doesn’t fit the sound at all, and as a result it sticks out like a sore thumb. It is hugely reminiscent of “No Stranger to Love” from the “Seventh Star” album, another of the top five most unlikely Black Sabbath tracks of all time. Could they not have just released this as a stand alone single? Or the B-side of another song, and let the radio stations just play the B side? Anyway. I don’t hate it, but it is so noticeable every time you play the album, for the wrong reasons.
The album then concludes with “Heaven in Black”, a closing song that lifts the tempo and mood of the album back to where it deserves to be, a faster paced effort that returns the energy to the album to end on a far more enjoyable note.
It may seem like an easy line to draw, but one of the reasons this album has a different sound from what many would consider to be a Black Sabbath sound is the absence of Geezer Butler on bass guitar. That is no slight on Neil Murray who is a brilliant bass guitarist and composer and plays terrifically on this album, but the songs do not sound as heavy because they do not have Geezer’s guttural distinctive tones underneath Iommi’s licks and riffs. It also indulges far heavier in Geoff Nicholls keys than other eras of the band. Now Iommi and Nicholls had been mates for years so it was probably a no brainer that they would eventually have this greater influence in the music, and this era was the best opportunity to do that, as even though the band has the name of Black Sabbath hanging over it, the music that is produced is in a different phase than what most would expect. Yes, Iommi’s recognisable riffs are here, but in the same way that Dio era Sabbath is different from Ozzy era Sabbath for obvious reasons, the same is echoed here.

How many people were actually keeping up with what the band Black Sabbath was doing after 1983? I am assuming not many. But given that my foray into the heavier side of music did not commence in earnest until the final months of 1986, I guess I was one of them. Because I pent 1986 and 1987 going backwards through their discography, that included those albums. I have one of my best friends from high school who eventually became my brother-in-law to thank for getting around to listening to “Seventh Star” and “The Eternal Idol”, because he bought those albums and I was then able to borrow them and tape them to a C90 cassette. “Headless Cross” and “Tyr” however passed me by at the time of their release. There was a LOT of music I was still discovering at this time, and those albums didn’t make the initial cut.
I was eventually gifted a CD of “Tyr” from a friend who decided he wasn't interested in it at all and gave it to me rather than hang onto it for no reason. This was in 1993, a year after “Dehumanizer” had been released, and before “Cross Purposes” was thought of. I remember thinking “Well, The Eternal Idol was good with Tony Martin on vocals. This should be good too!” So by now we had had the onset of grunge, and also that marvellous “Dehumanizer” album... so MAYBE my hopes were too high for this album?...
As it turned out, I enjoyed the album. It has lots of good moments. It just wasn’t one that I thought of to go back to very often. Eventually, it wasn’t until a few years later, when I had wearied of the 1990’s and much of its musical wares, that I began to go back to albums such as this and give them a more thorough workout than they received the first time around.
In amongst the ridiculously great and amazing albums that have popped up in this 2-3 week period I am currently reviewing and preparing podcast episodes for you lovely listeners, I have also had this one out and on rotation. And as I found almost 30 years ago when I first took this album seriously, I have truly enjoyed reliving it once again. OK, so maybe I don’t play it as much as I should, but every time I do, I do enjoy it. A couple of songs excluded. When the remastered vinyl collection came out last year I was the first in line to buy it so I could enjoy it on my turntable as well. And as I’ve already covered, there is a lot to enjoy here. Tony Martin’s vocals are still terrific to the ear, Cozy Powell's drumming is still as brilliant as always, and Neil Murray’s bass guitar is just so underrated. And who doesn’t want to listen to Tony Iommi play guitar any day of the week? Yes, these songs are so different to what has come on albums prior to this, but I don’t think there is any doubt that the band itself sounds marvellous. It may sound facetious to say, given how utterly brilliant “Dehumanizer” is as an album, and that although the reformation of the Mark III lineup of the band didn’t go on to record more albums, it is also a shame that this line up of the band didn’t have more moments in the sun, the chance to write and record a follow up to this album at that time rather than after the “Dehumanizer” effect. The music world changed too quickly at this time, and perhaps it wouldn’t have worked. We’ll never know. All I know is that despite the subtle change to the music and structure with “Tyr”, it is a most enjoyable album, and does present this lineup in the light they deserved to be in. If you listen to this album, and the others that have Iommi and Martin as the basis of the band, under the name of, say, “Headless Cross” instead of “Black Sabbath”, and not have the legacy that that name forces you to think with, then this works better, in the same way that the Iommi/Hughes albums “The 1996 DEP Sessions” and “Fused” work. Headless Cross, the new band with Tony Iommi and Tony Martin, Cozy Powell and Neil Murray, and their album “Tyr”. No expectations of doom and heavy metal. Just a band with the great Tony Iommi and other great players, doing something that doesn’t sound like Black Sabbath. Try it. You might like it.

1310. Rainbow / Stranger in us All. 1995. 4/5

When Ritchie Blackmore and Roger Glover, who made up two-fifths of the band Rainbow in its then-current form in 1983, decided to go ahead with the proposed reformation of Deep Purple’s Mark II lineup, leading to that band’s first album in nine years, it left Rainbow dead in the water. Rainbow of course had been Blackmore’s initial vehicle to get OUT of Deep Purple back in 1975, the story of which you can find in the very recent episode of this podcast that is dedicated to the debut album by the band. With his departure the band came to an unceremonious conclusion, never to see the light of day again. Famous last words as it turned out.
Deep Purple released “Perfect Strangers” to worldwide acclaim and followed it with “The House of Blue Light” which did not receive quite the same acclaim (but which I absolutely adore). It surprised no one at the time that the simmering tension that had often abounded between Blackmore and lead vocalist Ian Gillan had continued into this reformation, and that after just two albums it had Gillan quitting once again. The recruitment of Joe Lynn Turner as his replacement then saw the excellent “Slave and Masters” album released, one that almost sounded like a Rainbow album, which given that three-fifths of this iteration of the band had been in Rainbow should not make that a surprise. As the band began preparations for the follow up, there was a huge push from their record company for the band’s 25th anniversary – but they (along with the rest of the band apart from Blackmore) wanted Gillan back in the lead vocals role as a part of this. Despite the tension that still existed, Blackmore insisted and received $250,000 from the record company for this to occur, and Gillan returned for “The Battle Rages On” - the album title not the actual battle... though as it turned out, it was also accurate in the band! The differences between the lead singer and lead guitarist plummeted further, until eventually mid-tour it was Blackmore who pulled the plug and quit, never to return.
Free to now move into a new sphere of his career, Blackmore’s intention was to go out and record a solo album, one where he would be free to create whatever style he desired. Unfortunately, as so many artists who have been in successful bands find out when they are looking to do a solo project, the record company was having none of it. His label BMG more or less insisted that what Blackmore should be doing is recording an album under the name of that other band that he used to be in... what was it... Rainbow? Yeah that was it! How about another Rainbow album! No matter that it had been 12 years since that particular bands last album. Let’s resurrect it and go with that! Despite no doubt being pushed into that decision, Blackmore at least made the decision not to reform that band lineup. Going back to Turner on vocals would have been an interesting step, considering he had just worked with him on a Purple album. Instead, he recruited a whole new band, more or less young gunslingers to team up with the grizzled veteran gun shooter. And as a final statement he made sure that the band took on the name that had originally been the moniker when the band began – Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow. With the new band on board, they went into uncharted territory to come up with the eighth – and final – album of the band’s career, “Stranger in Us All”.

The beautiful opening riff of Ritchie Blackmore’s guitar greets you as you put the album on, stating from the outset that this IS Ritchie Blackmore and his album. It moves into the song proper with his wonderful riff, before we are greeted with the amazing voice of Doogie White for the first time, and it is this combination here that drags you in. This is the first time for most that they would have heard Doogie White, and his entrance is spectacular. “Wolf to the Moon” is the name of the song, and Doogie sends you to the moon with his soaring vocals. But what also hits you is that here, for the first time for a few years at least, is the true Ritchie Blackmore. His guitar is the prominent instrument throughout, not sitting back and letting the organ or vocals or bass have its turn in the spotlight. Here, it is all guitar, all Ritchie. And h seems to be far more comfortable as the leader than just one of five with an equal say. “Wolf to the Moon” is a superb opening track, and is followed by a comforting similarity of days gone by with “Cold Hearted Woman”, which truly channels the last few Rainbow albums in its style and substance. Doogie also channels Joe Lynn Turner here, but this song holds its own here on the album despite any perceived Ghosts of Rainbow Past. “Hunting Human (Insatiable)” has a very different feel about it completely. Indeed, there is a doom feel about the track, that combined with the lyrical prose attached makes it almost creepy to listen to, a song that feels as though it should have a slower tempo with which the guitar is actually propelling, but is being carried by the 2/4 beat of the drums which sticks to a mid-fast tempo. It makes for an interesting track, one that will divide opinion as to its effectiveness.
“Stand and Fight” returns to the stye that Blackmore wrote for the Turner-era albums, picking up the energy and liveliness of the song, and even incorporating the harmonica into the mix. I’m not sure it was necessary or even adds to the track. (Can we mix that out?... No?... okay, just go for it I guess...). “Ariel” is co-written by Blackmore and his soon-to-be wife Candice Night, and the collaboration has similar themes as to where their partnership would take them in the future. It also channels the mystical atmosphere that the early Rainbow albums with Ronnie James Dio headed musically and lyrically. The music here is just fabulous, and Doogie again is amazing, the way he is able to bring in the emotion of the song through his voice is incredible. As the song fades out, you actually feel that there should be more. It’s an interesting glimpse of both the past and the future for Ritchie Blackmore’s music.
Sometimes you wonder just how much trouble Blackmore had in coming up with ideas for this album, and three songs in particular come to mind when you listen to the album. There are of course the final two songs on the album, but there is also “Too Late for Tears”. Now, again, this is a perfectly good song and an enjoyable song. But when you listen to it, you are immediately reminded of another song that comes from the Rainbow catalogue, a song by the name of “Can’t Happen Here”. Why? You may ask. Well, firstly it is the same chords, and the same chord structure as that song. And secondly, even though they are different lyrics, Doogie singing on this song sounds incredibly like Joe Lynn Turner, utilising the same vocal techniques and delivery on this song that Turner did on that original song all those years ago. Coincidence? Perhaps. But surely when they listened back to the finished product, SOMEONE must have noticed the similarities. No matter, it still works. In a creepy, incestuous way.
“Black Masquerade” is a great song, and every time I listen to it, I understand more fully just how influential it, and Blackmore’s music as a whole, is so influential on the power metal genre that was enveloping Europe at the time. Indeed, this song could be seen and heard to be the template for so many of those bands and artists that began to come into the music scene at the time this album was released. And Doogie’s vocals here are a massive part of that. Just a super song and one of the best reasons to come by and check out this album. “Silence” is a completely different kettle of fish, very Blackmore oriented and he gives us his best performance on the album here with some old style Blackmore soloing and riffing. Keys that mirror horns add a contemporary mix to the sound, and Doogie just wails over the top. This is almost just a jam session, it does sound as though they went into the studio and just played to see what would come out. Like I said, the Blackmore of old appears here and it is worth every cent.
The final two tracks are great, but perhaps show just where this project was before it had even been released. “Hall of the Mountain King” is a reworking of the classical piece by Edvard Grieg, one that everyone knows as soon as you hear the most famous piece in the song. Blackmore composed the arrangement for the band, while his soon-to-be wife Candice Night wrote the lyrics for the track. And it works, and it sounds great.
In the long run, it perhaps best sums up this album that by far the best track here is the final one, which is a cover song, and one that should have been better utilised when the band FIRST recorded it. Because the final song is the same one that closed out the band’s debut album 20 years earlier, the cover of The Yardbird's “Still I’m Sad”. On the debut album it had been played as an instrumental despite the band having one of the greatest singers of all time available to be on the track. Here at least the same mistake has not been made, as Doogie White absolutely bosses the vocals here, injecting it with the emotional and power that befits what a brilliant song this is. This version is a ripsnorter, from the quiet guitar doodling from Ritchie to begin the song, right through to its conclusion where he plays it out with another of his wonderful solos. Whether or not at the time they recorded this album they knew it would be the final sign off for the band, it is perhaps the best way for the 20 years of Rainbow to come to its conclusion.

This album passed me by at the time of its release, more from the fact that 1995 was a difficult year in my existence than not wanting to listen to another Rainbow album. In fact, I was quite looking forward to it, but did not actually get around to it until five years after its initial release. By that time of course Blackmore had moved on to his newest love, Renaissance and medieval music, by forming the band Blackmore’s Night with his partner Candice Night, something that held no desire of mine to become involved in. I came across “Stranger in Us All” and gave it a listen, mainly to satisfy myself that I had probably missed nothing in the intervening years since its release. What I discovered was something far more intriguing than I would have thought. There was a bit of everything on the album – I mean, harmonica was present, there was even some horns thrown in at one stage. Another interpretation of Edvard Grieg’s “Hall of the Moutain King”. And another interpretation of The Yardbirds “Still I’m Sad”. The music SOUNDED like it was based in the sound of the 1970’s, but in a more contemporary fashion. And Doogie White – my goodness, the vocals from Doogie on this album are superb. They are simply the starring role on “Stranger in Us All”. Sure, Ritchie will always be Rainbow, but Doogie here makes the album. He is the driving force of the songs.
I must say I was looking forward to dragging this album out again this week. It is like so many other bands, if I am choosing to like to an artist, there are 4-5 albums that I will favour when I don’t really want to think about what I want to listen to, and when it comes to Rainbow that does centre on the first five albums. But my memory always remembers this as a good album, one that I don’t believe I have ever been disappointed by. And I found the same thing this week. It is a very enjoyable album to listen to. I mean, like Black Sabbath’s “Seventh Star”, it isn’t a true Rainbow album. It is a Blackmore solo album, where he has brought in these young guys and they find a connection and they write and perform some very good songs. OK, so the reverting to familiar track for the end of the album might mean they ran out of ideas, or maybe Ritchie just wanted to do another version of those songs for his own method.
Whatever it might have been, this album is a worthy one. Though the legacy of the band still holds true to its eventual demise in 1983, if this is to be truly considered the final album of the band, it is a good one to go out on. Even if it is only for this scintillating version of this song that shows Doogie White at his powering best.

1309. Scorpions / Moment of Glory. 2000. 4/5

Having reached 30 years as a band, and having survived the many tumultuous changes in music that had occurred over that period, there isn’t much that the Scorpions had not been able to see off. Their popularity had been rusted on with a number of popular album releases through the 1980’s that had produced iconic songs that lived in the memory of their fanbase, and was then topped off with the worldwide success of their 1990 album “Crazy World” and the chart topping song “Wind of Change” that had tapped into the public sentiment about the bringing down of the Berlin Wall to end the cold war. It was these moments that had guaranteed Scorpions an undeniable place in their fans hearts forever.
By the end of the 1990’s however, this was beginning to be stretched very thin. 1996’s “Pure Instinct” had overindulged in the power ballad mentality in overwhelming numbers, which had seen their rock oriented fan group beginning to wonder if the horse had bolted. Following on from this had come “Eye II Eye”, which was another radical departure in that it moved towards a pop sound, an interesting choice for the late 1990’s. This album with its massive changes again alienated big portions of the fan base, despite their single “Mysterious” reaching number 26 on the US charts. It marked a decade that the band had been through a number of stylistic changes that markedly diverged from what was generally happening in the popular music scene, and while this may have been an important thing for the band to do, to continue to push themselves to be flexible with their music, it was not to the overall enjoyment of their long term fans.
So what was to come next? While they had not gone down the unplugged route – yet – the band turned their attention to again pushing the boundaries, though by the time they came to do so, those boundaries had already been given a huge shove. The decision was made by the band to try and record a collaboration with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, which was to feature rearranged songs from the Scorpions repertoire, as well as some classical interludes. Initially, English composer Andrew Powell was asked to provide the arrangements, and Michael Kaman was designated to be the lead on the orchestral material. Unfortunately for the band, Kaman left this project early on when the opportunity came to work with another band who were doing a very similar thing in regards to recording with an orchestra. That album that became S&M, was the biggest hit for Metallica in the late 1990s decade and it made them the leaders of the pack when it came to this kind of album. And despite the fact that Scorpions were doing this as a studio project whereas S&M was alive recording, eventually it was seen that they were copying this concept, when in retrospect, they had germinated the idea as early as Metallica had. Finally, they were able to come to terms with Austrian arrange and conductor Christian Kolonovits, and he proved to be the correct collaborator. Recording for the album took place between January and April of 2000, which led to the release of the final product which was titled “Moment of Glory”.

The album opens with the retitled and expanded glory of “Hurricane 2000”, the excellent reimagining of the band’s most famous and popular song “Rock You Like a Hurricane”. This has been particularly well orchestrated and fills it with an even more anthemic vibe than the original song contains. As a way to give the listener the best idea of the concept that the band is trying to look for here, this song does it perfectly. That opening minute that the philharmonic dominates before Schenker’s opening iconic riff comes in is superb, and from here the two combine as one to create an amazing version of this song. This is followed by a new song written especially for this album, “Moment of Glory”, which is an interesting piece as this had to have been composed with the Berliner Philharmonic in mind to add their pieces. It is very much in the expected power ballad variety of Scorpions track, and is one that has been utilised since this album’s release. And yeah... it’s fine. It morphs into the kind of track certain sections of the fan base would have been looking for.
One of the band’s amazing (if not their most amazing) power ballads “Send Me an Angel” is the next to get the treatment, and we are once again treated to an amazing vocal performance by Klaus Meine, alongside the beautiful orchestral arrangement provided as the background. This song sounds completely brilliant whenever it is performed, but this version with the enhanced acoustics it one of the best. Another of the ‘everyone in the world knows this song’... songs... “Wind of Change”, also gets its chance to shine in this environment, and yes, it too has had a makeover that brings to the fore especially Klaus’s vocals once again. But it does sound a little flat following the previous track, because the platitudes and emotion of that track well and truly outstrips that of “Wind of Change”.
“Crossfire” opens with a version of “Midnight in Moscow” which in turn was a version of the Soviet patriotic song “Moscow Nights”, a classically composed instrumental which ties in nicely to the opening of “Crossfire” itself from “Love at First Sting”, played as an instrumental track and beautifully performed. This then moves straight into the so-called “Deadly Sting Suite” which is a combination of two tracks: “He’s a Woman, She’s a Man” from the album “Taken by Force” and “Dynamite” from “Love at First Sting”. Once again here, like the previous track, this is just an instrumental performance of the combined tracks, which showcases the combining of the band alongside the orchestration, and is excellently performed by both sides of this equation. These songs allow the band to show how wonderful the music is that the band writes, and how it merges so well with the Berlin Philharmonic, without a focus on the vocals of Klaus which had dominated the two power ballads.
“Here in My Heart” is a cover of a song written by well known songwriter Diane Warren and originally released by the artist Tiffany. I’m not going to lie to you here – I don’t understand the motivation to do this song on this album. There is a nice duet between Klaus and Lyn Liechty, but apart from that it is filler. “Still Loving You” is yet another of the Scorpions massive power ballads, and it receives the same sort of care and performance as the previously performed power ballads. Then comes the increased energy of “Big City Nights”, one of the band’s best high velocity tracks, and while the backing orchestration is good, this song really doesn’t need it, it isn’t the kind of song that is going to be improved in this situation. It also has a guest vocal performance from Ray Wilson, which again seems completely unnecessary. The album then concludes with “Lady Starlight”, the final ballad on the album, one that fits the purpose of this album but perhaps misses the mark if you are someone like me who was hoping for more hard in the rock.

At the time that this was released, I was still coming to terms with bands that I had grown up with who had played the greatest of heavy metal of my generation... suddenly devolving into other methods to their music. Metallica and Megadeth, both playing acoustic sets in their concerts, was something that... let’s just say it didn’t sit well with me. Listening to them was akin to torture. And it is fair to say that when these albums began to appear with bands utilising symphony and orchestra, I felt zero need to seek them out and listen to them. It was in fact only through the tireless and endless pushing from the kids half my age I was playing cricket with at the time that I relented and listened to Metallica’s “S&M” and found that it probably wasn’t as bad as I feared it would be. The song selection though remained less than exciting. So that by the time this album was released, I felt less aggrieved by being forced to listen to such an album.
So I got the album and put it on. And the opening burst of the band’s most famous track does come across well. Well enough to deserve a few listens on its own aside from the rest of the album as it turns out. And then as you move through the album... yeah, it sounds great. The band always sound terrific and that is no different here. And the orchestra do a great job and generally fill the songs out well.
But just how often is this something that you are going pull off your shelves and listen to? Is this the kind of thing that is going to interest you enough to keep coming back time after time? I mean, to me it is still a gimmick. A clever one yes. A worthy addition, yes. But for the fan, is it something you will have a desire to revisit on a regular basis.
I have had this on again for the last couple of days, and to be fair that’s more than I would really have bothered with if I wasn’t being thorough for this episode. Once, actually, was enough. It is an enjoyable album. It has some very good Scorpions songs, moulded into shape to have them backed by this orchestra. And for anyone out there who enjoys the Scorpions and hasn’t heard this album, then certainly you should find it and listen to it, because everything about it is done wonderfully well. But this is one of those albums that I was very keen to get the script drafted for, so that I could move onto the next albums and review. Because it isn’t an album I have any need to listen to on multiple occasions back to back. It is a great one-off listen to remind you of their skills. And then, back on the shelves, until the next time.

1308. Edguy / The Savage Poetry. 2000. 3.5/5

There have been many stories over the course of this podcast of friends who come together at school and form a band, and that band either sprouts offshoots that go on to become one of the biggest bands of their age, or the actual band stays together and does that of its own accord. All of these individuals in the band would have had dreams of fame and success. One of those was Tobias Sammet, who at the age of just 14 got together with fellow school friends Jens Ludwig, Dominik Storch, and Dirk Sauer in 1992 and formed a band called Edguy, named after their Maths teacher. Jens and Dirk played guitar and Dominik played drums, while Tobi took on the singing role. Initially the band played without a bass player, until Tobi took it upon himself to take up the instrument along with retaining lead vocalist duties. By his own admission, the band was not very good to start with, covering songs from their favourite artists. In 1994 the band wrote and recorded two demos, which they sent out to various record companies, all of which rejected them. So far, this story heads in the same direction as most when it comes to school friend band groups.
In 1995, the band went a step further, recording a full-length demo album, containing nine tracks, and even self-released it to garner some publicity. It was this release, which they called “Savage Poetry” that finally got the ball rolling for the band. Shortly thereafter, they signed with AFM Records who wanted to re-release “Savage Poetry” with more widespread distribution. Edguy however decided against this. It has been reported that they were unhappy with the way the album sounded by this stage, and they didn’t want it to be the first thing released by them on a major label. Instead, they headed into the studio to record their official debut album titled “Kingdom of Madness”, which was released in 1997.
Flash forward to 2000, and on the back of three studio albums Edguy has found its niche in the power metal world. At this time though, Tobi Sammet is deep into writing and preparing for a supergroup project that has been his passion, of writing an opera based around power metal music. That project would eventually come to be called Avantasia and the album would be “The Metal Opera”. With Sammet’s creative flow being consumed by this project, Edguy decided that for their next album, they would completely re-record their demo album from 1995 and release it as their fourth studio album. This they could do as it kept the band busy without requiring the time necessary to creatively compose a new album while their main songwriter was otherwise engaged. And thus came about the album with the slightly adjusted title and slightly adjusted track list called “The Savage Poetry”.

When you listen to this album having already heard the original demo of this album, you immediately notice the light years of difference between the two, in just a five year period. The first improvement noticeable is how far Tobi’s vocals have come in that time period. It is chalk and cheese between his vocals on the demo, and where they are on this release. Even when this was recorded, the band’s fourth album, these guys were only 22 years old, so the natural improvement not only in Tobi’s vocals but in the playing overall is stark as they grew into manhood. The music is tighter, and Tobi sings with more attitude and vigour, while they have also included keyboard arrangement that fill out the songs in a much better way, without trying to compete with Edguy’s proven assets of the twin guitars. New drummer Felix Bohnke, who joined the band for their previous album “Theatre of Salvation”, also adds a more powerful and fast double kick style to the songs that didn’t exist on the originals.
The opening track “Hallowed” is a great way to get into the album, an anthemic-like beginning both musically and with the combined choiring vocals through most of the song. The middle of the track with the traded guitar solos and melodic combining of the two is definitely the best part of the song, with the over-repeating of the same lyrics in the back half of the song a little over the top. This is followed by “Misguiding Your Life” which has a great thrashier start to the track along with requisite scream from Tobi get the song off to its solid beginning. There is a terrific mix of thrash tones and power metal highs through the course of the song, and the speed of the song balances everything nicely. The melodic guitar solos through their assigned slot also accent the best parts of the band's methodology, and the bass line beneath fills everything out to perfection. From here the album segues perfectly into “Key to My Fate”, a song that frames this era of Edguy as well as showcasing the influences that started the band and then got them to this point. The great opening heavy riff starts this off terrifically as an entry to Tobi’s vocals. Then the guitar solos, which act as a perfect homage to Helloween, who were an obvious heavy influence on the band from a young age, and that is brought to bear here. This section is the highlight of the song, wonderfully supported by Felix’s drumming and Eggi’s bass line. This was the song on the demo that showcased the talent the band had at that time, but here in its re-recorded and reformed version it is one of the band’s best ever instalments.
Power metal bands by decree must have power ballads on their albums. And the time has come for that to occur here, with the song “Sands of Time”. Over the course of their history, Edguy have actually written and performed some quite excellent power ballads – and this is not one of them. I understand the mentality to have to provide a section of the fan base with these types of tracks, but they just do nothing for me. Here Tobi offers us his keyboard laden version of this, which is more ballad than power ballad. It’s a skip song. And what is more the pity is that it is sandwiched between two great songs, as it is followed by “Sacred Hell”, which charges out of the blocks in the best Edguy fashion, double kick and guitars keeping up, while Tobi’s chorused vocals take up the baton and cry from the hilt. It is a typically structured Edguy song, indeed it also has similarities to the songs that appeared on Avantasia’s “The Metal Opera” and is another of those great solid tracks good albums need to back up the most popular and well-known songs.
The other thing that power metal is known for is the epic tracks, and Edguy’s first (only chronologically from the demo) is “Eyes of the Tyrant”, that rifles through the gears and covers every extravagance that the genre demands of such songs. It opens and closes with the moody keyboard and Tobi’s quietly building vocal, before bursting to life with the true opening riff of the song. Led by the double kick rolling drum beat and bass line, this ten minute extravaganza has everything you would expect, including a wonderful sweeping guitar break into the solo spots and then the melodic harmony transition back into the verse and chorus. It showcases every peak of the band in the one song and is one of the main attractions of the album. This is followed by “Frozen Candle”, the second longest track on the album which doesn’t scream epic as much as it does heavy standard. The start and end of the track comes across like material on the band’s true heavy metal album “Hellfire Club” down the track a few years, but it has an almost acoustic break within the middle of the song that negates that. It is still a good song, though perhaps the changes do end up making it a tad long.
Moving from the two long form songs of the album back into the second power ballad “Roses to No One” is, again, a pained one. This is a guitar-based power ballad rather than the keyboard-based ballad earlier on the album, which fits more closely with what you might expect from a power metal standard ballad. If you are a fan of these songs there is certainly something here for you with the choir backing vocals and upraising spirit singing, and the power ballad guitar solo. For me, I reach for the skip button extremely quickly. The album closes out in much better style with “Power and Majesty”. Lyrically, it is a bit like it was written by a 17 year old, which by perchance it was! But musically it takes off from the start and barely pauses to catch breath. There's a great galloping beat about the song that it reminiscent of Iron Maiden in its execution, and the solo from Jens is excellent. This powers along to the end of the song and is an effective and enjoyable way to complete the album.

Though I had been a fan from early on in my heavy metal upbringing of bands that would dominate the genre that became power metal, Helloween and Gamma Ray, it wasn’t until the turn of the century that I began to truly investigate and wrap myself in the bands of the genre that I now truly adore, such as Blind Guardian and HammerFall, Stratovarius and Sonata Arctica, and in particular Edguy. So these initial albums had already been released before I began to come on board the band. It was 2001’s “Mandrake” that first caught my attention and made me think that I needed to not only drown in what this album offered, but also to go back and find their first four albums and check them out as well. And that journey actually had me coming across a copy of the original demo version of “Savage Poetry” before I came across this 2000 version of “The Savage Poetry”. And in many ways that was a good thing, because I got to hear what the band sounded like at that very early stage of their career, and then got to hear this version of the album, re-recorded and improved immensely by five years of solid recording and touring and maturing, both musically and in the ages from 17 to 22.
In the quest for totally laying all my cards on the table, it is the albums after this by the band that are my favourites, ones that are conceivably heavier and with greater attitude and better songwriting musically and lyrically that I enjoy most. But what I like about this album is the unbridled joy you can hear in the music as you listen to the album. “Misguiding Your Life” and “Key to My Fate” especially showcase all of this, the speed of the former and the heaviness of the latter being guides to the way the band was heading at that time. And yes, it is true that listening to this album now does give you an insight into just how Tobi was progressing with his Avantasia project at the time because musically there are similarities along the way.
I’ve had this out again for the past few days and listened to it half a dozen times, and I have enjoyed it just as much as I have in the past. In the long run it was a savvy move to re-record their original demo to give it the polish it needed, and it filled a hole while Tobi was otherwise engaged. And if you like power metal in any way, you will find something at least here to enjoy. If you don’t, then you won’t.

1307. UFO / Covenant. 2000. 2.5/5

UFO as a band (some would say in name only) had a rough time in the lost years between 1987 and 1995 following the loss of members of the best known era of the band. With the changing music landscape around them the band found it difficult to retain its position as one of the heavy influencers in the industry. The late 1980’s surge of thrash metal and glam metal had taken away their position as a trailblazing hard rock act, while the arrival of grunge in the early 1990’s had further eroded their fan base. In 1995 though, the band at least had some forces on their side with the recording and release of their 14th album “Walk on Water”. The reformation of the band’s best known lineup of Mogg/Way/Schenker/Parker/Raymond at least gave that album a shot of nostalgia, and the hope that this reformation could produce something that would capture the imagination of the old fan base once again, and perhaps draw in some new fans. And to a certain point it did. While the album did not chart, it saw a rise in album sales and concert sales. Even in the tough days of the alternative rock and metal scene there was hope for the band on the back of this album. And then, as seemed to be a given when he was in any band ever, Michael Schenker pulled a Michael Schenker and left just weeks into the tour to support the album, and one of the drawcards was gone again. Drummer Andy Parker was on the outer again too, and finally Paul Raymond also moved on, and the band was almost back to square one again.
But things seem to move fairly quickly around the band, and they did again here. In 1998, Schenker returned to help the band complete the tour when Raymond had left, and on the back of this the trio of Mogg, Schenker and Way, along with new drummer in Aynsley Dunbar, returned to the studio to put together the band’s first new album in five years, the longest period between albums in the band’s career, which was to be called (apparently not ironically in the slightest) “Covenant”.

When 2000 arrived, music fans were getting a little nostalgic. They were beginning to look back on the days of their youth, and think about all of the great bands and music they had grown up with, and that wouldn’t it be great to hear some of that kind of music being written and recorded again. It brought about several bands of the era looking to return to their roots of a kind, and not write albums that tried to channel what was popular at the time but write an album that brought back memories of the days of their prime. This was the age that UFO found themselves in, and indeed appears to be the direction that this album heads in from the outset. Everything about it holds true to the way the band adorned their albums through the 1970’s. The majority of the album is composed by Phil Mogg and Michael Schenker and in the main they are looking to create songs that have that structure that transformed the band into one of the leaders of the hard rock era of the mid-to-late 1970’s. Here though it emphasises the main components of the style of tracks they are producing. In this way, the hard rock songs have a bit more punch to them vocally and on guitar than perhaps they would have back in the day, and the quieter ballad based tracks seemed just a bit more drawn back within themselves as well. That may seem like a simplified way of explaining how this album sounds, and you are correct. Mainly because the sound of the album is hard to define. The keyboards have more of an organ tone about them rather than what Paul Raymond would have played had he been in the band on this album. That organ sound does tend to dominate itself out of the background and more into middle ground on “Covenant” and in the process draws comparisons to the sound that Deep Purple had in their heyday when Jon Lord’s organ was a dominant component of the music.
“Love is Forever” starts the album off on the right foot. It is a heavier version of a song that UFO are renown for, perhaps the best example here on the album of a song that has its roots in earlier times but incorporates the way music had evolved, and the true hard rock coming through in the guitar riff and especially solo from Schenker. It blasts the album out of the blocks and is a formidable beginning to the album. This is followed by “Unraveled” that continues with the same themes, a typical Mogg/Way composition that puts the rock in hard rock. Schenker’s solid riff is catchy, giving off Kiss-like vibes along the way, and Mogg’s toughened up vocals with support from Way and the back up vocalists here makes for a fun and foot tapping song. “Miss the Lights” goes with a more contemporary sound, the rhythm riff sliding along as Mogg croons his vocals over the top in a style reminiscent of Bad Company or Free. And as it turns out, this along with the next couple of songs on the album do line up with that same sound from those same bands. “Midnight Train” most definitely does that, as does “Fools Gold”. There is a very similar style of rhythm pattern through “Midnight Train” and “Fools Gold” as well, which does give the songs the feel of a sister duo.
Mind you, this might be a controversial view, but “In the Middle of Madness” sounds like it could have come from a John Cougar Mellencamp album, if Mellencamp had utilised on organ sound on his albums. Even Schenker’s riff and solo sound like they could have been off Mellencamp’s 1985 album “Scarecrow”. The whole song could almost have been lifted off that. Now that is an interesting comparison I know, but if you ever happen to listen to THIS album and you hear this song, and you know THAT album, then you may well agree with me. Though to be honest, finsing anyone out there besides myself who knows (and owns) both of those albums seems like a longshot. “The Smell of Money” and “Rise Again” are both musically more similar to the opening tracks on the album, though stripped back in tempo and somewhat slightly disturbingly Phil Mogg seems to be channelling the vocal chords of Scott Strapp, the lead vocalist from the band Creed. This was the time when they were at thier most prominent, so perhaps utilising that vocal style was thought to have been a good move. I’m not as certain of that as perhaps Mogg was if that WAS the case.
“Serenade” has a very modern Deep Purple sound about it, perhaps through the forward mixing of the keyboard organ which does tend to move in a Jon Lord kind of circle throughout, as does Schenker’s guitar with the Ritchie Blackmore tones about it. The move between softer tones and the harder grind, with Schenker’s guitar going from clear to harder, and a solo that could very easily have been out of the Blackmore playbook. It is a song that finds a number of influences. “Cowboy Joe” on the other hand channels everything that makes the band great. Mogg’s vocals are terrific here, back to their very best, and Dunbar’s drumming is far closer to the powerful style that Andy Parker used to play. It may be an imperfect copy of the great UFO template but it does the job here. Closing out the album is “The World and His Dog” which incorporates classic and wonderful Schenker guitar solos into the mix of the song. The rhythm of bass and drums again has the powerful feel that creates the best UFO songs

As most of the regular listeners to this podcast will know by now, my favourite and mostly only period of UFO is the 1970’s albums, where the big five made five great albums and a live album beyond compare. Everything that they did during that period to me is untouchable by every other era of the band, which doesn’t mean there weren’t some good pieces of albums that came after that, it's just that they never really managed to make another album that came close to those original ones. And, in the main, that is the downfall of the release of this particular album. Because “Covenant” has a lot of very likeable tracks on it, even if for the most part I spend my whole time when I listen to this album trying to work out what each song reminds me of – which band and era to me that it sounds like UFO are trying to mimic here. But when they released this album, it came with a second CD, which contained live performances of the tour to promote the previous album, but they are all songs that are from their best known albums. I fact, the majority of the 7 live tracks come from two of those albums. And what this live album does, when comparing it to the studio album it is attached to, is remind you of HOW BRILLIANT those songs were from 25 years in the past are, and that they stand head and shoulders above every song released on this album. It feels like an own goal to have put this with this album. No doubt it was as an incentive to the long term fans to go out and buy the album, and that probably worked well. But it sure hurt the comparison to the new material.
As a result of what I have said earlier, I don’t listen to this album very often. To be honest, I have probably listened to this album more in the past seven days than I have in the previous 15 years. I only came to it initially because Michael Schenker had returned to the band to record the album, much as he had for the pervious album “Walk on Water”, soon to receive its own episode on this podcast. And what this week has reminded me is that this is an average album, one that I might be willing to raise to a rating of a better than average album if I was of the mind to want to listen to it on a more regular basis. And therein lies the problem when you have far too much music in your collection to give everything a fair hearing. Like all bands, when I decide that I want to listen to something from a particular band, I have my usual half a dozen go-to choices. And this isn’t one of them for UFO. While I think they made an effort to return to a more familiar sound on this album and compete against what was happening in the music world 25 years ago, there are a few clunks along the way. I wouldn’t even say the clunks are bad because those songs are still fine to listen to, or have been for me this week at least. But I’m not jumping out of my skin to listen to John Cougar Mellencamp and Creed and Deep Purple knock offs. I’d rather hear songs that emphasised the great points of this band rather than mutations of others. That to me is the only real downfall of this album. It’s the same old story in the long – it isn’t a bad album at all... it just isn’t a great one either. It doesn’t compete with “Lights Out” or “Force It”. And neither should it. You should be able to enjoy albums of a band from different eras without making a judgement on them in that way. But, I just want to listen to “Lights Out” and “Force It”. So, I do.

1306. Black Sabbath / Sabotage. 1975. 4.5/5

Five albums into their career, and while Black Sabbath the band seemed to be going from strength to strength musically, off the stage they had come across some problems. They had played at the California Jam in January 1974 in front of 200,000 people, but had received barely a pittance as payment for the gig. Eventually they realised that the band, through manager Patrick Meehan, had been paid $US250,000 for their performance, but had only received $1,000 each as their share of the proceeds. This then led to more outrageous discoveries for the four bandmates, including that all of their property including their houses and cars were all owned by Meehan, and that they literally owned nothing themselves. This revelation saw the band decide to sack Meehan and hire Don Arden as their new manager, something that created a two year battle through the courts to not only try and sever their previous arrangement but also try and recoup lost royalties and payments. This album was written and recorded in the midst of this legal battle, with Meehan suing the band for unlawful dismissal. It was during this period that the band began to question if there was any point to recording albums and touring endlessly "just to pay the lawyers". All of this was obviously putting enormous strain and pressure on the band, and eventually inspired the title of the album “Sabotage” as they felt that these issues were creating a detrimental effect on trying to put together the album and tour.
In regards to the production of the album itself, it was co-produced by guitarist Tony Iommi and Mike Butcher. Iommi wrote in his autobiography about the time: “We produced “Sabotage” ourselves. The band disappeared most of the time so it was sort of left to me and the engineer. I got more and more involved with the production side of things, but it wasn’t like I would sit there and tell the other guys what to do, because they knew what to play, they put their parts to it. I just spent a lot more time in the studio because, when it came to doing the guitar bits or mixing, it would take longer and I’d be more into it than they were. I didn’t mind so much. I’d be there to the death”.
In the book “The Story of Black Sabbath: Wheels of Confusion”, Iommi again reflected, "We could've continued and gone on and on, getting more technical, using orchestras and everything else, which we didn't particularly want to. We took a look at ourselves, and we wanted to do a rock album – “Sabbath Bloody Sabbath” wasn't a rock album, really”. And while both Iommi and drummer Bill Ward appeared to enjoy the recording sessions for the album, Ozzy Osbourne was obviously growing frustrated with how long Black Sabbath albums were taking to record, as quoted in his autobiography, "Sabotage took about four thousand years”.
Under all of this stress and strain, the band managed to find a way to get the album together, and to release their sixth album, the aforementioned “Sabotage”.

From the opening bars of the opening track, you can tell something is going on here with Black Sabbath. Because although they have had dozens of great songs up to this point of their career when they recorded “Sabotage”, and they had had songs with attitude and heavy riffs and amazing stylistic bass riffs through them – nothing quite prepares you for the opening of “Hole in the Sky”. Yes, that opening riff is a beauty, great tones from Iommi once again, and Geezer’s bassline immediately bounds to the front of the mix to hammer home that initial heavy interaction. But my word Bill Ward is hitting those drums and cymbals BLOODY HARD! He has done some remarkable things on previous albums, but this is a John Bonham styled attack on his instrument early on. The brilliance of the ‘go your own way’ style of guitar and bass during the chorus is amazingly composed and played. How do you come up with those two different riffing's and yet make it sound so awesome? The tempo holds together throughout the track, and Ward’s drum skin and cymbals must have had to have been replaced following the recording of the song. Anyone who doubted the direction this album was heading in knows full well at the conclusion of the first song.
And yet, even after all of these years, I question the decision to insert the 49 seconds of “Don’t Start (Too Late)” between the opening track and the one that is listed at number three on Side A of the album. The instrumental interlude, in the context of what has come and what is to follow, just doesn’t make any sense. Sure, let’s listen to Tony twiddle away on his guitar in a quite interlude that is nothing more than an interruption to the magnificence that is coming forth out of the speakers. It is not the first time the band has offered us these little nooks between tracks. Some work OK though the albums would be better off without them. Here on “Sabotage”, “Don’t Start (Too Late)” actually does sabotage what should have been a great abrupt ending to the opening track that then hit straight into what should have been the follow up track. That song, is “Symptom of the Universe”. And if they had done that, this album may well have been untouchable.
I still get the same feeling listening to the start of “Symptom of the Universe” as I did when I first heard it, all those years ago. That opening riff from Tony is so simple and yet so incredible. From the outset, it is what you expect that heavy metal is. And then the bass and drums join in to drive the power even further. But come on – that rolling drum solo from Bill Ward that comes in... have you ever tried to play that the same way Bill does? I suspect Bill was never able to play it the same way twice when it came to recording it either, but when you listen carefully to it, it is so incredibly unobtainable it just makes this song unique. It almost sounds out of time, and yet he pulls it back at the right moment to kick back into that hard hitting 2/4 time where, like he did on the opening track, he is hitting those damn things so hard. The drumming on this song once again highlights how important Bill Ward was on these early Black Sabbath albums. And then Ozzy chimes in, in that higher than high tone that sadly disqualified him from singing it in later years when he couldn’t reach those heights. In his autobiography, Iommi has this to say: “Sabotage has a couple of unusual tracks, like ‘Symptom of the Universe’. That has been described as the first progressive metal song, and I won’t disagree with that. It starts with an acoustic bit, then it goes into the up-tempo stuff to give it that dynamic, and it does have a lot of changes to it, including the jam at the end. That last bit was made up in the studio. We did the track and after that finished, we just started jamming. I started playing this riff, the others joined in, we kept it going and we ended up keeping it. Then I overdubbed it with acoustic guitar. A few things we’ve recorded came from jams like that. We’d just keep going on the thing and so the end of the song sometimes became longer than the song itself”. This is one of the great songs, to me one of five that I would suggest a person unfamiliar with this era of Sabbath has to listen to if they want to know what the band was like.
(War Pigs, Children of the Grave, After Forever, Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, Symptom of the Universe)
And then, to complete side one of the album we have “Megalomania”, perhaps and underrated song or a slightly forgotten song of this era of Sabbath. It doesn’t often get brought up in conversation, it rarely appears in best-of compilations, and it is a mystery as to why this occurs. The sprawling almost-ten minute journey is the true beginning of the journey to progressive metal. The 3 minute slow burn to open the track, with Ozzy’s sinister vocals along with piano and synth adding in underneath, then bursts forth with Iommi’s great riff and Ozzy’s vocals shattering into the highest echelons of his range, chanting and pontificating as the song grows into the powerful beast it becomes, with Geezer’s bass riffing under the chorus running up and down the fretboard, and Tony’s solo offering as surprising as it is brilliant. It is a wonderful track which really does showcase Ozzy’s vocals at their best. Iommi's final thoughts on the song in his autobiography were: “A lot of our songs tended to be long anyway. Like ‘Megalomania’: we carried on and on with that until we just faded it out. Some of those tracks were probably twice as long as you hear on the album, but we had to fade them out”.
Side 2 opens with “The Thrill of it All”, and Geezer lyrics are really throwing curveballs during this track. “Inclination of direction, walk the turned and twisted drift,
with the children of creation, futuristic dreams we sift
Clutching violently we whisper with a liquefying cry
Any identify the answers that are surely doomed to die”
One of the things that has always struck me about some of Ozzy’s vocals in this song is that they have a real Lennon/McCartney vibe about them, especially in the ‘oh yeah... OH YEAH!” part of the song. Ozzy has always professed to have loved The Beatles and while it was unlikely to be his intention that familiarity always strikes me here. This is followed by the mostly instrumental track “Supertzar”, that has the backing of an English choir to create the atmosphere that the band was looking for. Iommi commented in his autobiography: “I wrote ‘Supertzar’ at home with a Mellotron, to create choir sounds. I put heavy guitar to that and it really blended well. I thought, I’d love to try this in the studio, it would be great if we could use a real choir”.
The album’s only single release was “Am I Going Insane (Radio)”, probably the only track here that had any chance of getting airplay given the wonderful heaviness of the rest of the collected tracks. It’s a simple song with some synth thrown in that may help it sound a bit more commercial from what has come before it on the album. There is no outstanding drum fills of bass line, and Tony’s guitar for the most part is quite muted. Reportedly Ozzy was disappointed with both of these songs, and there is a certain amount of truth to the fact that they are completely different to the rest of the songs on the album.
The album concludes with “The Writ”, one of only a handful of Black Sabbath songs to feature lyrics composed by Ozzy, who typically relied on Geezer for lyrics. As will be obvious to those that knew of what was happening around the band at the time, the song was inspired by the frustrations Ozzy felt at the time over their court problems with their former manager. Ozzy noted in his autobiography: "I wrote most of the lyrics myself, which felt a bit like seeing a shrink. All the anger I felt towards Meehan came pouring out”. Thematically, "The Writ" and "Megalomania" are intertwined, according to Bill Ward, as they both deal with the same tensions arising from these ongoing legal troubles. “The Writ” is long tome venting the bands feelings about how their ordeal had been affecting them during this whole time, and interesting change from topics that the band had usually focused on in their songwriting. It is an openly sore wound that finishes off this album in the style that you would hope for an album that deserves its status as one of the band’s best.

For anyone who has not already done so, the podcast titled And Volume for All, hosted by the outrageously talented Quinn, did several episodes on the original iteration of Black Sabbath in season one of said podcast back at the end of 2022, including talking about the album “Sabotage”. I highly recommend that you listen to those if you love amazing podcasts and especially on heavy metal. It is the best music podcast on the planet, and if you aren’t listening, then start now. You can thank me later.
I actually came to Black Sabbath AFTER I had first discovered both Ozzy Osbourne and Dio, and worked my way backwards through the Dio helmed albums “Heaven and Hell” and “Mob Rules”. It wasn’t a deliberate thing, just all a part of my own journey in discovering heavy metal music, which if you are interested, I outline on bonus Patreon only episodes available on that platform. You can find the link in the show notes.
On that journey, “Sabotage” arrived. I don’t really remember in what order I originally heard the eight albums of the band's original formation, but they were all within several months of each other. And as most of you listening to this album would know, there is a wonderful mixture and changes of style and substance about the songs on each album. The way that this foursome continued to try and change the wheel as they moved from album to album, adding and subtracting to the pieces they composed, is what made them the innovators they were during the 1970’s. They weren’t afraid of composing in jam sessions and changing course within a song or a slew of songs. And that is no different here on “Sabotage”. You can feel the aggression that comes on songs such as “Hole in the Sky” and “Symptom of the Universe” and “The Writ”. You can sense the desire to try new things on songs such as “Supertzar”, and the freeforming way they came up with ideas such as on “Megalomania”. In what must have been the most difficult circumstances to try and get in a headspace to write and record an album with everything swirling around them – they came up with this album. The first side of the album in particular for me is immense, amazing, incredible. Those songs – ignoring the 49 seconds between the opening tracks – contains everything wonderful about this band, and for me certainly some of Bill Ward’s finest work.
I have had the album out for the past couple of weeks – indeed, as we have just seen a few weeks ago the final concert appearance of the original Black Sabbath, I have had all eight of those original albums out over the course of the past few weeks again. And they are all amazing. But listening more closely to “Sabotage” because of this podcast episode, it again has struck me just what an amazing album this is.
Changes of substance came over the next two releases, ones that sometimes create conversations over their content, and it remains obvious that tensions created over the issues that were faced here eventually contributed to the parting of this foursome. But on this particular album, everything was running at full steam, and creating some of their best material of all.

1305. Mötley Crüe / New Tattoo. 2000. 2/5

The 1990’s had not been kind to bands of Motley Crue’s ilk. Having spent the previous decade at the top of their game, living the life of excess in every imaginable way, while being at the forefront of the hair and glam metal movement, and at times setting the template for other bands to follow and replicate their success, the change in the rules in the 1990’s was the first keystone that loosened on the path. This was followed by the volatile working relationships between certain members of the band finally falling into ruin, requiring changes to both the way the band approached their music, and also who would be involved in their music going forward. Five years had stretched between the high point of their career with “Dr Feelgood” and the follow up, the self-titled “Motley Crue”. This album had seen the departure of lead vocalist Vince Neil and the recruitment of John Corabi as his replacement, and the bluesier sound envisioned on the album was critically acclaimed and yet mostly rejected by the fan base, or of that which remained. The same line up began to write songs for the follow up to that album, but their record label, who feared another hit to the album sales and therefore their own profits, engineered a reunion with Vince Neil coming back to the fold, and Corabi being moved aside. The resulting album, “Generation Swine”, saw what was described as a ‘return to form’ by the record label, though the songs mostly had Corabi’s stamp over them, and were obviously composed for his vocals and not Neil’s.
The reunion was not universally loved, and drummer Tommy Lee was the main hold out. The ill feeling between Lee and Neil had not dissipated, and it was also during this time that Lee had many domestic disputes with his then wife Pamela Anderson, which led to him serving jail time for domestic violence. While in jail, Lee had decided that he wanted out, and following his release from prison, and completing a greatest hits tour the band had booked, Lee left the band.
In his place, Motley Crue recruited former Ozzy Osbourne drummer Randy Castillo to take his place. Castillo was a proven performer, a professional, and bringing him into the band at this time seemed like an excellent proposition.
The band spent three months in early 2000 writing and recording the new album. In recent interviews, following the acrimonious split between the band and guitarist Mick Mars, Mars was quoted in an article for Rolling Stone magazine as saying that he didn’t write any of the material on “New Tattoo” nor barely played on the album, and that he was being held accountable by the band because of the poor performance of the previous album “Generation Swine”. "I didn't write any of those songs, since I wasn't invited," said Mars. "I think I played one lick on that album”. Nikki Sixx, interviewed for the same article, dismisses that claim, saying Mick played all lead and rhythm guitars, and whatever else he wanted to. Mars also has three co-writing credits on the album, so it is hard to know exactly what the real truth to the matter is. In any case, the album was released in July 2000, at a time that fans were looking for music from their favourite 80’s artists that more reflected the music of that time. This was Motley Crue’s chance to deliver on that statement.

The opening track “Hell on High Heels’ hits the brief immediately when it comes to providing a song that gives the listener the feeling that they are back in the heyday of the band. No, it isn’t spot on, because the band is older now and it doesn't have that same intensity and energy that those original songs did, but it does provide exactly what the fans and record label would have been hoping for, a song with some similarities to that era.
From here, the lyrical content of the songs of the album begins to take shape, and for the most part it comes across as... unseemly. “Treat Me Like the Dog I Am” just immediately makes you think ‘what the hell are these guys up to here?!’ It is also the start of the writing partnership between Nikki Sixx and James Michael, a musician and producer who would be tied closely to future projects that involved the two of them, including Brides of Destruction and Sixx AM. Here the music is of the right attitude, but it is hard to sing along with the lyrics without either laughing or cringing. In most cases, both. Then they offer us a country acoustic based ballad, the title track “New Tattoo”. Now somewhere along the line this became something that Motley Crue wanted to do, and they are all the worse for it. The band’s point of demise can almost be pinpointed to the success of “Home Sweet Home” from “Theatre of Pain” that was reviewed here on a recent episode, because that led the band down the path to chase that success and it has ruined so many of their songs in the process. This is rubbish, with no redeeming features. It should be played to kids in school in detention to punish them, because it would certainly stop them from ever doing anything to be sent back there again. Even then, it is better lyrically than what is served up on “Dragstrip Superstar”. The music is fine, sounds good even, but lyrically this is another Nikki Sixx clanger. “Jailbait playmate, freakshow masturbate, fuel inject carburette, underage penetrate”. Jesus Nikki how old are you? Actually, don’t answer that. If it wasn’t for the good riff and great solo on this song is would be at the bottom of the barrel. In many ways, it still is. But then you come to the next great instalment on the album, “1st Band on the Moon”, a straight Nikki Sixx song, but you wouldn’t need to take long before you came to that conclusion. Seriously, once again the music is good enough. It isn’t ground breaking, but it is good. Vince sounds great. But the lyrics are puerile trash. Great sounding guitar Mick, I like the solo in the middle of the song. Just... c’mon... it can’t be that hard to come up with something else to sing about. Well... apparently not, because there is more of this to come on “She Needs Rock N Roll”. On the surface it’s just a typical teenager needs to listen to rock and roll music, but the connotations – well, not connotations because the lyrics are straight to the point – just seem like they should have been locked in a box in the past and forgotten. Sure, maybe I’m just old and don’t need to hear this stuff anymore, or feel like I WANT to sing along to it anymore. That part is true, but goodness me there must be a way to be more inventive in songwriting.
Yes, all of this will continue for the remainder of the episode. You have been warned.
The generic side of the band’s music comes to the fore with “Punched in the Teeth by Love”. Firstly, musically. There isn’t a great effort here to create something that is different from anything that hasn’t been done before. Before we even get to the lyrical content, if the music had been more inspiring – you know, offering a great riff or bass line or scintillating solo – then this song may have been better than just generic fluff. But it doesn’t. But then the lyrics: “Flash a smile like an alligator, move her hips like a generator, all over town like an oil spill, if there’s meat on the bone she’ll wag her tail”. This song is credited to all four members of the band, which truly makes it worse. And the repeated concourse of the song title through the last few minutes of the song is overbearing. Not that the follow up is any better, as “Hollywood Ending” is the power ballad that desperately tries to recreate the success and depth of feeling that their ballad hits of the past have provided. In this case though, it is a pretty half hearted effort to do so. Even the quick fade at the end of the track seems like it is an afterthought, a way to stop the pain from going on any longer. It is almost a country acoustic ballad much like the earlier one on the album, that’s the depths that this song falls to, replete with the background singers in the chorus. The band’s writers are trying to pull out all the tricks to create the illusion that this album is bringing back the best of the band from its greatest era, but it is a poor facade that they hare building on. This is a god-awful song.
I can’t work out if “Fake” is an autobiographical song, or if it is actually trying to proclaim that the band is different from the people that they discuss within the lyrical content of the track. They are obviously having a crack at record labels and critics alike, but are they owning their own excesses or blaming them on others? Are they trying the accept that they haven’t always done the right thing, or are they just trying to drag everyone else into the mire with them? There are two ways of interpreting the lyrics. What IS true is that musically, again, this is fairly average fair, unexciting, stuck in a rut and stuck in a rhythm, without the great music that drives the best Motley Crue songs. It may be a statement but as a song it doesn’t do much to advertise that fact. Still, lyrically it is like Shakespeare compared to Nikki Sixx’s offering on “Porno Star”, which is exactly as you would expect a Crue song with this title to be about. Listen to this marvellous composition: “Dot com, dot cum, web cam super scam triple x cyber sex, shoot my rocks on the box, peeping tom on the net, down I’m going down going down, I’m a cyber junkie what a freak”. Welcome to the new millennium everyone. The album then concludes with the cover of The Tubes song “White Punks on Dope”, a song title that is probably very appropriate for some members of this band.

As I related very recently on the episode dedicated to the “Theatre of Pain” album, my introduction to Motley Crue came reasonably early on in my conversion to the heavier side of music. I had asked my heavy metal music dealer to record me an album that had become the next in my line of requirements. He asked me what I wanted him to put on the other side of the cassette, to which I said to him to choose something he thought I might like. The cassette came back with “Shout at the Devil” as the chosen second side album, and I never looked back.
I got a copy of this album reasonably soon after it was released. At the time I hadn’t heard the “Generation Swine” album, and though I was disappointed that Tommy Lee had left the band I was also pleased to hear Randy Castillo had joined in his place, and was looking forward to what he would add to the album. I still had an overall positive mindset when it came to the band and was hoping that what they produced would be worth the wait. And as it turned out, when I did get the album, I wasn’t disappointed in it terribly. It wasn’t “Dr Feelgood” or “Shout at the Devil”, but it was mostly upbeat and sounded as good as I had thought it might without any outlandish expectations. The band hadn’t turned to nu-metal or industrial metal, so most of it seemed above board. After the requisite number of listens, it moved into the usual pile to be found some time in the future.
This has had the very occasional play since. It isn’t something that I go to when I am in the mood for Motley Crue. A couple of times in the years since I have worked my way through the catalogue and this has come up again, and I listen to it and move to the next album. And mostly through that time I have avoided the obvious question that arises from my podcast episode today. And that is - how did Vince Neil bring himself to sing some of this crap? Because overall, I don’t mind the music. The two country ballads are complete and utter rubbish, don’t get me wrong. Whenever I have listened to this album since, I always wonder if Nikki Sixx had a desire to go down the route Def Leppard did at one stage and collaborate with country and western artists and make that kind of music. Because that is what those songs remind me of. But apart from those, and though some of the songwriting is slightly generic in the way it comes across, the music is mostly good, and I can listen to it without any qualms whatsoever. But the lyrics... my goodness, there is some utter crap there. Though the band has only released one album since this, they have still done a lot of touring, at least up until the aborted Final Tour status that they must have stolen from Kiss. And apart from the tour to promote this album, they have never played ANY of these songs live again. And it is no surprise, because even though in this day and age it is difficult to understand anything Vince Neil actually sings anyway, I’m sure he just drew a line under these songs and said “Nikki, the lyrics are shit, I refuse to sing them”.
So yes. Music is fine, lyrics are crap. That is the best way to sum up “New Tattoo”. Even when listening to it this week, I find myself enjoying about half of the album, and groaning loudly about the other half.
Motley Crue were booked to tour Australia on this album, but unfortunately firstly Randy Castillo got sick, a duodenal ulcer requiring surgery that then discovered cancer, which killed him less than two years after this albums release. Then his replacement Samantha Mahoney from Hole also had problems and the tour never happened. Perhaps that was for the best. The album still resides in my collection, but it is one of the ones that will remain in ‘near mint’ condition as the years pass.