657. Cinderella / Night Songs. 1986. 3/5

If you could cross-pollinate Def Leppard and AC/DC, or at least the voices of Joe Elliott and Brian Johnson, then you would probably come up with Cinderella's Night Songs as a working album. Though it was somewhat noticeable at the time, it is amazing putting this album on again now, closing in on thirty years after its release, that it hits you in the face more so now than then. I'll admit I had forgotten how much this album is like those two bands, certainly for the first few tracks, after which I guess the effect does begin to wear off as you move into Cinderella's debut. Theoretically it is not a bad formula to draw on. Both bands were prominent at the time, and Tom Keifer can't help but be compared to either or both of those lead men in vocals. The fact that the songs themselves seem to replicate the riffs as well could be seen to be dangerous, if there wasn't enough there to just dignify a difference in output and direction.
In the era when hair metal had bands like Motley Crue, Ratt, Poison, Bon Jovi and a dozen others entering the charts, this album musically was far enough removed from them to be successful in its own right. It didn't hurt that they supported Bon Jovi on the Slippery Whet Wet tour, that kind of exposure is priceless.

Depending on your point of view, the songs here have grown with your from this release, meaning they bring some of your past and history with them, or they just sound like relics from a past age that doesn't excite you at all. While I was never a huge Cinderella fan, they were a band I sought out because of the lust for new material in the late 1980's, so much of the album still sits with me in a positive light. "Night Songs" is an interesting start to the album, a slow burner that doesn't explode the album into action but draws you in regardless. "Shake Me" is a great rocking song in the best traditions of bands like (surprise, surprise!) Def Leppard and AC/DC. It lifts the tempo of the album immediately. Strangely then, having done this, it is followed by the soft rock ballad "Nobody's Fool", which brings the album's pace back again. "Nobody's Fool" has a strikingly similar guitar riff and atmosphere to Def Leppard's "Bringing on the Heartbreak" which is impossible for me to ignore or compare it to ("Heartbreak" is better).
From here the album follows a tried and true method, simple drum beat and guitar riffs in hard rock fashion, with Keifer's vocals and guitar solo's adding that final flavour. "In From the Outside" has a bluesier feel to it, though still with a rock element to keep the pace of the album moving. It is almost a portent of what was to come on future releases.

In many ways, the fate of whether you enjoy this album or not lies in when you actually discovered it. If you found it in the late 1980's you will always find you have a positive vibe from the music. If you cottoned onto it in recent years, you may well find that being rooted in the hair metal era means you are unable to get the most from it. While I can't say the same about their following albums, I can always enjoy this whenever I pull it from its case and put it in the stereo.