1296. Whitesnake / Ready an' Willing. 1980. 3.5/5

As the music world of the late periods of the 1970’s decade began to move through periods of high intensity change, including but not restricted to R&B, AOR, disco, heavy metal and punk, there were still bands who were moving to the beat of their own drum, sticking to the strengths of their members and refining and producing their own sound on their own terms. One of those bands was Whitesnake. Following the demise of Deep Purple, David Coverdale’s next project had released two albums in “Trouble” and “Lovehunter”, both of which had been based around a far more bluesier aspect than the bigger named band had been best known for. Both albums came to the attention of music listeners in the UK but struggled to gain any traction elsewhere in the world. Guitarist Bernie Marsden was quoted in an interview some years later as saying that the band had argued in a positive way during the writing and recording of the “Lovehunter” album, a process he believes made the band a better unit, and was instrumental in helped the band get better as they went along.
One part of that puzzle came to pass with the recruitment of Ian Paice as drummer for the new album. Jon Lord had been on board from just prior to the first album being recorded, and now Paice’s arrival not only brought in a very accomplished drummer, but a third member from the final iteration of Deep Purple. Coverdale had been trying to recruit his former band mate for some time, and his sound was to be a defining piece of the puzzle for the new album.
Given the musical environment that this album was being written and released in, it is an interesting one to go back and listen to in retrospect. Disco, punk, metal... there is none of that here. Whitesnake through their major collaborators in Coverdale, Marsden and fellow guitarist Micky Moody, weren’t looking to make any drastic changes to their own sound. They went into this album to deliver songs that may not have changed in sonics but were, they hoped, better and more pronounced versions of those songs. While the band had their solid core audience at the time, it was a difficult market to produce a hard blues album, which is essentially what the band delivers here with “Ready an’ Willing”, and while looking back from this point on the timeline gives you a sense of what has come since, at the time it must have been an interesting album to pick up on its day of release, and put on the turntable.

This original version of “Fool for Your Lovin’” is dominated by the beautiful bassline from Neil Murray, something you don’t hear on the updated version almost a decade later. Along with the understated keys from Lord and Paice’s beautifully tracking drumming, it makes an instant impact. The solos from Moody and Marsden are also perfect for the package, and Coverdale’s vocals sit in the perfect range and power for the song. It is interesting that this is probably still the standout song from the album all these years later, and yet it is because everyone here has a part in making the song excellent. The following two tracks have a structure that is very Deep Purple but certainly with the adjustments that have been made to them by the Whitesnake sound itself. “Street Talker” has a great upbeat vibe about it, highlighted through the middle by Jon Lord’s excellent keyboards and Coverdale’s enticing vocals throughout. The title track is immediately put into a perfect place by the terrific groove from Paice and Murray on drums and bass, it hits you immediately and creates a warm and comforting feel to the track. Ian Paice’s recruitment for this album is a massive fillip and his touch is over every song, while Neil Murray’s bass lines are nicely woven into the music. The Deep Purple tones are all over this track.
From here it is a different journey, no less enjoyable but of a very varied style. “Carry Your Load” is almost a blues gospel song, slower in tempo and with more emphasised vocals from Coverdale. If the keys were more prominent in the mix it would definitely be classed as gospel. “Blindman” actually comes from Coverdale’s first solo album that was released on the splitting of Deep Purple, “White Snake” (two words not one) the name that he of course took for his new band’s name the following year. It has been updated slightly here, given a bit of power in both music and background vocals. It’s a real creeper, starting off slowly and then building through the middle vocally, with the solos from Moody and Marsden excellent as always. It closes out side one of the album in a positive fashion.
The second half of the album is more defined in its quality. “Ain’t Gonna Cry No More” is a fairly standard blues rock number, not a bad song but also not extending itself to be anything apart from what it is. “Love Man” is the most blues driven track on the album, pure old time blues in every respect. In slow tempo, style, vocally and lyrically, and musically, this is your blues standard. It drags on too long, though also feels longer because of the pace that it is played at and the often-repeated lyrics within the track. “Black and Blue” is a more contemporary version of the blues, along with honky tonk piano from Lord which pick up the mood immediately. Dare I say there is a touch of the early Eagles in this song? The band has subtlety given us a wide range of material on this album; all tied to the blues rock genre but none of them sounding the same. The final song “She’s a Woman” is where we are actually met full force in the face with Jon Lord’s amazing organ skills for almost the only time on the album, and it makes an incredible difference to the song and the finish of the album. It actually makes the album contemporary for the first time with the sound he brings to the track, mirroring what was being utilised in other areas of music at that time.
There has always been a bit of a separation with the Whitesnake fan base over the albums the band has released, and when you listen to “Ready an’ Willing” compared to any album after 1984, you could fully understand why that is the case. For those fans that grew up with albums like this, and then were confronted with “1987” and “Slip of the Tongue”, you can fully appreciate the gulf that they had to come to appreciate. The same is true of younger fans going back to this from the more recent albums, but I think the real conversion of the band during the 1980’s would have been a massive event for the band’s earliest fans, and not surprisingly one that many couldn’t get over.

My own journey with Whitesnake began with the aforementioned “1987” album, one that contained all of the glitz and glitter of the enveloping heavy genre that it was aimed at on its release, and which was exactly the kind of thing I was looking for. When it came to all of the Whitesnake albums prior to this, that was more of a journey. It was just a matter of getting down the road to doing it. I went through the Deep Purple discography, and in doing so discovered each of “Burn, “Stormbringer” and “Come Taste the Band” that are in some ways a forgotten branch of music and yet are so wonderful in their own right, and of course are the forerunner to this band, so that when I came to the early Whitesnake albums I wasn’t as unprepared as I could have been when it came to their sound. Well... that’s partly true.
“Ready an’ Willing” for me is and was a big step for Whitesnake. Those first two albums are okay in my opinion, but without a lot that really draws me back into listening to them. But here, when I first listened to the album, there is a hook, a catch. The opening track “Fool for Your Lovin’” is an obvious one, but what really dragged me in from the outset was the musicianship, and the way it was recorded and mixed for our ears. The rhythm of Paice and Murray on this album is just sublime, you can hear everything that Murray is playing which improves and is an important part of each song. And Paice’s drumming just shines with whoever he is playing with. Lord’s keys may not be integral to every song here, such that when they are not, they have been subdued in the background of the track. But when they are, they take front and centre as they did in Deep Purple, and in both instances, it works perfectly. And along with the guitars and Coverdale’s vocals, all of this is what made me notice the album. Take a look at who the producer is? Ah. Martin Birch. Well, that really does explain everything. And for me, his work here brings out the best in the band.
I’m not a huge lover of blues music. I understand its importance in the roots of heavy metal music and appreciate it when it comes to being incorporated at different levels of the genre. But pure blues is not something I am massively in to. And for all intents and purposes this is a blues rock album. So while there are songs here that I really enjoy, there are others that I am happy to listen to when I put this album on, but would probably rarely if ever choose to listen to individually. I’ve now had this album on my work playlist for three weeks – a little longer than I usually do, but this was also a slightly more difficult review to compose. It was important to me to truly root out exactly how I feel about this album for this podcast episode, and not just write something wishy washy or praise for no other reason than because it is Whitesnake. That extra time has allowed me to be sure that I believe this is a very good album, and the place where Whitesnake as a band began to find its feet. For me, I believe each album got better over the next decade, but I also love what they did beyond the tenure of this line up. The true believers have other ideas on that argument.

1295. Kiss / Unmasked. 1980. 2.5/5

The dawn of a new decade was an interesting period for Kiss and where the band stood in the world of music. Having climbed to a period of immense and sustained popularity with their stage shows and make up personas, and on the back of their two live albums boxed around hit studio albums such as “Destroyer” and “Love Gun”, Kiss had marketed themselves to the point of overkill with their merchandising arm arguably drawing in more money and popularity than the band and its music itself.
The year off for the four members of the band to produce their own solo albums, followed by the next Kiss album “Dynasty” had also seen some changes. With the music world swirling between punk rock and disco, along with the rising of new wave and a new movement in hard rock and heavy metal, Kiss had chosen to infuse the disco craze into their album, which saw a divide in old fans and new fans as to what they were feeling about where the band was headed. The tour to promote the album, dubbed “The Return of Kiss” proved a disappointment in their home country with a marked decline in attendance, and yet their popularity in Europe and Australasia in particular grew with that album’s sound. The glam and disco styled outfits donned on this tour also proved to be polarising amongst the fan base.
Tensions within the band were also reaching a crescendo. Peter Criss had been unable to perform on the “Dynasty” album due to injuries received in a car accident, and on the tour that followed his drumming had noticeably eroded, to the point that he intentionally slowed down or stopped playing altogether during concerts. It was something that would need to be addressed. Ace Frehley was also offside with the band. His drinking was causing Paul and Gene frustration during interviews and in band situations, while Ace himself was beginning to question the direction the band’s music was taking.
The band spent three months at The Record Plant in New York at the start of 1980 coming up with the follow up album “Unmasked”, a title that just a couple of years later would become a prophecy fulfilled, but below the surface was perhaps as telling of this album than was known at the time. Because this was the beginning of a variety of changes that took place with Kiss over the next few years, as little by little the behind the scenes stories began to emerge and finally be unmasked themselves.

In many ways, "Unmasked” continued the trend where Kiss truly stopped being a band and became a revolving slate of solo members from a musical, with a number of outside influences involved in writing and performing, It wasn’t the first album that this had occurred on, but it did become a lot more prevalent on “Unmasked”, and the results on the album tend to be a little uneven.
As was the case on the previous album “Dynasty”, Peter Criss was not the drummer on the album. At least on “Dynasty” he had contributed to one song. Here on “Unmasked”, he is nowhere to be found. Anton Fig, who had played on the Ace Frehley solo album in 1978 and had then been recruited for the same role on the “Dynasty” album to cover Criss’s parts, was once again brought in to play drums on the album. And, it is fair to say that he sounds great, as he always does on whatever project he is on. Criss officially left the band with the release of this album and was replaced by Eric Carr as the permanent drummer of the band, a move that began to draw some of the strings back together.
When it comes to the writing and recording of the songs on the album, the same sort of tensions that had come since the solo albums period continued on. Ace wrote three songs for the album, one of those “Torpedo Girl” co-written with Vini Poncia. On these three songs, Ace again played all of the guitars and bass guitar as well as singing lead vocals on the tracks. Given Anton is playing drums here, these could easily just be an Ace Frehley solo album contribution. That’s fine, nothing wrong with that, but it’s hardly a band if members are not only writing songs on their own but also playing them on their own! In the same scenario, Paul contributes four songs to the album, all co-written with Poncia, two of which, “Tomorrow” and “Easy as It Seems”, he does an Ace by playing all of the guitars and bass guitar himself, while on “Shandi” he plays all guitars with the bass being played by Tom Harper. That means that Gene only plays bass on less than half of the songs on the album, something that is not an unusual occurrence through the history of the band, especially from this point going forward. He co-writes three songs on the album, all of which he sings. All of this gives the impression of three artists all writing their own solo albums, and combining them under the banner of Kiss, rather than the band Kiss writing and performing an album.
Then there is the one song on the album that is written by no one in the band, Gerard McMahon. Apparently, the producer had heard the demo of this song made by McMahon and enjoyed it so much that he brought it to Paul, who decided that he wanted to record it. Further to this is the influence of said producer Vini Poncia, who has co-writing contributions on no less than 8 of the 11 tracks. This would seem to suggest that he was influential in pushing the album’s direction towards a certain style, and as with the preceding album “Dynasty” it is reflected in the overall sound musically.
That opening track of the album, “Is That You?” sets a tone, one that does differ from what came on the previous album, and slightly differentiates what is to come. It’s a solid song that is not the kind of album starter that the band usually comes up with. Take a look at the Side 1 Track 1 songs from previous albums, and you’ll agree this doesn’t stack up against them – but perhaps more significantly, doesn’t give this album the starter it needs. Next comes “Shandi”, which if you live in Australia you know better than any other song on the album. It reached #5 on the singles chart in our fair land, which led to it being played live every single time the band came to Australia. Even on the last tour Paul still played it,.. and was surrounded by many adoring women... all as old as Paul himself. Anyway... it’s a perfectly fine ballad track that for me fits like a glove at the OJ Simpson trial. Ace’s “Talk to Me” follows, moving along the same lines lyrically as the opening tracks, but at least has an Ace solo within its boundaries to create some sort of excitement.
Gene’s “Naked City” has three co-writers, including Poncia and Peppy Castro, but also BOB Kulick, who also contributes extra guitar to the song. This is stylised very much in the pop genre of the era, much like songs written for movie soundtracks at the time. And yet, once again, Gene has found a way to make this an eminently enjoyable song, with Ace’s solo providing a lift as well, even though it is characteristically not what you expect from this band. Again, a solo track rather than a Kiss band track. Side one concludes with “What Makes the World Go ‘Round”, a song where parts remind me of ELO’s, “It’s a Living Thing”, and which for me encapsulates just where this album sits in regard to its genre and the style it has, because it is styled as pop rock, and that is definitely where “Unmasked” sits”.
“Tomorrow”, which opens side two, is pure pop rock, straight from 1980’s FM radio. It is noticeable too that Paul plays all of the guitars and bass on this track, because the one thing that would have lifted this song to a Kiss standard would have been an Ace guitar solo, but he doesn’t appear on this song and itis the lesser for it. It is pure treacle being poured over this whole track, and it definitely misses the harder guitar sound that would have given it a far better finish.
“Two Sides of the Coin” mirrors “Talk to Me” but with a harder rock friendly attitude, closer to what most Kiss fans would have been looking for on this album. Ace is always a favourite and while his vocals are sometimes only serviceable, he always induces more excitement in his songs through his guitar alone. Gene then comes at us with one of his typically themed songs “She’s So European”, one that is bouncy enough if you can ignore the almost AI written lyrics involved. “Easy as It Seems” is my favourite Paul track on the album, this one sounds much more like the best Stanley tracks that we know. He plays all guitars here again but has a nice little solo spot through the middle that enhances the song as well. It’s the tempo really, and his own backing vocals, that make this track one of the best here.
Unlike his other two tracks which he wrote by himself, there is a funk disco feel about Ace’s “Torpedo Girl” that feels as though it has been overtly influenced by the co-writer of the track. It seems so far out of place on this album, on what has come before it, even for an album that is posturing for the marketplace of the era. The album closes out with Gene’s “You’re All That I Want”, one which lyrically once again you can guess the way it is heading by the title. It’s another track that in the modern age of AI you can imagine that computers would have little difficulty in transcribing a Gene Simmons song on the basis of lyrical content.

Kiss. Would you like my backstory again? If you are coming in late to this podcast, here’s the short version. My eldest cousin was a huge fan of Kiss at about the period this album was released, and whenever we visited my grandmother with whom he was living at the time I would see and hear Kiss all the time. I knew “I Was Made for Loving You” through wining a dance competition at school to that song. And my first true discovery of the band on my own terms was through the album “Crazy Nights”. It is a tale that has been fleshed out more thoroughly in past episodes here and on my previous podcast. No doubt it will come again very soon as the next album reaches its anniversary.
As to this album, it wasn’t one I heard until I began to go back and find all of the albums in the Kiss discography. “Unmasked” for me came up about the time of the great reunion in the mid-1990's, when there came a chance that I might actually get to see them live in concert. What were my thoughts? Yeah, it was fine. I didn’t jump out of my skin about it, it didn’t have much that I was looking for at that time. I listened to it, and then when it came to my Kiss fix it was back to those albums that I truly loved. And on the few occasions over the years that I have listened to it my thoughts have never really changed. It was okay, when I put it on I could listen to it, but there was nothing that blew my mind about it.
So we come to the past two weeks, when my CD has again come off of the shelves and returned to my CD player. What did I expect to find when I pressed the play button this time? To be fair I was looking forward to listening to the album again. Through the course of my podcasting on my album collection, “Unmasked” is one of the last albums that I have come to over the almost four year period I have been doing this, which means that I have listened to almost all of the Kiss discography at some point over that time period, and this is one of the final pieces of that puzzle.
What did I find? I found an album that has noticeable flaws, that has the cracks opening that would eventually very soon see changes within the group and the band and its music. It is an album composed of its time, by individuals who perhaps were only held together by the vision of a producer who through his own intervention and/or contribution gave the album a contemporary sound that may not have agreed with the old fans but maybe was able to attract the younger fans. Whether any of that is true or not I cannot confirm or deny, it is more or less what I have gathered from listening to the album and reading books and articles from the time period.
For my own tastes, “Unmasked” is an average album. I don’t think it is a bad album, but it also isn’t a great album. It doesn’t have anything that jumps out and grabs you by the throat, and makes you want to play the album over and over. There are some good tunes, there are some nice riffs, there are some reasonable passages of songs that get you in the Kiss mood. It’s just that it doesn’t have the material or performances that push it to the being what I’d consider better than average.
There are 20 studio Kiss albums. For me, this one ranks at #15. It’s okay. I don’t mind listening to it. But I’ve now listened to it 12 times over the last couple of weeks. It is really time for me to try something else, something that makes me excited about listening to music again.

1294. Lock Up the Wolves. 1990. 3.5/5

Upon his decision to leave Black Sabbath in 1982 and start up his own band under the name Dio, Ronnie James Dio and his new entity had had wonderful success on the back of albums such as “Holy Diver”, “The Last in Line” and “Sacred Heart”. The band had created songs that had captured the imagination of heavy metal fans around the world, and continued the rise of Dio that he had ascended through his stints in Rainbow and Black Sabbath. The band had parted ways with guitarist Vivian Campbell on the tour to promote the “Sacred Heart” album, and Craig Goldy had come in to replace him, and then write and perform also on that album’s follow up “Dream Evil”. In some ways, the first real slide of Ronnie James Dio’s career began at this point. “Dream Evil” did not do as well in sales as the previous three albums had, and while there had been a building dissention from previous gutiarist Campbell in regard to money, it seems that the problems were not just limited to the band’s first guitarist. Following the tour, Goldy also found himself on the outer and out of the band.
This event created a worldwide search. Dio opened up the position to almost a public ballot. He encouraged anyone and everyone to send their demo tapes in as he searched for a suitable replacement, someone he felt could come in and be the breath of fresh air that the band needed. Dio claimed at the time that he received and listened to over 5000 demo tapes from aspiring band members from around the world. One of those was a 17 year old from England called Rowan Robertson. He had become aware of Goldy’s departure, and though he went through the channels of the band’s management in order to put his name in contention he was unsuccessful, as he was when he also went through Dio’s then record company Phonogram Records. Undeterred, Robertson then reached out to the band’s official fan club, hoping someone with closer ties to the frontman could help him get in contact with him. This ended up succeeding and his demo tape ended up in the hands of Dio, and led to an audition for the role, for which he was flown to Los Angeles to do so in front of Ronnie and Wendy Dio. A second audition followed, and not long after Robertson was made an offer to join the band, with the official announcement made on 20 July 1989. As you can imagine, this became the focal point for all the music media for the next 10 months leading up to the release of the album.
Robertson’s arrival in the band, perhaps surprisingly and through no fault of his own, ended up spelling the end of the remainder of the original members of Dio. Keyboardist Claude Schnell was the first to go, soon replaced by Jens Johanssen who moved on from Yngwie Malmsteen’s band to join Dio. After this, bass guitarist Jimmy Bain was also moved on, replaced by Teddy Cook, the almost equally as unknown as the newly hired guitarist. Finally, just two weeks before the band was to head into the studio to record the newly written album, Vinny Appice also left the band. Appice later confirmed that he was there until the album was written and left because he felt "This is not Dio" with "all these young guys in the band". As his replacement, Dio brought in his friend Simon Wright, who had moved on after a successful stint with AC/DC to take up the role.
In an article in the Los Angeles Times in September 1990, Ronnie was quoted as follows as to his decision to break up his original band, suggesting he was prompted by his sense that the band members had lost interest. “They just weren’t putting out anymore,” he said. “I’m very intense about what I do, and the guys in the band seemed to be merely going through the motions, bringing their lunch to work and looking at the clock, waiting to go home. And I just can’t go for that. I view this as a brand-new band, with four new guys and one old guy--me,” Dio said. “And after a three-year layover, we’re essentially starting all over again.”

“Wild One” comes out of the block immediately with Simon Wright’s drum intro to the band followed by the opening riff from new guitarist Rowan. The tempo is immediately up and about, and everything seems to lock in from the start. As the opening to the new era of the band, and indeed the completely converted line up of the band, it hits all the right moves from the outset. Rowan is giving plenty of opportunity to showcase his wares, to show why he has been brought in at such a tender age to be Dio’s new gunslinger. Straight up he is more Goldy than Campbell but there is nothing wrong with that. This is followed by the more subdued pace but increasingly brooding mood of “Born on the Sun”. There is a fantastic building of intensity through the song in both music and from the frontman himself. Dio’s vocals hit those gritty highs throughout the song, and Rowan sounds absolutely spectacular on this track, really ramping up the energy to make it as wonderful as it is.
From this point on, it is noticeable about the change within the structure of the album, the direction that this fifth Dio album has decided to take that differs with the albums that have preceded it. The tempo from this point on more or less sits in a slow mid-tempo, marking the way that Ronnie himself seems to have wanted the music to flow. “Hey Angel” is highlighted by Rowan's great solo in the middle of the song, which almost sounds like it is trying to get this song to speed up and come in at a better tempo that would improve its output markedly. It doesn’t succeed, but it still pushes Dio’s vocals to a more pleasing output as the song reaches its conclusion. “Between Two Hearts” has a passion about the vocals, most especially in the verses rather than the chorus, but the morbidly slow tempo that accompanies it holds back its true enjoyment as a result. This acts as one of the best examples of tracks on this album that sound reasonable in places but just need to ramp up the actual speed of the musical output to get it to an enjoyment level that would please the long-time fans of the band. “Night Music” is slightly brighter but follows the same pattern, a slower tempo riff that sounds terrific but isn’t allowed to break the barriers et for it. Indeed, the groove of the chorus here is terrific and Rowan’s solo again sounds great, but it just feels like this is saddled again with the grind and broken gears of a tractor trawling through mud. Ronnie’s vocals ramp up the end of the track again, sometimes making you wonder why he is leaving the real power for the end.
When it comes to the title track this continues in spades. “Lock Up the Wolves” possibly even slows down even further than anything to this point of the album. And yes, I’m aware that music doesn’t have to be fast or even mid pace to be great and entertaining. But this really does border on going backwards, so slow is the tempo. Just getting to the first drumbeat and riff feels like an eternity... and then another terminal pause before the next one. At times it is amazing that Simon has a tempo to keep on the drums because it drags so slowly between drumbeat and hi hats crashes. This song goes for 8.5 minutes but feels so much longer because of its terminal tempo. That’s a tough way to complete side one of the album. Then you flip it over and begin side two, and you get pretty much the same thing with “Evil on Queen Street”. Dio’s vocals take on the main role once again here, vocalising his lyrical story, while his band sit in their mono tempo track with the basic drum and bass rhythm pattern holding together underneath, and Rowan’s basic riff settling into the walk of the song. Both of these songs are well designed to set up the visual of the story being told with the desolate and moody characteristics of the music. But coming in to listen to a Dio album and hearing these songs back to back? That’s a tough ask. Ronnie’s vocals do climb at the back end of the song to bring some passion and vitality to the track.
The back third of the album does spend a little time trying to pull itself out of the mire in regards to tempo, and while it does do that it is the mood that is hard to replace. “Walk on Water” brings us back to a mid-tempo range, Dio singing in a less ominous and a more tale-telling fashion. This song is reminiscent of what the band produced for the “Dream Evil” album, which given the fact that all of those members had now gone is slightly ironic. “Twisted” pulls back a fraction again, and also has a less exciting rhythm style about it, one that doesn’t allow Rowan to break free of the spell easily and put his own mark on the track. “Why Are They Watching Me” is perhaps the fastest tempo of the album after the opening track, with Simon and Teddy even allowed to break their spell as well. The shame is that the song fades out as Rowan lets rip on a second solo, and yet it takes it with it as it fades into nothing. Such a shame, just give us 30 more seconds and I think it would have been a terrific finish. The album then closes out with the autobiographical “My Eyes”, the lyrics covering songs and albums and bands of Ronnie’s career all meshed into the track, perhaps fittingly closing the album on a high note. Indeed, perhaps in many ways once this album was released, it could have felt as though it was an appropriate way to bring to a close the bands days, which for a time was not so far away from the truth as may have been imagined.

Oh my... I was soooo looking forward to the release of this album. And due to the early announcement of the recruitment of a new guitarist in Rowan Robertson so early on, and the constant reporting of it in magazines such as Hot Metal and Kerrang and Metal Hammer, I had about a year to wait before its release. And that was interminable at the time. “Dream Evil” had been released right on the cusp of the end of our school years, and is still a burning memory of our final days of high school. So yes, I was excited and could wait to get this album.
It’s fair to say that I have rarely been as disappointed in my life as I was when I got this album.
I bought this on vinyl at Utopia Records as soon as I possibly could after its release... and was almost morbidly horrified at what I heard. This was so far away from what I had expected it to be, there are points of the universe as yet undiscovered that would be closer to what I thought this album would be like. Yes, it was an entirely new band, but the songs were actually mostly written by the same writers as they had had for years. Dio Bain Appice, and Robertson. So how could they be so different? Was it Rowan who was to blame for this? Now, let’s cut this off before we go any further. You get the feeling that Rowan was very tied up in what he was allowed to do to express himself musically on this album. That’s not unusual for a Dio-helmed album. He was a kid, a very YOUNG kid, and on his first ever project he was always going to have to tow the line pretty much all the way. There are some really terrific moments on this album where he shows what he can do, and they were then and still are today wonderful to listen to. And Ronnie writes all the melodies and the structure of the tracks. So no, Rowan was not to blame. It is harsh that he had to shoulder a fair percentage of the disappointment fans had with this album on its release. To be fair, it is such a shame that he didn’t get a second album on which to collaborate and perform with this band and perhaps give a clearer indication of his own songwriting abilities.
Dio drags back the tempo on this album, at which point it is molasses-slow for no real discernible reason. There is no proof of the following statement, but it is my own theory regarding this album, and how much of his band’s music goes from this point onwards. Ronnie often spoke about wanting to bring the heavy to his music. But by heavy it often seemed from 1989 onwards as though what he wanted was to slow down the songs, accentuate the guitar riffs and express himself with a heavier droning pace, which seems to be what he considered a heavier kind of music. It isn’t doom because that’s not what his guitarists played best. But it is deathly slow, and without those exciting break out riff and solos from his chosen guitarist it becomes a lot less interesting than it may be. It’s a real shame.
The drumming too is very much in the style that you would expect Vinny Appice to play in, which certainly binds with the account that his replacement came after all of the songs had been written, and Wright came in and played a close approximation to what Vinny would have played anyway. It sounds fine, but Simon is a different type of drummer, something he was able to show on Dio’s later albums.
So yes, when this album came out I was mortified. Compared to so many of the other amazing releases in the year 1990, this was a deep dark pit of disappointment.
Flash forward seven years. Dio has been back to Black Sabbath to release one of the heaviest albums ever recorded, one so different from this one that it is hard to imagine they reside so closely together. Then he’s out again, and he’s back with Dio and has released two more albums with the same sort of polarising of opinion that “Lock up the Wolves” produced. “Strange Highways” mirrors “Dehumanizer” in places, while “Angry Machines” is almost an industrial metal album, so completely unlike anything Dio has ever produced that it invoked from me a question – was this just like “Lock Up the Wolves”? So I reached into the collection, to an album I likely hadn’t listened to in seven years. And I put it on. And what I found was an album... that wasn’t as bad as I remembered it. Yep, it was still molasses-slow in the middle as I remembered it, but overall I thought it was okay. And for the first time I found myself wondering... if Dio had released THIS album in 1995 or 1996, would it have been better received? The changes in music had been stark in that time, and perhaps it better suited what heavy music had BECOME than what was prevalent at the time it was released.
Since then, I have listened to “Lock Up the Wolves” more often. It started off only occasionally, but over the years it has become a more regular occurrence. And although I still remember how much I thought this was a great big pile of crap when it was first released, now I really enjoy it. Once I got used to the pace of the album, I think there is a lot of great material to listen to here. And I am biased when it comes to Dio the band and Dio the artist. That much will always be true. And this will never be regarded as a great Dio album by anyone. But even over the last couple of weeks, having listened to it many many times again, I still love the mood and the way the album comes together. Sure, out of the ten studio albums the band released I would rank this at 9, I still love hearing Rowan’s only contribution to the band, and I still love listening to Ronnie. This is definitely a variant when comes to the band Dio’s discography, but being this far separated from the era makes this a far easier listen than it was 35 years ago.

1293. Various Artists / Music from and Inspired by M: I-2. 2000. 3/5

When the first Mission: Impossible film was released in 1996, it was a smash hit. The remake of the original TV series from the 1960’s and 1970’s was a rollicking film full of amazing action sequences and the required surprise ending. And as always, it also left the door ajar for a sequel to be made. So when it was announced that Mission Impossible 2 was going to be made it was big news. For Australians, the fact that it was to be filmed in Sydney also gave it an extra bit of enticement. The film itself? Well many people think it is terrific. I was always underwhelmed by it.
What the producers did decide on that had some merit was to load up a soundtrack album with some of the heavy hitter bands of the time, and give them the chance to create a song that could be featured in the movie itself. When compiled, some of those songs were featured in the movie, while the rest were put together on this album, which was stamped as “Music FROM and INSPIRED BY Mission Impossible 2”, so as to cover their backsides when it was finally revealed that not all of the tracks appeared in the film itself. All of the songs were recorded and produced by the bands themselves.
And it is an eclectic selection of bands and artists, which is very much a snapshot of heavy music at the time. Because it is dominated by nu-metal bands and alternative metal and rock bands. And if you are fans of that era in music then this album is most probably already in your collection. But if you are not fans of the standard of the turn of the century, then there are probably a lot of reasons not to go near this album. As a study of the era though it acts as an interesting collection to listen to and remember just where certain parts of the world were at when it came to the evolution of heavy music. It isn’t really necessary to tie this to the movie, but then again perhaps the enjoyment of the movie or the music comes from how you view the other.

The Australian version of this album has an overloaded 19 tracks on it, and the running time in total is an hour and 20 minutes. It’s almost as long as some films, though not as long as this one was. There are three bonus songs tacked onto the end of the regular 16 songs, one is “Iko Iko” by Zap Mama, an electronica reggae version of this well covered song, while the other two are by Australian artists, “Sucker” by 28 Days is a solid hard rock track from this very good Aussie group, ne that keeps the intensity high, while the “Theme from Mission Impossible” by Josh Abrahams is a nice way to exit the album.
Back to the top of the track list and this is where the heavy hitters of the album reside, to drag you in from the outset. Leading us off is Limp Bizkit with “Take a Look Around”, which utilises the main riff of the Mission Impossible theme tune as its basis and works onwards from there. I can’t say that I know a lot of Limp Bizkit and most of what I hear is not really my cup of tea, but I do like this song, the way it moves from moody to heavy to clear to raging. The song is a little long at over five minutes but it's a good listen. Metallica’s “I Disappear” follows, and interesting bridge between what they had written for “Reload” and would then write for “St Anger”. It is more or less their nu-metal anthem, one they made a film clip for that was probably better than the film itself, and which would go on to be the catalyst for their legal action over the peer-to-peer networking application Napster when a demo of this song appeared on that network well before the release of this album, or the song as a single. It is sometimes overlooked as it doesn’t actually appear on a Metallica album. Rob Zombie’s “Scum of the Earth” is typical Rob Zombie and blasts through the album as a result. The Butthole Surfers’ “They Came In” is an interestingly recorded track, full of differing instrumental effects that showcase a side of the band that isn’t always obvious. Then “Rocket Science” by The Pimps mirrors the Limp Bizkit style of rap and metal grooves. The cover version of Pink Floyd’s “Have a Cigar” is performed by the Foo Fighters with two differing performers. Firstly, the song is sung by drummer Taylor Hawkins, who gives the vocals a whole new sound. He is obviously a fan of the band, and his performance is passionate as a result. This also has Brian May guesting on guitar which gives the solo through the track lovely sound that only May can provide, as a counter to David Gilmour’s original. It’s an interesting interpretation of the track. Chris Cornell’s “Mission 2000” has moments that sound great, when his vocals hit those tones that we all know and love, but the track itself does fall a little flat. On the other hand, Godsmack’s “Going Down” was recorded during sessions for their debut album but not used, and was recycled here and then on their sophomore album.
Into the second half of the album, the lesser known acts get their chance to showcase their wares, and the range of genres of music here extends as a result. “What U Lookin’ At?” by Uncle Kraker, who had worked with Kid Rock up to this point in time, has a similar vibe to his music here. “Backwards” by Apartment 26 sits in an alt-metal phase, and given the relative newness of the band is an interesting choice for this soundtrack. The song is solid but is very rigid in composition. Diffuser’s “Karma” is very alternative rock of the late 1990’s but is an enjoyable trip down typical movie soundtrack songs from teenage coming-of-age movies of the day. It could easily have been in the movie “Empire Records” for instance. Buckcherry’s “Alone” is a standard hard rock offering from the band here.
Powderfinger’s “Not my Kinda Scene” is the standout from the back half of the album, the professional and excellence of their music immediately noticeable around the other tracks here. Tori Amos’s “Carnival” will please her fans but is not instantly brilliant, while the Hans Zimmer track “Nyah” seems like something that could easily have been omitted at the final hurdle.

I remember buying this after the movie had been released at the cinemas. I’d been to see the movie, and as I mentioned earlier, I had been underwhelmed with it. It isn’t a patch on the first movie, the story and the stunts. But some of the music from the movie I thought had been pretty good, and having sat through the credits in order to see who contributed to the songs I decided I may as well go out and buy the CD of the soundtrack. And, overall, it was good. I wouldn’t say that I’m a fan of all of the bands on the album, but I enjoyed about half of the album from the first couple of listens.
I have quite a number of soundtracks in my collection, and they all get bought after I’ve seen a movie and like the music, and then they get an occasional listen and then go back on the shelves. This album is no different. I listened to it when I first bought it, and then it has been residing in amongst my other CDs forever. I don’t remember when the last time was that I listened to this album. When I go to listen to music at home, I go for an album by a band, not really a compilation or soundtrack album. Sometimes I’m in the mood for that but mostly I swing the other way. So while I have these soundtrack albums that I have bought over the years, they don’t get much of a run. Which is one of the reasons I do this podcast. To pull these albums off my shelves and give them a chance to listened to once again. Just like Andy and his toys in Toy Story.
I guess I feel about the same way listening to this album today as I did all those years ago. It’s okay. It has some good songs here, and some that are very dated to the era. There are bands and artists here that I have never really listened to much that sound better than I would expect. There are bands here that I generally enjoy that have offered a reasonable track to the album. And as with all soundtrack albums there are bands and artists here that I just don’t know at all, and don’t really feel any desire to change that.
I could have skipped doing an episode on this album and it would probably not have bothered anyone in the world. All it would have done was annoy me because I knew it had an anniversary, and it was in my collection, and I passed over it. So now it is done. Everything is in order. And we can all move onto the next episode.

1292. Bruce Dickinson / Tattooed Millionaire. 1990. 3.5/5

All bands have a peak, a time when they could not be possibly any higher in their career than they are at a certain point. It is not something that they necessarily know at that time, but that after the event they can look back and pinpoint just when it is, and hopefully smile and say ‘yeah, that was something wasn’t it?’. For Iron Maiden, that peak was the conclusion of 1988, following the tour to support the album “Seventh Son of a Seventh Son”. The band had produced seven incredible albums, had solidified their line up over the last four of those albums, and those albums had charted all over the world. In terms of success, Iron Maiden was scaling Everest. Looking back from this point on the timeline, perhaps they had reached the peak of Everest. The band had chosen to take a year off after their demanding schedule over recent years, and several events began to pass that would change the shape of the band over the next few years. Perhaps this was already underway anyway.
In early 1989, Bruce Dickinson was asked if he would like to contribute a track for the movie “A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child”, the next instalment of the Freddie Krueger horror legacy. For this, Dickinson was provided a budget, a studio, and a producer in the experienced and well renowned Chris Tsangarides. Bruce took up the opportunity and roped in an old friend in guitarist Jannick Gers to come in with him, and between them they came up with the song “Bring Your Daughter... to the Slaughter”, which they duly recorded with the help of bass guitarist Andy Carr and drummer Fabio del Rio. So impressed with the results of the song, Zomba Music asked Dickinson if he was interested in recording a solo album. Fellow bandmate Adrian Smith had done the same thing the previous year with his Adrian Smith and Project, an album called “Silver and Gold”. Here was an opportunity for Bruce to fully put himself onto an album for the first time. He hadn’t done so in Samson, and in Iron Maiden he would always be restricted to a degree with what he wanted to do by the numbers of the band and of course the band leader himself. Here, he would be the band leader, and could express himself in any way he saw fit. The result was Bruce accepting the offer, and by keeping the same band and the same album producer, they spent a two week period in the studio creating what was to become the album “Tattooed Millionaire”, one that history tells us was the precursor to what was to unfold over the next two years and into the following decade.

One decision that was made did come from Bruce’s main band, one that showed that the influence of Steve Harris extended beyond that band’s reach. Steve had been so impressed with Bruce’s song “Bring Your Daughter to the Slaughter” that he decided that he wanted to put it on Iron Maiden’s next album. That meant suppressing the version that had been released on the movie soundtrack, but it also meant that Bruce was unable to use it on his own solo album. Now, whether he would have ended up doing that or not is still something that has been left unresolved over the years, but if it had been added it may have made this album even more important than it became regarding shaping the future.
The album opens with the track that is going to set the style of the album, and “Son of a Gun” does that with a cool set of opening lyrics, with Bruce’s vocal set “Holy was the preacher, Riding on his rig of steel in the rising sun, This was no grim reaper but a man with a smile who took a pride in a job well done
Oh, in a bloodred sunrise, He's preaching conversion, as you lay down and die”. Sitting back in a slower than expected tempo, it does give Bruce the opportunity to utilise all of his vocal range and style, and also Jannick to almost croon along on lead guitar throughout as well. It actually works surprisingly well as the opening track to the album. The title track “Tattooed Millionaire” gives Bruce the opportunity to give a spray to as many people and subjects as he feels like doing. The harmony vocals through the bridge and chorus work really well, especially given that they are not overused in his other more famous band. Mixed with the harsher vocals through the verses, the song itself blends nicely into the subject matter of the lyrics, and the bass and drums act as the base of the song underneath throughout. Bruce is able to touch on subject matter that wouldn't fit in Iron Maiden at that time, though it is amusing that that was to change very soon. It’s another excellent entry to the start of the album.
“Born in ‘58” is a nicely performed almost-autobiographical song, focusing on growing up with his grandparents, and the way people were in those days and how the events of the time affected their lives and his upbringings. Once again, it isn’t a fast song but is tinged with a well performed melody, and it is the reflective thought brought about by Bruce’s words and singing that gives the song its emotional base. The other big player in this song is that by this point of the album it is noticeable with surety that this album is as far away from an Iron Maiden album as you could imagine. Unless you have heard Adrian Smith’s album that and been released the previous year. “Hell on Wheels” sticks to the slower mid-tempo, with Bruce incorporating a harsher vocal in a chanting style for most of the track, until we reach the chorus where his harmony dual vocals return to remind us of his primary vocal asset. Jannick gives us a nice guitar solo through the middle of the song that lifts it above the average as a result. “Gypsy Road” might stick to the same tempo as those songs before it, but it falls back to a ballad state, another reflective tome about leaving the high life and leading the simpler life that the gypsies were want to do. It may well have been something that was on Bruce’s mind when composing the song, that perhaps he wanted a simpler life than life always on the road. These three songs back to back provide a real point of difference in Bruce’s style, where even his vocals stylings are marked with change.
“Dive! Dive! Dive!” has lyrics that play up the urban myth about the characters names in the British comic “Captain Pugwash” and descends into a bucketful of double entendres that proliferate the song. At the time this was written it had been suggested not only some sections of the public but also the media that the characters in the cartoon had double meanings, but this was eventually retracted publicly when the author John Ryan took those media barons to court. Instead, this song stands as a monument to what was heard snickered behind hands in schoolyards around the country. Whether that is a good thing or not is open to public opinion. The song itself is more upbeat that most of the offerings before this and stands out as a result. It shouldn’t be a surprise that Bruce wrote a song of this nature, given the subject matter of the novel he was about to publish called “The Adventures of Lord Iffy Boatrace”. This is followed by “All the Young Dudes” a cover of the Mott the Hoople song which is given loving treatment here. Indeed, for me at least, I think it is the best version of this song.
The final three songs of the album, I feel, have a hard time living up to the rest of the album. “Lickin’ the Gun” is an energetic anti-authority song with Bruce spitting out his diatribe faster than you can sing along, although most of it isn’t singing but more standing on his soapbox and unloading on the protagonists of the song. “Zulu Lulu” lyrically at least is Bruce’s Kiss song, giving away more than he should but never the whole story in the same position. And the closing song “No Lies”, while preaching more of the evils of the world, just becomes far too repetitive musically and lyrically to fully enjoy. And with that, in the final analysis, is what you are left with here by the end of the album. It covers the gamut when it comes to musical style and also lyrical tales. There is something for almost everyone, but perhaps not enough of it to offset the pieces that you may well not adhere to.

I don’t think there is much doubt that when I bought this album on its release, I was expecting something truly amazing. I didn’t expect Iron Maiden, but I expected something that would showcase Bruce’s amazing vocals, the range and the drawn out melodies, and music that would also enhance all of those qualities. I guess I was expecting exactly what I got from the “Bring Your Daughter to the Slaughter” single from the A Nightmare on Elm Street 5 soundtrack. THAT’S what I was expecting – nay, demanding! An album of that kind of attitude and excitement and joy. And as we all know, that kind of expectation can cruel an album before you even hear it. And for me at that time, when I bought it and first played it... it didn’t! In fact, I was taken with this album immediately. Sure, it could hardly have been much more different from what I was hoping for, but at that time it still intrigued me. The mood swings of the album I thought at the time were enjoyable, the songs n the opening half of th album were all great. I swung with the punches when it came to the second half of the album, really not even noticing any change in quality or style, just play the album through, and then go back and start it all again. This continued to be a regular event for about 3 months, right up until a plethora of amazing albums were released in the second half of 1990. And right up until that time, I enjoyed this album without any qualms. It was Bruce doing a solo project to showcase some of his love of other styles of hard rock music with a friend. It was enjoyable. And of course, it was a one-off thing, so there was no need to thinkabout it leading to anything else. Well, once again, shows what you know Bill!
I wouldn’t say that my opinion of the album changed over the proceeding years, but it explained a lot about the seeding of Bruce’s eventual split with Iron maiden and the fostering of a solo career. Everything that appears on this album could not have been done in the environment of Iron Maiden, and the fact that it had been reasonably well received even though it is not a heavy metal album must have said to Bruce that it was perhaps a better outlet for him where he could make all of the decisions without have to go through a consensus of opinion. Or the opinion of one other. The direction of Bruce’s two solo album’s following that split - “Balls to Picasso” and “Skunkworks” - brought home to me the differences and adaptations that Bruce had within his volume of work, and funnelled back to this album, and why it was an important thing that he did at that time. Because he would have known going into this solo album that he would have a large majority of Iron Maiden fans who would buy it no matter what, and that a reasonable percentage of those fans who did would be unhappy with the results.
I have spent the last week listening to this album again, and it has been some time since I last gave it a listen. Unlike many others, I have no negative thoughts or connotations about “Tattooed Millionaire”. I accepted its change of style and direction when I first heard it, and I am in no different position today. I rarely analyse an album so closely as to ascertain why I love or hate or am ambivalent about a riff, a rhythm section, a track or an album. That is as true as it can possibly be when it comes to “Tattooed Millionaire”. I still like “Son of a Gun”, the way it opens the album. I really enjoy he title track and “Born in ‘58” and “Hell on Wheels”. I love the version of “All the Young Dudes”, it is given a loving performance, and the closer “No Lies”. All of this I still sing along to and enjoy. Yes, a big part of that is nostalgia, because I played this a lot when I first got it, in the absence of a new Iron Maiden album, and it does remind me of that time. And the other songs here? Well, they are tolerable. They are a part of the album, and thus when I listen, I listen to it all. They aren’t bad but they have dated.
This album marked not only a skew in Bruce Dickinson’s career path, but also that of Iron Maiden. The change of musicians and how that affected both Maiden and Bruce himself, the change of music direction created by the times and the change in personnel. All of that can be traced to Adrian’s “Silver and Gold” album and Bruce’s “Tattooed Millionaire” album. Not everything that came from the next decade was good, but as a forerunner to the recombining of all concerned in order to push Maiden into the next century, it was all a very necessary element. “Tattooed Millionaire” may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but I will always think of it as an enjoyable album.

1291. Gogmagog / I Will Be There. 1985. 1/5

One of the most unusual and seemingly unlikely supergroups ever put together by anyone on the history of music is surely the tale of Gogmagog, the so-called brainchild of producer Jonathan King. King had had his own charting single back in 1965, and had been involved in producing bands such as Genesis, 10cc and the Bay City Rollers through the 1960’s and 1970’s. His list of credits in music is extensive, which eventually brought about this venture. But as will be shown, just what the actual end game was for this project is still a mystery.
According to several sources, originally King attempted to put together a supergroup revolving around then Whitesnake lead vocalist David Coverdale, bassist John Entwistle of The Who, and drummer Cozy Powell, all of whom were apparently keen on the project. It was initially imagined for a three track EP to be recorded and released. The lead song was set to be “I Will Be There”, a song composed by Russ Ballard and originally released by him on his solo album titled “Into the Fire” in 1981. Ballard had had a number of hit songs that he had written that were performed by other bands, including “Since You Been Gone” and “I Surrender” by Rainbow, “I Know There’s Something Going On” by ABBA member Frida, “So You Win Again” by Hot Chocolate, “You Can Do Magic” by America, and “New York Groove” and “God Gave Rock and Roll to You” which were covered by Ace Frehley and Kiss respectively. Cozy Powell said he thought that the Ballard song was "the best he's ever written". The other two tracks were composed by King himself, with the imaginative titles of "Living in a Fucking Time Warp" and "It's Illegal, It's Immoral, It's Unhealthy, But It's Fun", the second of which seems highly dubious considering that King was convicted of juvenile sexual abuse 15 years after this project for offences that occurred around this time.
Entwistle in particular was excited as the concept was apparently originally his idea. However, this early line-up wasn't working out, certainly according to later interviews with former Iron Maiden vocalist Paul Di'Anno, and all three soon bowed out. That meant that a new line up for the proposed supergroup had to occur, and that was where Di’Anno came in.
Whatever this supergroup was meant to be, after the departure of the original three participants it looked as though the idea was to find members who were in a similar genre of music to those that had left the building. And as it turned out, their time of recruiting members could not have come at a better time. Paul Di’Anno as vocalist had of course been moved on from Iron Maiden, and then the previous year had recorded his debut eponymous solo album, one where he had changed style completely and also refused to play Iron Maiden songs in his set list on tour. That lineup had now dissolved, and when this opportunity had come about it feels as though it would have been one he couldn’t refuse. In interviews since he has had very little to say about it, and what little that he did say was not complimentary. He was completely dismissive of both the group and producer, referring to the failed project as "...nothing. That was some fucking idiot who got us doing that shit." He was also critical of the fact that none of the band members were able to contribute to writing any of the songs, something that if this HAD gotten off the ground would have been interesting to see if that would have changed.

The rest of the band came together from a similar fate and set of circumstances. Drummer Clive Burr had also just recently felt the wrath of the Maiden machine, and while he had had brief stints with both Trust and Alcatrazz, he was at a loose end before this came along. Unlike his former Maiden partner, Burr was more bullish about the project, saying in a later interview that "the others may not admit it, but this is some of the best stuff any of us has done". Pete Willis had also felt the sting of rejection from Def Leppard, and came on board with all sorts of credits behind him to match his two Iron Maiden contemporaries. Joining him on guitar was Jannick Gers who had been a part of Ian Gillan’s band, and of course had a bright future ahead of him a little way down the road, and on bass guitar was Neil Murray, most recently from Whitesnake but with many credits under his belt. As a who’s who of the recently spurned from very prominent hard rock and heavy metal bands, it would be hard to beat.
As to the songs themselves, even for the time that this was released, it is very formulaic. The producer obviously has a reasonable CV behind him, and Ballad’s propensity for writing songs that made charts and hit the right places musically is unquestioned. But there is certainly nothing here that drags you in has you excited to hear what has been laid down. “I Will Be There” is not standing up against ANY of the songs being released in any hard rock or metal environment at the time and certainly isn’t fitting in with the pop scene at the time either. None of the players in this band does anything here that makes you think “Aaahhh yes, that’s what I remember from so-and-so!”. No guitar solo’s, no dynamic bass lines, no dramatic drum fills. Everything is as basic as it can get. Di’Anno sticks out the front of the mix, but while he is serviceable there’s nothing that is in anyway inspirational. Other bands have made more of Russ Ballard’s songs than this group does here. Perhaps that’s just because the wrong song was picked, or the band was held rigidly to what the producer wanted them to do. As to the other two songs composed by the producer... well, he obviously thought they were top notch tracks that would act as a complement to the main track. But we are stuck in the same situation. There is nothing here for the performers to really get their teeth into and offer their undoubted skills to give the tracks the heart starter they need. Lyrically, musically, they are just dead in the water. The constant over repeating of the song title in the second song is just painfully predictable. And about the only thing that is in any way interesting about the final track is the lyrics that say “Don't put that weed in your mouth, boy, Take that sweet young thing off your lap, If you survive this antisocial behaviour, You're going to have to face a long-term prison rap”. It seems that the producer and writer was self-predicting his own fate in the future with this track!
I only ever tracked down this EP for the interest in the performers. The fact that I hadn’t heard about it at the time it was released more or less led me to believe that it was not something that I needed to hear, but when you have the names of Di’Anno, Gers, Willis, Murray and Burr involved in a band together, it is pretty hard to ignore. So I tracked it down, and was about as underwhelmed as I expected I was going to be. There just wasn’t any chance this was going to be an undiscovered gem, even with Russ Ballard also being involved. Is it worth the time and effort to listen to it? It is like everything in music. Listening once won’t harm anyone. And no matter who you are it seems unlikely you will search it out too often after that. I haven’t. I did burn it to CD when I found it, and have it sitting on my shelves as a result, but if not for this podcast episode it is extremely unlikely it would ever have been utilised. Again. Which, as it turns out, it now the truth of the matter going forward.
Being little more than a contrivance concocted by producer Jonathan King, the band quickly fell apart once he lost interest in his own creation. The five members of the group parted to move on to other projects, some with far greater success than others. And this sunk back into the mists of time, only ever to be revived by some tinpot podcaster in 2025 for the sake of filling some airtime. Some completionists are just kidding themselves, aren’t they?

1290. Black Label Society / Stronger Than Death. 2000. 3.5/5

The continued inconsistency of Ozzy Osbourne and his recording and touring routine was an obvious basis for the formation of what became the band Black Label Society. Ozzy had decided he was going to retire from touring after the “No More Tears” album, which left guitarist Zakk Wylde as a free agent as such. Of course, this retirement was short lived, and in 1995 Ozzy and Zakk recorded the “Ozzmosis” album, though only after writing sessions with Steve Vai had broken down. Then things become a little bit murky. Apparently at the time Zakk was considering an offer to join Guns ‘N Roses, and even though he had been a part of the Osbourne camp since 1988, they decided to replace him for the tour to promote the album rather than wait for him to give an answer one way or the other. Not the first, nor the last, musician, to discover the rough side of the Osbourne tongue.
Eventually, Zakk decided to write and record his own album, under the band name Black Label Society, even though he wrote all of the songs and played all of the instruments except for drums, on which Phil Ondich made his contribution. The album, “Sonic Brew” received good reviews, and as such Zakk moved to create a follow up. Once again for this album, all of the songs were composed by Wylde, as well as him contributing all of the vocals, guitars and piano. Ondich once again provided the drums. There is also a cameo of some heavy duty growing on the title track from Mike Piazza, whose contribution proved as a singer he is a very good baseball catcher. As with the previous album it was released in Japan first in early March, with a bonus track to appease the usual record company rumblings. The US and international version of the album then came six weeks later in mid-April of 2000, under the title of “Stronger Than Death”.

“All For You” makes a statement from the opening of the album. As good an album as his first effort had been, “All for You” hits new tones from the outset. Zakk has all sorts of stuff going on with his guitars, all quintessential Zakk Wylde, all writhing their way through the entire length of the track. Everything about it is sludgy and feels like you are trying to work your way through the mud, but it is glorious in its cacophony and wall of sound coming out of the speakers at you. Zakk’s vocals perfectly offset what he is laying down musically, and the resulting feeling of being buried in a sweaty cramped nightclub having the time of your life is inescapable. Then jump on board for “Phony Smiles & Fake Hellos” where Zakk unleashes lyrically more than musically on something that has obviously really pissed him off. Because here he just unloads with a withering attack on those he sees around him with the titled phoney smiles and fake hellos. Lyrics such as “You're just a fabricated lie, that doesn't exist, Dropping names where ever you go” and “Just a no talent nothing with a ten ton ego, Until your 15 minutes are through” and “Just a powertripping, mindtraping, backstabbing, junkie, Thinking your hype is true” are just a taste of the vitriol Zakk sprays here, and I’m here for every minute of it. A great song.
“13 Years of Grief” isn’t letting up on the anger being sprouted on this album. I don’t know if this was written about someone Zakk knew or about something he saw on the news or was just a conglomerate of things, but he certainly isn’t impressed with the 13-year-old protagonist here who is going to jail for six months. It's a great ugly thumping rhythm riff that accompanies Zakk’s hardcore vocals, and a solo that completes the tale. Tell us what you really think Zakk!!
“Rust” reverts to the slower sadder rose-coloured overtones of what can be described as a ballad, but a smoky sludgy molasses slow one at that. So, not your typical song of this genre, all dripping with Zakk’s southern rock styled acoustic guitar into the guitar solo that does more than enough to indicate this is what this song is without destroying it with something that is a cut and paste mirror image of the genre. Lyrically Zakk holds things together by not going the full ballad route, with lyrics such as “Living, fighting, obsessing, Just as long as I can share it all with you, Yesterday, today, tomorrow, come rain, come shine, Hell and back, the beginning, in-between, till the end of time”. These kinds of songs did become a bit of an overkill on later albums for Zakk and Black Label Society, and “Rust” does go on longer than it needs to, but here, as the exception rather than the rule, it plays out well within the mix of the album. The difference of opinion follows in “Superterrorizer”, a song stretched to beyond five and a half minutes with a minimum of vocals and an expansion of riffage to offset the delay. Zakk’s solo on this song is fantastic, minted by the changing speed and grind of the rhythm riff. This then bleeds into “Counterfeit God”, which is very much in the straight up-and-down grinding song that is reminiscent of much of the metal from the second half of the 1990’s decade. Structure, simple. Guitar rhythm riff, simple. Solo guitar spot, generic. Vocals, just average. It feels like a song with these lyrics that should have had more substance to the music itself, but does not. It is serviceable but is missing some of the grunt from the earlier tracks. So too with “Ain’t Life Grand”, whose lyrics again seem to demand music and vocals that truly bear down on the topic at hand and have some real menace about them. Instead, both tracks come away as feeling incomplete. The vocal qualities of the opening tracks are not transferred here, where one feels that if these songs sounded more like those that they would be a far better fit to this album.
“Just Killing Time” is the second ballad track on the album, this one the piano ballad that Zakk would become more prolific with as the band moved onwards. He certainly puts his own mark on the concept, the piano acting as the basis of the track and the wailing guitar solo extremely prominent through the back half of the song. Zakk does these well, don’t get me wrong, and as a part of this album I am happy to listen to it when I have the album on. Would I CHOOSE to listen to it in other circumstances? Nah.
The title track “Stronger Than Death” pulls itself back into the best style of Black Label Society songs, with Zakk’s grungy sludgy rhythm guitar riff dominating and his squealing lead guitar travelling over the top of this, and Zakk’s vocals back in the lower growling tone that he does so well. The album concludes with the eight minute monster, “Love Reign Down”, something that seems once again a little out of place and perhaps not a necessity. 8 minute epics are not an unusual way to close out an album, and when they pop they really lift the album as a whole. This isn’t a terrible song, but it does drag out when it could have been cut off shorter which to me would have made the end of the album more palatable. But hey, I’m not a songwriter, so what would I know?!

Zakk Wylde had been a favourite as a guitar player ever since he first emerged with Ozzy Osbourne on the album “No Rest for the Wicked”. His style and squeal had made him a great asset and offsider to Ozzy on those albums and tours he participated in. In 2002 I came across his solo album “Book of Shadows”, something that was completely different from what I expected, but still mostly enjoyable. Then I ran across my first experience with Black Label Society, “1919 Eternal” and I thought “what the bloody hell is this?!” It was again different from what I expected, but it was something that still grabbed my attention. From there it was a short trip back to also discover that there were two earlier albums in the band’s catalogue, and so I had to experience those as well.
My first impressions at that time of “Stronger Than Death” was that I enjoyed about half of the album, could quite happily tolerate the other half of the album, but what I probably wanted at that time was more speed, more fire and less sludge. If I could go back now and talk to my 20-odd year younger self I would have said ‘if that’s what you are looking for, you are in the wrong shop’. I was also looking for something that was more like “1919 Eternal” and this, while similar, is not the same. Over time, and more listening to the album, I just let the album be what it was and enjoyed it for the same reason. Getting my own CD copy of the album and being able to hear it in better clarity through my own stereo, made the experience far more enjoyable.
Flash forward to the past week, and the CD has been out again in the Metal Cavern and getting its mandatory listens for this podcast episode. Nothing much has changed for me. There are lots of great songs here, Zakk’s biting lyrics and uniquely sung vocals, and typically wonderful guitar riffs. For the most part the bass is buried under the cacophony of other guitars being played, but that isn’t really too noticeable when listening to the album. The two ballads here are fine but not my favourite parts of the album. At least here there are just the two tracks styled in this fashion. Down the track they did become more prevalent. It is probably the reason why most fans of the band still rate this album as one of if not the best by Zakk and the band, because here at least there is that basis of the metal sound the fans are looking for. For me, of the 11 studio albums the band has released, I would rank it as my second favourite. The other that ranks above it has probably been given away in this closing monologue.
Zakk did find a way back to Ozzy’s band in bits and pieces over the next few years, but what helped set up Black Label Society’s NEXT album was a bunch of songs Zakk actually wrote for Ozzy... but that’s a tale for another episode...

1289. Saxon / Wheels of Steel. 1980. 4/5

Saxon’s so-called ‘overnight success story’ had actually been a process of almost a decade by the time they came to record their sophomore album. The band had originally formed in late 1975, lining up with another band that would become a contemporary of theirs, Iron Maiden. Originally called Son of a Bitch, they had come together through the dissolution of two other bands, S.O.B and Coast. To form a new band, S.O.B’s three remaining members Graham Oliver on guitar, Steve "Dobby" Dawson on bass, and John Walker on drums, joined up with Coast’s members singer and bass player Peter "Biff" Byford, and guitarist Paul Quinn. Byford relinquished the bass guitar and took on the vocalist role solely. Son of a Bitch began moving to a heavier sound and spent the next three years gigging extensively. John Walker eventually moved on and was replaced by Pete Gill. In the process of trying to organise a record deal, the band changed their name to Saxon in order to be less abrasive for record sales and radio airplay, and on the back of supporting established bands such as Motorhead and the Ian Gillan Band, Saxon released their self-titled debut album in May 1979.
The album gave the band music to promote on the road, but there was a nagging doubt about the quality and direction the band was heading. Reviews at the time said that the album was mixed, with differing styles in the songs that gave the impression that the band wasn’t sure of its own musical direction, and that the production of the album was also of a lesser quality than would have been desired. It was released at a time that the music landscape of the UK was changing, with the punk revolution and disco themes quietening after making a major splash for a short period of time. In their wake came new wave and also the slow surge of heavy metal, with bands in leather and denim beginning to find their way into the public spectrum. And for a band like Saxon, who had changed their name to avoid missing out on airplay but had also seen an opportunity to come out hard on their debut album slip away, the remainder of 1979 touring and gigging would have been eye opening for what was growing around them. They would have seen the young bands who were rising in popularity, who were p[cking out the clubs throughout the UK, and the music they were producing. And with this all around them, as the band that had the experience of the past ten years that they had spent getting themselves to this position, and with their contract safe in their hands, they entered the studios in February of 1980 with a mission statement in hand. And that was to produce an album that would not only compete with the material that was coming from these new brash young bands, but to be a leader amongst them. The end result was “Wheels of Steel”.

Whatever demographic the band was aiming for with this album, it pretty much nailed all of them with the opening song to the album “Motorcycle Man”. Remnants of the punk movement? Check. Denim clad rising of heavy metal headbangers? Check. Leather clad motorcyclists? Damn check! It is the perfect opening track for the era, the twin guitar vocal screaming hard core rhythm screams out of the speakers, the solid rhythm buffed up by Biff Byford’s opening vocals. This is bright and breezy, a song that incorporates the best of everything that was being showcased by the rise of the NWOBHM bands of the age. It has the metal guitar and drums that brings out the hand bang, and the added speed that brings the fist pump out as well. A terrific opening to the band’s sophomore album. “Stand Up and Be Counted” tracks in the same vein, and great opening riff to the song carries the momentum from the opening song forward. The twin guitars of Oliver and Quinn are excellent here, playing off the solid rhythmic core of Dawson and Gill while Byford sings anthemically over the top. Another solid track to kick off the album. Then comes the more melodic features of “747 (Strangers on the Night)”, a song that is still regarded by hardcore fans as one of the band’s best achievements. The morphing of the guitars into a melodic rhythm are accentuated by Byford’s excellent vocals throughout. This song shows how much the band had grown in the 12 months since their debut album. Though this differs in style from the opening two tracks, they are still paired together by the tougher riff leading out of the bridge into the melody, and then into the guitar solo section, which leaves no doubt as to the style of music the band is creating here. While the song has its change of mood it doesn’t make a left turn when it comes to style and genre. This is followed by the title track “Wheels of Steel” which mixes double entendres with a simple love of cars song, one designed for listening to while cruising in the car on the highway, fist pumping out of the window. Again, here Saxon has found their marketplace and are driving for it with all pistons pumping... slight pun intended. It closes out what is a superb first half of the album.
Let’s keep heading out down the highway (Judas Priest stylings on standby) with the opening song from side two of the album, “Freeway Mad”. And – if I haven’t mentioned it before – these lyrics are not going to win any awards at any songwriting festival that may have existed in the past or present. This isn’t Shakespeare and it isn’t Stephen King. However, they are fun enough, and the music more than makes up for them. Saxon pour fuel on the fire here again, especially in the solos that highlight and light up the track to its utmost. And who doesn’t like sirens added to a track to make it sound like you are being chased by the law... I mean, it only happens on just about every album released in 1980 on one song... don't believe me? Go back and check out Maiden and Priest and their releases from this year. “Freeway Mad” is a good song, and “See the Light Shining” continues on in the same manner, utilising the same template as has come before it and cannonballing through the second half of the album. I mean, the lyrics are... not nonsensical, but they really aren’t trying too hard to come up with a real story either. The lines “show me the way” and “I can see a light shining, shining down on me” take up three quarters of the song. Repeated almost to ad nauseum. Biff isn’t changing gear of pitch too often either. OK, well while we are at it, let’s just rinse and repeat for “Street Fighting Gang”. Saxon have found their niche and their groove, so there doesn’t seem to be any reason to change it, certainly not in the year and environment they find themselves in musically. The song is as on the same ground as the other tracks here but on a lesser scale, perhaps just through sheer tiredness of bashing that template for another song choice. “Suzie Hold On” acts as the ballad of the album, though really only lyrically not musically. Perhaps hard rock ballad is the best way to describe it, with Biff crooning about wishing her was rich to take away the pain of the protagonist woman he is singing about. Yet musically it holds its form with solid riffing. The album concludes with “Machine Gun”, which fires up the speed again. It also brings forth the war theme, giving the album a well rounded review topically. Jump on that rhythm riff to start the song and drive it all the way to the end, broken up only by the guitar solo stretch in the middle of the track. Hey! It’s not the worst closing track of all time. Indeed, it does the job as has been prescribed by the songs that come before it. It offers that same style and structure that the band nails down from start to finish, and if you are a band beginning to push your way into plain sight, if you have something that works, you hold onto it for dear life.

Saxon is a band that I didn’t really listen to until I reached the early 2000’s, when I reached a point at which I decided to go back and try and find music from all of the NWOBHM bands that I had missed on my way through my discovery of the heavy metal genre. As per usual this was not a deliberate thing, and I of course KNEW of the band themselves, but as none of my friends had any Saxon in their collection either, it just wasn’t something I gravitated towards. Eventually I found an opportunity and a desire to go back and find these bands and their albums, and that was when I first began to listen to Saxon the band. And while I got the first four albums and live album all in one hit, I still worked my way through each of them in a methodical way. So, I wasn’t overly enamoured by the first album, this one was different from the start.
Why? Because it SOUNDED like an album from 1980, and that was pretty much what I was looking for. I wanted to seek out other albums of that time in music history from the UK in particular, that found their mark in the rising force of what was going on. I went in with an open mind, and though I didn’t find that on the self-titled album, this one hit the mark. That opening side of the album is electrifying from an historical point of view. It channels everything that was best about the era of the music and puts it down on vinyl. It is a leap forward from their first album, with songs and music that makes you sit up and take notice. Those four tracks - “Motorcycle Man” (which I had first heard on Lars Ulrich's ‘79 Revisited best of collection of the NWOBHM era), “Stand Up and Be Counted”, “747 (Strangers in the Night)” and “Wheels of Steel” is a terrific opening half of an album, a standard that the second side doesn’t quite match but still has very good moments on it. Even today, it still holds up pretty well.
And that is what I have gotten from the album over the past couple of days, having put it back on a listen for the first time in a few years. It immediately brings energy to the fore, a tempo that catches the ear and makes you think “oh yeah, that’s right. Saxon!” My first listen was at work, and from the first ten seconds I had already been dragged in. Even though I didn’t hear this album until the new century, it immediately takes me back to what that scene must have been like in the UK in 1980 where so many bands were either about to make their mark or were in the process of reaching that point of their career. And for Saxon, this is their first true mark. It’s hard to argue against that. This album went to #5 in the UK album charts, a remarkable achievement given what was happening around them at that time.
Last year as I record this, Saxon released their excellent and underrated latest album “Hell, Fire and Damnation”. It was one I listened to at the time and was surprised by how much I enjoyed it. Listening to this album again over the last couple of days, I have had the same kind of reaction. It’s a little surprising because I know the album and know I have enjoyed it in the past, but it was not one that I thought I would enjoy as much as I have on this reflection. Music is a funny and wonderful thing at times. In the case of “Wheels of Steel”, it is a pleasant one as well.

1288. Vixen / Rev It Up. 1990. 4/5

The late 1980’s was a period in music that was just made for a band like Vixen. Hair metal, glam metal, hard rock, whatever you want to call it, this was a style of music that lent itself to being interpreted by an all girl band who looked the part but could also play music. And that is what Vixen was during that period. Indeed, it is hard to believe that lead guitarist and band founder Jan Kuehnemund was 35 years old when the debut album was released, and that she had been in bands for almost 20 years by the time it was released. The band Vixen was first formed in 1980, and went through a rotational doorway of band member changes through the years. By 1987, the band had settled on the four piece that would take their music forward – Kuehnemund on lead guitar, Janet Gardner on rhythm guitar and lead vocals, Share Pederson on bass and Roxy Petrucci on drums. All three of the other girls were almost a decade younger than the vastly more experienced band leader. Thus in 1988, with glam metal at the height of its popularity, Vixen was signed by EMI and recorded their debut album. Coming on board to champion their career, among others, was Richard Marx, who had already had success as a songwriter and whose own singing career was about to take off. Not only did he co-produce the album, but he co-wrote the lead off track and first single from the album “Edge of a Broken Heart”.
Vixen spent the next year touring the world, supporting acts such as Ozzy Osbourne, Scorpions, and Bon Jovi, as well as headlining their own shows. The videos of the singles were on constant rotation on MTV and other music video programs. Their exposure to their primetime audience was significant. All that was required now was to write and record a follow up album that could take full advantage of the place they had arrived at. Whereas the first album had had several producers and guest writers to craft the perfect album to showcase the band, meticulously planned to take advantage of every asset the band had, this time around there was one producer, Randy Nicklaus, and the girls themselves had a much more hands on approach with the writing of the songs. The result was their sophomore album “Rev It Up”, one that could be seen to be the make or break album of the band’s career.

“Rev It Up” operates in the main on two separate writing partnerships – not solely, but in the main the two partnerships orbit the spectrum and are the ones that create the tides that flow through the album. The two songs that buck this trend are the two power ballads, both of which have different writers from the core group. “It Wouldn’t Be Love” is written by Dianne Warren, best known for those other dreadful power ballad tracks “If I Could Turn Back Time” by Cher and “I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing” by Aerosmith. This song is either one of her throwaway songs that was offered to the band on the back of her reputation, or the band fails to find the kind of energy needed to make this a memorable addition to the album. Coming in as the penultimate track it is the most disappointing offering on this album. It would be far better without it. The other is “Love is a Killer” which was released as the second single from the album. This is written by drummer Roxy Petrucci and Harry Paress. This is a truer power ballad and offers a great insight into Roxy’s writing capabilities. Unlike “It Wouldn’t Be Love”, you can hear the passion exuding from this song, mostly from Janet Gardner’s amazing vocal performance which gives it the gravitas to lift it from an ordinary power ballad into something that at least offers something to hold onto. Jan Kuehnemund’s atypical power solo fits the bill nicely.
One of the two main songwriting partnerships is between Janet Gardner and bass guitarist Share Pedersen, and they contribute five tracks to the album. The opening title track is the first of those, on which Ron Keel also contributes to the writing along with Steve Diamond. It has a solid opening guitar riff, an inbuilt crowd participation bridge and chorus, and nice solo spot from Kuehnemund through the middle section. “Not as Minute Too Soon” is a stock standard hard rock track from the point of view of the girl who is trying to stop making bad decisions in love but of course the hero of the story is making himself appear, and not a minute too soon. Nothing extraordinary here, but one of the solid core of songs an album needs to be a good album. “Hard 16” follows the excellent “Streets in Paradise” and continues with the great energy that track emits. Sure, the lyrics are a familiar story, of the teenage girl leaving home to escape her parents and find a new life, but the song does it justice. The vocals, especially the rise through the last minute of the song from Gardner and Pedersen gives it a deserved great finish. More of the same lyrically follows in “Only a Heartbeat Away”. There aren’t any barriers being broken with the lyrics or musically for that matter, but it is being done n a fun way. Their final contribution is the closing track “Wrecking Ball”, which picks up the pieces of the ballad “It Wouldn’t Be Love” and gives the album the finish that it deserves, a party song that leaves the boy and girl storylines behind and just concentrates on having a great time.
The other writing partnership comes from band leader and lead guitarist Jan Kuehnemund, who has her fingers in the other four songs of the album. The first two are co-written with Jack Conrad and Steve Plunkett, better known for the band Autograph. Both of these songs are the best this album has to offer. The first is the first single from the album, “How Much Love”, a cracking hard rock song made for the times, showcasing all four band members in their best light, with great drumming from Petrucci, perfect rhythm in Gardner’s guitar and Pedersen’s bass and the lead from Kuehnemund herself, not to mention terrific vocals from Janet again with support from her bandmates. The second is “Streets in Paradise”, a rollicking track that picks up the pace of the album and makes all the necessary correction to launch the album once again. You can hear the contributions of Plunkett in both of these songs, but it is the four girls who make these tracks as good as they are. “How Much Love” is a karaoke bar track, “Streets in Paradise” is an arm out the window while driving the car song. "Bad Reputation” is co-written with Janet Gardner and is typical of the tracks they did together on the debut album, bouncy and punchy and with the right amount of attitude to keep the song fun. And finally, “Fallen Hero” is co-written with Petrucci and is driven by her drum beat and Janet’s vocals in a party anthem style that helps flavour this album as the fun time it is to listen to.

I’m sure I must have seen the music videos that proliferated the airwaves from Vixen’s debut album, but I don’t recall them out of hand. At the same time as Lita Ford’s breakthrough self-titled album was creating waves for its style of candy flavoured hard rock and hair metal, Vixen had done the same with their Richard Marx composed “Edge of a Broken Heart”. For me though, I didn’t really discover the band until my fateful first journey to Bali in mid-1991, where I purchased a hundred cassettes for practically nothing of bands I had never thought to check out because the price was too high back home. Here though, I loaded up and brought home a plethora of albums to listen to. And two of those albums were “Vixen” and “Rev It Up”. And when I got around to picking up this album, I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it. I couldn’t even tell you what it was that I enjoyed about it. In the long run, it was just the whole package of the catchy songs and great vocals that were a counterpoint to the much heavier stuff I was listening to at that time that perhaps made the difference. I mean, the music world was changing, and my own listening had narrowed significantly to those heavy metal and thrash metal bands that I loved more than anything else. So finding this album – and quite a few others, which I will get to down the line of this podcast – was actually a circuit breaker, something that gave me music that I could go to on occasions when I didn’t need to listen to those other albums for the thousandth time.
And I won’t lie to you, Vixen have been a guilty pleasure band of mine for those 30-odd years that have passed since that Bali trip. And probably this album in particular. OK, you can toss out “It Wouldn’t Be Love”, it is below the standards of this band and should have been left off the album entirely. But the absolute high calibre of “How Much Love” and “Streets in Paradise”, along with “Rev It Up”, “Love is a Killer”, “Hard 16”, “Bad Reputation” and “Wrecking Ball”, still make this a great listen for me every time I choose to take it out of the CD racks.
When I again brought this out for this episode, I wasn’t sure just how I was going to feel about it, or review it. C’mon, there would be very few people out there who are going to openly admit that they are a huge fan of Vixen’s music. But I am one of those people. And every time I have listened to this album over the past few days, I have been singing along (sometimes far too loud) and air drumming on my work desk. For me, it still hits the right places. If I’m down, it absolutely brings me back into equilibrium. And I know that sometimes I only want half of the tracks here, so I will use the skip button. But when I put it on just because I want an album to listen to, there is no need. Not even for “It Wouldn’t Be Love” ... though that would still be preferable.
Vixen spent the year following the release of this album touring, including headlining their own shows and supporting acts such as KISS and Deep Purple. Unfortunately for them, the music world was in upheaval, and their style of music was facing an eradication on a global scale. While both albums had charted in the US and the UK, the success was not great enough for their record label who was starting to chase the ambulances heading directly for Seattle and the grunge movement, and Vixen were soon dropped and forced to disband. It was not to be the end of their story, but their short rise with their original grouping had come to an end. One might just ask... how much love is it gonna take...