1307. UFO / Covenant. 2000. 2.5/5

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

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

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

1278. UFO / No Place to Run. 1980. 3/5

Through the 1970’s the band UFO had been on a steady rise in popularity and sales, mainly on the back of their harder edged music predominantly on the back of the lead guitar and writing skills of Michael Schenker. Five albums stretching from 1973 to 1978 had proven to be popular through the UK and Europe and into the United States, and the live album recorded on the tour to promote the “Obsession” album, released under the title “Strangers in the Night”, is an amazing retrospective on those years, showcasing the absolute best that the band had to offer in their best setting.
Tensions had arisen over the previous 18 months however, through the antics of Schenker in particular. It had become a habit of his to leave shows prior to them commencing, or sometimes even in the middle of performances. Lead vocalist Phil Mogg in particular felt the relationship between the two strained, while the rest of the band also felt that it as reaching a point of no return. After a show in Berkeley California on October 29, 1978, Schenker officially quit the band. In a retrospective interview in the Classic Rock magazine, bass guitarist Pete Way recalled, "Obviously we were disappointed. It's not easy to promote an album without a guitarist. We were starting to draw a lot of people and the album was selling. But he'd also disappeared on the Lights Out tour, so nothing surprised us."
In his stead, the band hired Paul Chapman to take Schenker’s place for the remainder of the tour and to be a part of the follow up album. Chapman had briefly been a part of the band, touring as the second guitarist alongside Schenker on the ‘Phenomenon’ tour, before leaving to start his own band Lone Star, who released two albums before breaking up with Chapman’s return to UFO. This would be Chapman’s first time recording with the band.
One of the pieces of the puzzle here that seemed to be a great move for the band was the hiring of George Martin to produce the album. Martin of course is legendary as the producer of The Beatles among dozens of other artists, so this must have been seen as coup for the band as they looked to move forward into a new era. The album was written and recorded in Montserrat and London in late 1979 and was released onto the shelves in January of 1980.

Though I did not hear this album until many years after it had been released, I don’t doubt that I went into it in exactly the same way as fans of the band at the time first listened to it – and that is, they were waiting to hear what this band could produce now that the talisman of the group had left. Because although the singer, drummer, bass guitarist, keyboardist and rhythm guitarist remained the same as the band's recent albums, it was Schenker’s fingers in the writing pool along with his magic on the guitar that fans were wondering whether it could be replaced.
The album opens with Chapman’s instrumental “Alpha Centauri” that segues into “Lettin’ Go”, a song that could certainly be seen to be discussing the departure of their previous lead guitarist. Paul Chapman’s credentials by this time cannot be questioned, and all through the album he shows that he is a very good addition to the band. One of the interesting decisions on this album was to do a cover of a 1953 blues song “Mystery Train”, originally written and performed nu the American blues artist Junior Parker. This version by UFO however is of the more rockabilly cover version that was done of the song by Elvis Presley in 1955, and UFO here do try to mix a bit of their own style into it. I’m not sure who brought this song to the band and said ‘hey, we should put this on the album!’ - I mean, it was most likely Chapman – but for a band of the style and genre they were, it seems a strange choice. The version here is fine but not memorable.
“This Fire Burns Tonight” is classic UFO, especially the vocals from Mogg that fall straight into that groove and honey their way through the track. “Gone in the Night” by contrast almost mimics an Elton John song with vocals that sit in that range that he sings at, the prominent keyboards from Paul Raymond and then the blistering guitar solo that leads out the track from Chapman. The solo is the hardest rocking part of the song, with the rest sitting in that pop AOR style that Elton almost made his own during the 1970’s.
Side two opens with “Young Blood” which really just plods along without much in the way of inspiration. It’s a song that you listen to but find it pretty much goes in one ear and then out the other without gaining a reaction. The title track “No Place to Run” follows and packs a bit more punch with a more engaged vocal performance from Mogg and enjoyable solo break again. “Take it or Leave it” though... well, the song name speaks for itself. You can take it or leave it, and I choose to leave it. It's in a softer style much like “Gone in the Night”, almost a country ballad and one that just chills me to the bone. It’s a stinker. “Money Money” ups the tempo and energy to mid-quantities, while the album concludes with “Anyday”, much more representative track of what UFO generally produces, which reproduces the habit of the album of Chapman soloing until the song fades out rather than having an actual conclusion. I’d have thought once or twice, ok, but every song? That’s a bit of overkill if you ask me.

I first discovered UFO in the first year of my ill-fated university career in 1988, when I was crate digging at my then favourite second hand record store in Wollongong, Illawarra Books and Records. It was there I found a 2LP album titled “The Michael Schenker Anthology”, which had a selection of songs from his days in UFO and his own Michael Schenker Group. It was there I first heard songs such as “Doctor Doctor”, “Natural Thing”, “Only You Can Rock Me” and “Lights Out”, and from there I had to dive deeper. Not long after at the same store I purchased “Strangers in the Night” and I was completely hooked. I eventually got copies of the classic five albums that the band released in the 1970’s, but as for the following albums, well, that took longer to obtain. When I did listen to “No Place to Run”, I had thatear on, where I needed to hear something that was going to convince me that UFO could be the same band with the departure of their previous guitarist. And the guitar solos on this album are admirable. Paul Chapman is an accomplished guitarist, but he is no Michael Schenker. And on this album, that is a problem. Beyond this album it isn’t such a concern, because by then Chapman was the incumbent and Schenker was off doing his own thing that didn’t include UFO. Here he is judged on what came before, and although his soloing is strong and forceful, the lack of any real identifiable riffs in the songs themselves does help to make this a generally uninspired selection of songs. He’s not the only culprit. The lyrics and vocals overall don’t offer the same energy that they have on earlier albums, and the songwriting does feel a little lacklustre.
And that becomes a problem when you look around at what was surrounding it at the time. This album had so much up against it when it was released. It was the start of a new decade, and the music coming with that new decade had an impressive start. How do you come up with an album that can match the offerings released in that same year? The revitalised Black Sabbath with “Heaven and Hell”, their former vocalist Ozzy Osbourne with “Blizzard of Ozz”, Judas Priest and “British Steel”, Motorhead with “Ace of Spades”, and the arrival of Iron Maiden with their self-titled debut album and Def Leppard with theirs titled “On Through the Night”. That’s just a small cross section of the British bands that UFO was up against. And let’s not forget Michael Schenker’s own release, his self-titled “Michael Schenker Group” album. It was a pretty intimidating time for hard rock and heavy metal music.
Suffice to say, “No Place to Run” figuratively had no place to run, and suffers as a result. I have spent two days listening to the album on repeat once again, and have found very little inspirational about it. The band is solid, but the songwriting and songs themselves just don’t cut it. Of the band’s eventual 23 albums, this for me would not rank inside their ten best. Fear not! Better was to come, but as their first effort in the new decade and without their talisman, UFO were found to be well short of the mark here.

1062. UFO / Strangers in the Night [Live]. 1979. 5/5

There’s always something magical about a live album. It’s where you get to hear exactly what a band is like in the environment that they are meant to be in. Let’s face it, you can make just about anyone sound good in a studio where you can overdub and cut and paste and play a section a thousand times over until you get it right. A live album is where there is nowhere to hide, and you have to be on to showcase how good you actually are. And on “Strangers in the Night” this is exactly what UFO do.
UFO had retooled and re-thought their music after the release of their first two albums, and with the addition of Michael Schenker on guitar had become a more hard rock based band than a synth based band. The addition along the way of Paul Raymond who could double on both rhythm guitar and keyboards gave the five piece all the weaponry they needed to become one of the best live bands in the world at the time.
One the back of their seventh album, and a run of five albums that are still considered the best the band released, UFO recorded several gigs on their US tour run to put together as a live album. What then followed was the perfect reflection of UFO’s career to this point in time. It has their most bombastic elements, it has their best songs. More than anything it showcases how terrific this band must have been in the live setting, and how each part of the band was so intrinsic in making the sound that was UFO. And unlike their individual studio albums along the way, here there is not a weak moment. It is pure unadulterated UFO.

I knew a few UFO songs from a Michael Schenker anthology double album I had bought a few months earlier before I found this double vinyl in my favourite second hand record store, and bought it on the spot. I didn’t know the band or its music very well but I knew Schenker and that he had been in this band, so I was keen to get home and give it a listen. It didn’t take long to realise that I had come across some real gold, and album that to this day I still get excited about whenever I put it on or hear it at a friend’s house.
From the outset there is so much to love here. The brilliant guitar riff to start off “Natural Thing”, the perfect segue and the harmony vocals of Mogg and Way in “Out in the Street”, and then into the classic UFO tracks “Only You Can Rock Me” and “Doctor Doctor”. The magnificence that is the live version of “Love to Love” with Mogg’s wonderful vocals and the brilliant guitar of Schenker stealing the show. Then there is the bombastic version of “Lights Out” that is as heavy a song that UFO perform which is followed by the extended version of “Rock Bottom” to allow Schenker to further showcase his brilliance on the guitar. Between this come all of the other hits that UFO had written up until this time, and nothing misses out. It would be difficult to come up with any weak points, or of any other songs that could replace those that are on this album already.
In a way this album ruined the studio albums of UFO for me once I got around to getting them, because I knew these songs perfectly by the time I heard them, but I knew the live version of the songs not the studio versions, and quite simply the live versions are far superior than their studio cousins. So when I started getting the early albums and listening to them I found that they didn’t quite have the same energy and momentum that the songs showed on this album. Over time of course that faded and I was able to enjoy them as much as any other of their work, but there is never a time that I put this on that I don’t love everything on this so much more.
The CD version has added back in two songs that start the concert, “Hot and Ready” and “Cherry”, and also reordered the playlist so that it is closer to what UFO played on this tour. I would normally have said “that’s great!”, but now for me it ruins the flow of the album just a little, because you miss that great start of the guttural guitar riff that leads into “Natural Thing” that for me was the perfect start on my vinyl copy. Now you don’t get to hear that until track five, and the album lacks a punch as a result.
I have often on this podcast made mention of the fact that I sometimes have trouble with live albums that chop and change the running order of the concerts they have been taken from, that as a preference I would like to have the songs in the order they were played at the gig, rather than what did happen quite a bit during the 1970’s, where the order on the album was changed to have the songs fit better on the vinyl. This for me is not one of those instances. Because I owned the vinyl version first, I am so used to that running order when I listen to it, that I have a lot of trouble with the order that is on the re-released CD version, which has the tracks back in almost concert running order. The opening four tracks on the vinyl – “Natural Thing”, “Out in the Street”, “Only You Can Rock Me” and “Doctor Doctor”, which is Side A of the first of the double vinyl – is the only way to listen to these songs.
The band is on fire, and each of them is just terrific on this album. Paul Raymond being able to switch between the organ and keyboards onto rhythm guitar to add a fullness to the live sound is fantastic and invaluable in the live environment. Pete Way on bass fills the bottom end out nicely, while Andy Parker’s drumming is fantastic. Phil Mogg’s vocals are superb, and he gives these versions of their songs a great kick. The star for me is still Michael Schenker, who despite his own feelings on the versions of the songs offered here again proves what a maestro he was with his instrument in his hands. His solos still steal the show on more occasions than not. His soloing on “Love to Love” is extraordinary, and the riffs throughout on “Lights Out”, “Doctor Doctor”, “Natural Thing” and “Only You Can Love Me” are superb. But “Love to Love” is something special. The combination between the synth keyboard and guitar, the beautiful bass of Pete Way and drumming of Andy Parker, and Phil Mogg’s vocals make this live version of this song superior in every way from the studio version.

I mentioned earlier that I had heard the Michael Schenker Group early albums while in high school, and then I picked up a Schenker best of double LP at Illawarra Books and Records in my first year of uni, and first came across a few tracks from UFO. Not long after this, I found this album in the same second hand store, and bought it immediately. And I have honestly not stopped playing it in the 36 years since that day. As soon as I heard the first side of the first album, I was hooked. Trapped. Ensconced. It was Schenker who grabbed me – but how can you ignore the rest of the band? Each of them was just as instrumental to their success as their lead guitarist. I had this taped on a C90 cassette and it remained in my car for years, an easy go-to when I got in to drive somewhere and needed some musical company.
Not everyone will agree with me, but with the departure of Schenker from the group during this tour, UFO lost some of its lustre. They released plenty more albums, many of which are very good, but none of which could touch the pure joy and amazement of this live album.
There have been some brilliant and unforgettable live albums released over the years. Think Iron Maiden’s “Live After Death”, think Slayer’s “Decade of Aggression: Live”, think Deep Purple’s “Made in Japan”. For me, this is the equal of those albums. It is truly one the great live albums released by hard rock and heavy metal bands, and for me it is the pinnacle of this band’s career, a defining moment that not only showed off their excellence but sadly proved to be the end of their golden years with the moving on of Schenker to other projects.

1061. UFO / Obsession. 1978. 2.5/5

UFO the band had been busy over the middle years of the 1970’s decade, putting out several albums and building a respectable following throughout the world. On previous albums they had managed to mix some brilliant songs that still resonate when played with some material that feels a bit lacklustre and of a lesser quality than the absolute top shelf stuff. Much the same can be said of Obsession which capped off the period with an ambivalence that could be said to be harsh on one hand but fair on the other.

I’ve always felt that there was only one heavy hitter song on this album, and it happens to be the lead track, “Only You Can Rock Me”. It remains the one song that stands out from the crowd on this release, and is still instantly recognisable whenever it is played today. The fact that it signals a lowering of the boom once it is over is what is troubling about this album.
As for the rest of the songs, I think they can be categorised pretty swiftly into two groups, the good and the average. It turns out that the majority of the good songs have Michael Schenker as a co-writer, whereas the majority of the average songs do not. Into the former group of good songs you can list tracks such as “Pack It Up (and Go)”, “Hot and Ready” and “Cherry”. Each of these has a better tempo, a slice of Schenker shredding on guitar and great Phil Mogg vocals. These songs follow my idea of the better UFO songs more closely than those in the average group, songs like the three end tracks on Side A of the album in “Arbory Hill”, “Ain’t No Baby” and “Lookin’ Out For No. 1”. “Arbory Hill” is a Schenker short guitar instrumental that serves no real purpose on the album and doesn’t lift anything. “Ain’t No Baby” and “Lookin’ Out For No. 1” fall too much on the side of soft rock ballad. I never cease to be disappointed when I listen to this album and hear these two songs again. “One More for the Rodeo” is probably one of the better tracks again, but I’m not sure if this is only because it is sandwiched between “You Don’t Fool Me” and “Born to Lose”, which even for AOR songs are stretching the friendship just a little too far.

This album was the final one that Michael Schenker played on for UFO for almost fifteen years and it was going out with a whimper rather than a bang. While the band is competent here, the music just feels as though it is going through a recycling process and that they were beginning to strain out the hard rock side of the songs and fall into the comfortable AOR radio sound instead. That being the case, I am happy to leave that right here.

Rating: “Who’s taking time out, who’ll take a shot now”. 2.5/5

1060. UFO / Lights Out. 1977. 3.5/5

Looking back on the UFO discography it is sometimes remarkable how the albums themselves aren’t similar, but the category or line-up of songs on them can be so similar. Most appear to be dominated by two or three songs while the rest can perhaps be seen to be making up the numbers. There would have been no way of knowing that would be the case in the writing process, but once again here it feels as though the quality and signature songs are the ones that brighten the album the best, and that they are the ones that Michael Schenker’s guitar dominates.

How this album could ever be regarded as ‘heavy metal’ is beyond me, because there is very little here that could be related to that genre. Indeed, the more you listen to it, the more you come to understand that it spends most of its life in a completely different setting. For this album the band brought in the addition of Paul Raymond who not only handled rhythm guitar but with the added bonus of mixing in some keyboards into the songs. UFO had used keys on their albums before but Raymond’s addition to the band made it a real focus. And it is the keyboards which almost typically tie this album and most of its tracks to this period, with that AOR sound coming to the fore. This is especially true of “Just Another Suicide” which always feels as though it was meant to be a heavier song, but because of the piano that dominates through the bridge and chorus it is transformed into a perfectly reasonable AOR song, but not a heavy track by any stretch of the imagination. “Try Me” is an even further regression as such, as every time I hear it I can’t help but think it is far too similar to an Eagles song with Joe Walsh on vocals, except this is even more of a ballad track. It seems such a waste, because UFO didn’t need these kind of standard ballad tracks to succeed, did they?
“Getting’ Ready” is more or less a straight up and down rock track, one of those songs that an album has to have to keep it ticking over in the middle. “Alone Again Or” is a cover of the song originally written by the band Love, and it too sounds from that era of the early 1970’s. To me in fact it sounds a hell of a lot like a Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young song. Like “Try Me”, I really don’t think this fits in at all. “Electric Phase” which follows has a better sound to it, though even here it feels as though the band should have been really stretching out and giving this song the opportunity to really get going, to let the handbrake off and let the harder edge and speed come into play.
When it comes down to it, there are only three songs on this album that are truly worth finding it for. “Too Hot to Handle” is a jaunty opening, a song with a good riff and singalong vocals that opens the album on the right foot and in the right mood. This is then framed by the closing song on Side A of the album, the title track “Lights Out”. This has been, and remains, my favourite UFO song. The opening bars to the guttural riff underneath the bridge and chorus, to Schenker’s brilliant solo and wonderful undertones from both Pete Way and Andy Parker, this is the top of the tree for me. Then the album closing track “Love to Love” does all the great things that an epic track should. It’s not a ballad, but it is the way all ballads should be, because it has heart and emotion and fantastic vocals from Phil Mogg. To top it all off, Schenker’s guitar solo to complete the song and album is superb and perfectly performed. And having criticised slightly the use of the keyboards in other songs, here on both “Lights Out” and “Love to Love” the keyboards work perfectly, and enhance rather than reign in the songs.

This was UFO’s highest charting album and is generally regarded as their best. To be honest I don’t think there is much that separates this from two or three other of their albums of this era. All of them have some great songs and some average songs. Here again there are, in my opinion, three great songs, two good songs and three that I don’t get a lot out of. It mightn’t be one that I’d put on a list of ‘must listen-to albums’, and it is still one that I like rather than love.

Rating: “From the back streets there’s a rumbling, smell of anarchy”. 3.5/5

1059. UFO / Phenomenon. 1974. 4/5

The early years of the band UFO appear from this distance in time as being on a completely different timeline from what the band eventually travelled through the decade of the 1970’s.
Lead singer Phil Mogg, guitarist Mick Bolton, bassist Pete Way and drummer Andy Parker formed the band in 1968 and having signed to Beacon Records they had released their debut album “UFO 1” in 1970, and was quickly followed by their second album, “UFO 2: Flying”. While neither album had reached the charts, and indeed at this time UFO attracted little interest in Britain and America, a single had attracted some sales in Germany, reaching #30 on their singles charts. The majority of their early work on both of these albums was strongly influenced by space rock - indeed, their second album featuring a 26-minute title track and a 19-minute-long track "Star Storm" and was subtitled One Hour Space Rock. Following that second album that was modestly popular at the time, the band soon realised the style was somewhat limited. Mick Bolton left the group in January 1972, and UFO set out to find a guitarist who could provide the band with a more standard rock sound.
After flirtations with future Motorhead guitarist Larry Wallis and future Whitesnake guitarist Bernie Marsden, who played as a temporary touring guitarist for the band when they toured Europe, the band recruited Michael Schenker from the Scorpions in June 1973. Scorpions had opened up for UFO on that European tour, and they were so impressed with the young guitar maestro, who was only 18 years of age but already a well-respected guitarist, that they asked him to join. Having consulted his brother Rudolph, who gave his blessing, the deal was done. The injection of Schenker both on guitar and as a songwriter, meant that UFO were ready to make the jump from 60 based space rock band to fully fledged hard rock icons, and the first step to that process was the writing and recording of their first album together, titled “Phenomenon”.

Breaking away from their space rock style, UFO produce an album here that mixes a style that is of the mainstream hard rock of the era along with the extended instrumental passages that were common on the first two albums. The opening salvo of “Too Young to Know” has a sound that incorporates a sound similar to contemporary bands such as Bad Company and Free, as well as the Rolling Stones. Phil Mogg’s smooth vocals are the immediate focal point of the song, while Michael Schenker’s easy listening guitar also makes its presence felt through the majority of the song. The rhythm of Andy Parker’s drums and Pete Way’s bass guitar keep the momentum throughout the song. “Crystal Light” generally sticks to the same style of song that the band had produced on their first two albums, without it stretching beyond almost four minutes that this song goes for. There is an almost-Eagles-like feel to this song, in the quiet tones of the song rather than any of the country rock themes that band had around this time.
The star attraction of the album, and the first sign of the band’s growing direction, comes next with “Doctor Doctor”. From the subdued guitar beginning, into the Schenker riff supported by Parker’s hard drums, and then into the main riff of the song, this is the song where your ears immediately prick up and think ‘wow... that’s different!’ And it is as brilliant today as it was 50 years ago. This is where the harder edge of the band began to appear, and the popularity and success of this song is what drove what came beyond this album. Great melody, heavier sound, and Schenker’s guitaring, including amazing solo. The genesis of what UFO became is the basis of this track.
“Space Child” follows a similar type of path to “Crystal Light”, a quiet introspective song dominated by Mogg’s soaring vocals in the first half of the song and then Schenker’s restrained guitar solo in the middle of the track. This is followed by the other dominant hard rock track of the album, “Rock Bottom”, where again it is Schenker and his guitar that steals the show. It takes centre stage from the very beginning of the song, driven by Andy Parker’s drums through the opening section of the song alongside Mogg’s vocals. Once we reach the middle of the song it is Schenker’s freeform guitar solo that takes command, enhanced by the quite brilliant bass line from Pete Way in conjunction. It is a superb few minutes of music, showcasing both Schenker’s talents and again exacerbating the direction the band was to go on the back of songs such as this. Schenker would always extend the solo section when the song was played live, which again is always a treat. Alongside “Doctor Doctor” this is one of the band’s greatest songs.
Side two sits back in the middle range of the rock/hard rock genre. It opens with “Oh My”, a solid rock track, and moves into “Time on My Hands”, a song I feel mirrors the Eagles feel of “Crystal Light”, inoffensive but not with the power of the major songs here. “Built for Comfort” is a cover of the Willie Dixon blues song, and seems like a slight mismatch to the other material here. “Lipstick Traces” is motivated by the previous track, and instrumental concentrating on the quiet technical side of Michael Schenker’s guitar skills. It a likeable song, though again feels slightly out of place. The album then concludes with “Queen of the Deep”, a creeper that builds from a slow start to a bigger finish, again in the main through Mogg and his terrific vocal line and the Schenker/Parker/Way solid rhythm, with Michael’s solo again concertina-ed with Pete Way’s bass line and Andy Parker’s collared drumming.

When I first started listening to the UFO studio albums, it was a tough experience. I had first discovered the band on a Michael Schenker Anthology two album collection I had bought from my go-to second hand record store, Illawarra Books and Records, in 1988, and then from the same store the amazing live album “Strangers in the Night”, which was the first episode of this season of the podcast, back in January. That album acted as a best-of album for me for the band, and so I started to delve back into the studio albums that preceded that live album. The problem being, given how good all of those songs sounded live, it was difficult to go back and listen to studio versions of the same songs that didn't have the same energy and tempo.
This meant that once I first got “Phenomenon”, I found the songs and music to be much slower and less intense than I was expecting. Given that by the end of the 70’s decade the band had built itself up to being a furious hard rock band verging at times into NWOBHM style heavy metal, some of the songs on this album ailed to mesh with me at the time, and while I didn’t hate it, it wasn’t in the genre of music that I was very much into at that time.
In more recent years when I’ve gone to the album, it has been far more entertaining. Because I’m older? Because I’m more tolerant? Probably bits of both. But I think the main thing I did was realise that I love this band, so surely if I listen to this album and ACTUALLY listen to it, then I will enjoy it. And that is what occurred. Taking the time to listening to the album and not trying to make it something it isn’t. Because it’s not a 1980’s heavy metal album, it’s an album that is celebrating its 50th anniversary, and it was a band that was still discovering exactly what they wanted to be, especially with a brand new guitarist joining the ranks for this album.
I’ve had this on my playlist rotation for the past three weeks, and on top of that I have spent the past two days listening only to this album, back-to-back, over and over again. So in this three week period that’s approximately 30 times I have listened to this album from start to finish. And each time I grow more entranced with it again. Even now after all these years, I have picked up pieces that I haven’t really noticed before, and others that have grown in stature for me. That brilliant bass line from Pete Way underneath Schenker’s guitar solo in “Rock Bottom”, Phil Mogg’s vocal melody in “Oh My”, the wonderful mood of “Queen of the Deep”. All of those things are just a part of the mystique and beauty of “Phenomenon” as an album.
This was the first of a five album stretch that the band did through the 1970’s that is the golden era of UFO. All of it is terrific. This song is the leading light to where they were headed over those years.

743. UFO / No Heavy Petting. 1976. 3.5/5

On a bit of a run after the Phenomenon and Force It albums, UFO followed these up with the No Heavy Petting album, one that for me includes a couple of their best ever songs, but also mixes it with some weaker ones that fills me with mixed emotions.
 
Personally I love the start of the album. Schenker's riff to break into the album in the form of "Natural Thing" is a ripper. This is a terrific song, setting a great tempo immediately. This has been one of my favourite UFO songs since the first time I heard it. Following this comes "I'm a Loser", another perfect example of the Schenker/Mogg writing partnership. Schenker's solo is a scorcher. I love the keys in this song too. I know that is somewhat of an anomaly in my music tastes and reviews, but I really do think this song is so brilliant because of the mix between guitar solo and keyboard bridge.
"Can You Roll Her" also kicks along nicely, again with a prominent dual between the two major instruments. "Reasons Love" is the other song that fits in with these tracks, while "Highway Lady" starts off side two of the album in a similar vein as "Natural Thing" does with side one.
On the flipside, there are those songs that for me fall a little flat. "Belladonna" is a letdown for me. Slow and mournful. I know people and UFO fans love this kind of stuff. For me it puts a big STOP sign out in front of the momentum the album had before this. "Martian Landscapes" is another song in this vein. It really drains out the end of the album, dragging along at a molasses pace with the lyrics being repeated and pulled out far too long over time. "On With the Action" is another mood halter, after the up tempo start of side two of the album. Not a bad song, but it just seems to be in the wrong place.

The good things about this album are fabulous. Schenker's guitaring is at its peak, and some of his solo's here are the equal of anything he's ever recorded. Phil Mogg's vocals are as clean as ever, emoting when needed in songs like "Natural Thing" and "I'm a Loser". The keyboards in those two songs are exceptional, but when they come back for an old-west, piano bar blues sound on a song such as "A Fool in Love", I find it a bit clichéd. In the long run, I believe the good outweighs the average, and continues the excellent catalogue of albums through the 1970's that UFO produced.

Rating:  You can look but please don't touch.  3.5/5

545. UFO / In Session & Live in Concert. 1999. 4.5/5

This live release is a gem, bringing together a number of studio and live performances by the band recorded by the BBC over the course of the golden years of UFO. Not only does it showcase the great music this band produced throughout most of the 1970’s, it is also a testament to the great musicians that formed this superior line-up. As always, Michael Schenker’s brilliant guitaring is the standout, lighting up each song with his own mark of genius.

Rating: A great reflection on a great band in their element. 4.5/5

401. UFO / Force It. 1975. 4/5

There would be very people out there who would argue that UFO as a band did not find its true calling until the arrival of Michael Schenker, not only as lead guitarist for the band, but also for contributions to composing the material for the band. The first two albums by the band are of a different era, a different style altogether from what was to come starting with their third album “Phenomenon”. A lot of things began to click with that album. The combinations in the group became tighter, the writing took shape, and the music began to draw away from the 1960’s psychedelia that had come from their earliest works into a more hard rock focused direction. On the back of songs such as “Doctor Doctor” and “Rock Bottom”, UFO’s live shows also began to take off, with a focus on the unbridled talent of lead guitarist Michael Schenker, which began to capture the fans attention. The band had brought in guitarist Pual Chapman to fill out the live sound, though by the end of the tour he had left to form his own group Lone Star.
Moving into the follow up album, the band had momentum on their side. The experience of playing together on the road had the effect of bringing the band closer together, and also of fostering new ideas and of ways to utilise the talents of the band in the best way possible. They harboured a desire like many bands of the day to break into the US market, and to do that they had to find the style that would not only push the band’s growing hard rock sound but funnel that into something those fans wanted to hear. Finding a true combination between the one guitar hard rock riffing of Schenker along with the adding of keys onto the album to give it the kind of melody that also drew outsiders towards the album was a balancing act that required not only great musicianship but the steady hand of a solid producer. Enter Leo Lyons, bass guitarist for the band Ten Years After, who knew a thing or two about producing and writing albums that made the charts in the UK and the US. With his guiding hand on the wheel, UFO entered the studio to complete work on their fourth studio album, titled “Force It”.

The great misnomer about looking back at this album from 50 years in the future is that, for all intents and purposes, it doesn’t come across as what the modern music listeners would categorise as hard rock. In much the same way as the previous album “Phenomenon” is a mixture of material that when performed live becomes a lot heavier than it is on the album itself, “Force It” certainly has its moments where it showcases those hard hitting drums from Andy Parker and hard riffing from bass guitarist Peter Way and guitarist Michael Schenker, and Phil Mogg extends his vocals into something that offers us a glimpse at the power he possesses, it doesn’t maintain that through every song on the album. In fact, it is mostly reserved for just a few songs, while the others fall back into a category that resides as rock or maybe even soft rock at times. Now this categorisation does not make the music or the album as a whole less enjoyable, but it is good to have that knowledge before you dive right in and think you are going to get a hard rock experience on a level of Deep Purple or AC/DC for the same era. That isn’t necessarily the case.
It opens up beautifully with the legendary “Let It Roll”, that opening note held while the bass and guitar riff comes in underneath, anticipating Mogg’s vocal arrival. Parker’s drumming is outstanding from the outset, setting the scene for another of his excellent album performances, while Way’s bass guitar holds together beautifully with Schenker’s guitars, especially through the middle of the track, where Schenker is dualling up his lead and rhythm in great syncopation. Phil Mogg is a terrific vocalist make no mistake, but when Parker, Way and Schenker are left to their own devices as they are here in the middle of the opening track it is pure magic. This is followed by “Shoot Shoot” which steps back a touch on the faster hard rock style and settles more into the mid-tempo, discussing the protagonist's liaison with a femme fatale, mixed with metaphor and innuendo throughout. Mogg takes the lead with his vocal on this track, while Schenker’s riff promotes the dalliance with his subtle changes throughout the song. It’s another of UFO’s best. “High Flyer” changes tone completely from the opening two tracks, the acoustically based ballad with harmony vocals and melodic guitar along with the introduction of background keys to emphasise the right portions of the song and solo. The lyrics tell the simple story, the second verse beginning with “Turn to summer goes so fast, Seems I’ll never see you, One weekend and a photograph, Oh all my boyish dreams”. It is performed beautifully, and heaven knows you can’t have an album of this era without a song like this on it. In the context of the album, it does what I fear most songs like this do, which is drain the momentum of the album at its point of contact. It sounds beautiful, but is this what you want from UFO? If it is, then you are in luck.
The mood and riffs ramp up again on “Love Lost Love”. It actually has a ‘Sweet Home Alabama’ feel about the stop start guitar riff and vocal melody on the track. Side one then concludes with “Out in the Street”, which starts with the soft laden keys synth riff overlaid by Schenker’s guitar riff and the duelled harmony vocals from Phil Mogg. It’s a mix of both the hard rock guitar riffing and that softly spoken keys, changing throughout the song where the mood requires it. The middle has Schenker dominating not only with a great solo but then a heavy riff as Mogg sings through the bridge. It is one of UFO’s best known and most beloved tracks, and does offer everything that is great about the band in one song.
Side two opens with another classic in “Mother Mary”, the hard riffing template that the band became known for heard here in all its glory as Schenker takes centre stage with guitar, and Andy Parker’s hard hitting drums again at the forefront. It’s interesting how Parker is forced to take a back seat when the band plays its softer more introverted material, but when Schenker’s guitar takes over, his drumming follows in waves. Parker in particular shines when the hard to heavy songs come up, and he must have been particularly pleased when this partnership began. They do combine brilliantly here again on this song, along with Way’s bass guitar. The solo through the middle and as the outro to the song again showcases all three in perfect harmony. “Too Much of Nothing” follows this, and actually channels the pop rock songs of the late 1960’s, in particular the similarity in places to the song “Somebody to Love” which was popularised by Jefferson Airplane - there is a distinct comparison that can be drawn. This harks back to the band's roots to a degree but in a far modern sounding way (in 1975), and it works well as a result. “Dance Your Life Away” is, for wont of a better term, a typical UFO filler track on the album, one that holds itself in the gaps of those songs that are the heavy hitters on the albums, and gets you from one to the next. It is significant because it comes and goes without even noticing, the role of songs on good albums.
The destination it gets you to is “This Kid’s”, typically wonderful UFO to the ears. The opening Schenker riff dominates as Mogg’s vocals dive in, flaunting the story of the two youths stuck in a rut, knowing they need to escape but probably knowing they aren’t going to do that. There’s lovely keyboard flurry that supports the guitar into the chorus, before delving into a hard blues in the middle of the track. The addition of the piano keys here differentiates the tone of the opening of the song, and it feels like an unusual direction to head in, and an unexpected one. The song segues into the hyphenated title “Between the Walls”, the instrumental track that takes up the last 2.5 minutes of the track, again in a completely different style from the first two thirds of the song. But this is true beautiful Schenker, with Way’s wonderful bassline underneath complementing it perfectly, that flows out to conclude the album in style and grace.

My journey with UFO began with the discovery of the Michael Schenker Group, and then in my university days through an album called The Michael Schenker Anthology which I found one lunchtime while browsing through my favourite second hand record store in Wollongong at the time, Illawarra Books and Records. That album had highlights from Schenker’s career with Scorpions, UFO and his own band, and all three soon became very big favourites of mine. It also led to me buying the UFO live album “Strangers in the Night” from the same store not long after, and this forced me to go back and discover the rest of the UFO catalogue, at least those that featured the guitaring of Michael Schenker.
I first heard this album through one of my best mates Peter who has now been my brother-in-law for the last 32 and some years. He had both this album and the follow up “No Heavy Petting”, both of which I borrowed from him to tape onto one cassette, which was played often from that point onwards.
My evolving music tastes at the time I discovered this and the other UFO albums was probably a really good melting pot in which to find and listen to these albums. What you might consider traditional heavy metal was mixing with thrash metal and hair metal and all other variations possible at that time, and I was enjoying the lot of them. So even though other bands were bigger for me at the time and I listened to far more often, this was still great. But it probably became most enjoyable from the mid-to-late 1990’s onwards, when those initial band that I had loved adored were either slipping off the face of the earth or struggling to find their way in the music world they found themselves, and I began to go back to bands like Scorpions, MSG and UFO for what they offered in those times, music that combined guitar and bass and drums with vocals that harmonised.
“Force It”, with the album cover filled with kitchen taps in a play on the word ‘faucet’, still has so much to enjoy all these years later. Songs such as “Let It Roll”, “Shoot Shoot”, “Out in the Streets”, “Mother Mary” and “This Kid’s” are still as enjoyable today as ever, with the combination of Parker, Way and Schenker sounding just as fabulous as they did. And the added keyboards from Chick Churchill on this album, who performed the same role for Ten Years After, showcased how the music could sound with these added elements, and also the fact that with Schenker playing all the guitars that everything could mix together really well. What the band probably needed for their live shows was an extra two members to play the keyboards and play rhythm guitar. Or, perhaps, someone who could switch between both. Now there’s a novel idea... maybe the band could take that on in the future... great idea Bill.
I just recently bought the remastered 2021 3LP vinyl of this album, which has a complete live concert on the other two vinyls as the bonus, and playing it this week on my turntable in the Metal Cavern has been a wonderful experience all over again. The musicianship on this album continues to astound me, and you can actually hear the improvement in every aspect of the band that was taking place. In the UFO discography, of all of their studio albums this would rank as either #2 or #3 for me, depending on which album I listened to on the day. It is still terrific 50 years on... but there was more and possibly better yet to come.