Can’t Happen Here…

If you pop over to the album reviews section of GET READY TO ROCK you can read my write up on the forthcoming album “Second Hand Life” by former Rainbow vocalist Joe Lynn Turner. The voice of classic rock radio hits like I Surrender, Stone Cold and of course Can’t Happen Here Turner is back with another solo album, and hasn’t he been prolific in recent years, and this time its a fine album recorded it would appear especially for the discerning melodic rock fan.

Also up are reviews of southern rockers King Baby and Scandinavian surprise The Space Cowboys who serve up a decent album of rock similar in style to Jet or Kings Of Lean crossed with Motorhead.

Alternatively you can also read these reviews on the rather fine CLASSIC ROCK NEWSWIRE FORUM and get involved with this growing rock community. If you do sign up though remember to introduce yourself and mention you can by way of ROCK OF AGES. A chat room has just been enabled as well so if you end up chatting with “ukbill” say hi to me!

Saxon - Destiny

Details :

• Year of release : 1988
• Label : EMI EMC 3543
• Review format : vinyl

1988’s Destiny is an often overlooked Saxon album that fosters much divided opinion amongst fans. Much more polished than their early successful nwobhm period and more melodic that the heavier output of recent years it gets a hell of a savaging on allmusic for instance. For this album from Barnsley’s finest the unique voice of Biff Byford is joined by guitarists Paul Quinn and Graham Oliver, Nigel Durham on drums and Paul Johnson on bass so its not quite the ‘classic’ line-up.

A cover song is chosen to open the album and a fairly surprising one at that with a fine stab at Christopher Cross’ Ride Like The Wind. Released as the first single the video for this received quite a lot of airplay on UK television at the time and I’ve always enjoyed the Saxon version of this song and it’s a shame it’s now dropped from the live set. Where The Lightning Strikes is another good track, heavier and with some nice crunching guitar all seems well in the camp until track three. This is perhaps the track that caused most consternation to long time Saxonites as I Can’t Wait Anymore sees them enter the radio friendly rock ballad territory which let’s face it most bands did at this point. A little faster than most ballads (think Whitesnake’s The Deeper The Love as a reference for pace) its not actually that bad a song - it’s just not Saxon! Released as the second single it failed to do much damage to the charts and perhaps as a result their days with EMI were numbered. Calm Before The Storm redresses the balance a little with the story of Biff’s forefathers and the decline of their traditional industries of mining and fishing. Not usual heavy metal territory I’ll grant you but Byford’s from good northern stock and the 80s saw the final killing of these industries which particularly hit areas like the north so there’s some feeling here, however for such strong subject matter the addition of some unneccessary keyboards detract greatly from the song and add to the case for Saxon ’selling out’. S.O.S. covers the Titanic story and follows a long tradition of storytelling tracks by the band although fails to have the impact of say Dallas 1pm or 747. A decent track though that does manage to convey the distaster in just three versus and a chorus which is preferable to that bloody DiCaprio movie version.

The gloomy Song For Emma opens the second side and the radio friendly sheen is very much in evidence once more on a poor track with vague lyrics that fail to convey exactly what Emma’s issues are. For Whom The Bell Tolls succeeds a little better though as The Berlin Wall provides the subject matter as it did for many rock songs back in the eighties. More akin to the old Saxon sound with heavy chugging riffs and a typically british metal solo. We Are Strong has a keyboard motif more akin to Asia and fails to pass the ‘okay song’ mark by some distance but fortunately the screaming Jericho Siren redresses the balance quickly before the excellent Red Alert closes the album telling of Saxon actually on tour on the Russian border at the time of the Chernobyl disaster! A good strong track to close the album and proves they still had a hard rocker in them despite the worrying light material on here.

Summary : A couple of real highs, a few disappointing lows but ultimately not quite the disaster other people might have you think. The advent of the programmable cd player allows this to be turned into a decent six or so track mini-album with Ride Like The Wind, Red Alert, When The Lightning strikes and Jericho Siren in particular proving they still had something. Conversly this albums lack of success probably encouraged Saxon to take the decision to return to a heavier sound that saw them survive the fallow nineties where many more radio-friendly bands called it a day and nearly twenty years after this release they’re actually the subject of a UK TV documentary next month!

If You Listen To One Track Listen To : Ride Like The Wind

Score : 2.5/5

Dio - Holy Diver

Details :

• Year of release : 1983
• Label : Mercury 811 021-2
• Review format : CD

I’ve sat on this review for a week or two as the four sites taking part in the March Metal Madness thing featured Dio pretty heavily but focused on his Dream Evil album. Of course if you read my “Confessions…” posts you’ll notice that I’ve been buying up a fair bit of Dio recently and have managed to get his first four albums on vinyl reasonably cheaply. However, at work I’m afraid CD has to be the format and that’s the version that’s had most of my attention recently.

From the opening bars of Stand Up And Shout its clear that Dio’s chosen path now he’s in control of his own destiny is not too disimilar to that of the music he created with Black Sabbath. The heavy riffing elements are retained as this excellent rocker treads very similar ground to the classic Neon Knights. Mid-paced title track Holy Diver is an update on the classic song Heaven And Hell itself although to be fair is a superb track in its own right whilst the 1,2,3 of Sabbath-alike tracks to open the album is completed with Gypsy, which to my ears sounds very similar to Lady Evil. For all the similarities though its a hell of a three song hit to open an album!

Caught In The Middle, despite some good clear riffing up front is fairly standard traditional metal although is extremely accessible and its fairly clear why Dio picked up so many followers in the early to mid 80s. The central point of the album is marked by the excellent Don’t Talk To Strangers and by recruiting seasoned campaigners like Jimmy Bain and Vinny Appice is could be argued that Dio played it fairly safe with his choice of band members. However this track really shows the ace he played by plucking Sweet Savage guitarist Vivian Campbell out of relative obscurity rather than plump for another ‘name’. From the soft acoustic opening to the soaring solo Campbell’s ability shines all over this great song. It’s hard to believe that despite the bands Campbell has played with his total recorded output is not that great in quantity compared to many other hot guitarists. Of course joining Def Leppard with their notoriously slow release schedule hasn’t helped improve that number.

Straight Through The Heart and Invisible are both decent attempts at radio friendly metal without out being overly memorable before we get to the big breakthrough hit single of Rainbow In The Dark. A great melody, good lyric and hugely familiar hook its an excellent example of Dio as a band but how that keyboard passage has dated. Listening to it now I reckon this song could be just as good without it but perhaps back then it was that part that got into the head and stuck - goes right through me some days!

The mid-paced Shame On The Night closes the album and again whilst its maybe not a classic its decent enough and provides a fitting end to a successful solo debut album for Dio the band.

 

Summary : A solid, sometimes spectacular debut that borrows heavily from Dio’s previous work for its high points. Reflecting on this album after a few listens for the review I felt that a few of the songs did not quite merit the status with which this album is now held however with the first three tracks, the superb Don’t Talk To Strangers and Rainbow In The Dark they’ve got five tracks out of the nine bang on the money. Any of those five would and indeed still do grace rock radio today.

If You Listen To One Track Listen To : Don’t Talk To Strangers

Score : 3.5/5

Van Halen - Van Halen

Details:

• Year of release : 1978
• Label : Warner Brothers 3075-2
• Review format : CD

In my Magnum review a week ago, if you check the comments, Dave asks what does a record have to do to get a top score from me. Well in my loose marking system I stated that a 5 out of 5 had to be a ‘desert island disc’. An album that has stood the test of time, personifies quality throughout and still gets played regularly years after you first heard it. Of course it is possible for a new release to blow you away on first play but that happens very rarely I reckon. Here’s an album though that did blow me away on first listen and continues to do so today.

The thumping bass of Running With The Devil and the sheer arrogance of David Lee Roth is almost overwhelming as the disc starts. A superb opener that good as it is fails to prepare you for the treasures ahead. Eruption is just 1 minute 42 seconds of guitar solo. Completely self-indulgent but Eddie Van Halen produces a sound unlike anything you’ve heard before and it still sounds fresh nearly 30 years after release. The high voltage cover of You Really Got Me challenges my theory that its often difficult to top an original hit but they give the old Kinks rocker a kick up the pants before that distinctive riff opens the classic Ain’t Talking ‘Bout Love. A song that’s often covered and sampled these days is this the ultimate party rock track? Full rock out chorus, big, big solo and soft passages beckoning DLR to take the spotlight…. and he doesn’t need asking twice!

The introduction to I’m The One has always been superb and is perhaps overlooked due to the more well known tracks on this disc. Sounding like ZZ Top on double speed its got lashings of guitar, the ‘widdly’ solo and even a do-wop section that shows a band high on confidence. Mid-tempo Jamie’s Cryin’ changes the template with its anchor sized hook of a chorus , great backing vocals and super harmonies. The scratchy sound to the guitar on the Atomic Punk heralds another heavy rocker with a top solo and at this point you can’t help feeling sorry for Black Sabbath when they had Van Halen opening for them - just what you need when your falling apart and trying to promote your worst album to date!

I reckon Feel Your Love Tonight owes so much to the 60’s surf music being not a million miles away from a rocked up Beach Boys. The raunchy Little Dreamer is next and if at this point your thinking Van Halen are simply a great guitarist and showman come circus performer frontman this proves that they have great songs in abundance as well. So much about Little Dreamer falls outside what was then the ‘heavy metal’ template but its done so well you can’t now imagine the album without it. The blues of Ice Cream Man is just pure fun and markedly different to anything else on the album but does introduce that humour element that Diamond Dave brought to the genre and shows the band able to perform different styles to great effect as well whilst closing track On Fire, with its incendiary guitar, hammers home that its a landmark album you’ve just listened to. Interestingly On Fire reminds me very much of Montrose’s first album…. isn’t that a coincidence?

Summary : The sounds Eddie Van Halen produced from his guitars on this are unlike anything before and influenced much of what came in rock music afterwards. David Lee Roth was a unique, ultra confident frontman with attitude and (at that time anyway) the pipes to carry the attack whilst Michael Anthony and Alex Van Halen were a rock solid rhythm section. No matter how many times I listen to this I can’t hear a bad track on it; sure there’s diversity but nothing sucks. It’s stood the test of time as well and will be 30 years old next year! I was late hearing it for the first time around the mid-eighties but that means I’ve lived with this for 20 odd years and I can’t imagine not playing this at least every summer when the sun is beating down. Personally I don’t need a reunion and worry that the soap opera is damaging the bands name and may turn off young rock fans from discovering this great debut album.

If You Listen To One Track Listen To : Ain’t Talkin ‘Bout Love

Score : 5/5

Get Ready To Rock…

A little more spreading of the wings as I’ve written my first three reviews for the UK web site Get Ready To Rock. Proudly billed as the site for “Classic, progressive and metal rock music news, reviews and interviews” their pages are packed with tons of reviews, tour dates, mp3 downloads and even a podcast.

The first package I was asked to review was right up my street as well with the AC/DC ballsy-style rock of Adrenaline Factor and two scandinavian bands in Blind Alley and the very fine Keldian being the content. My reviews are available in the new reviews section currently and will ultimately appear at some point in the album reviews archive from the main site.

Also of note and from the same stable is the new Classic Rock Newswire forum which brings the British rock community together for much interesting discussion! If you join the forum take the time to introduce yourself and let them know you heard about the board on “Rock Of Ages”.

Faces - Ooh La La

Details:

• Year of release : 1973
• Label : Warner Brothers 7599-26368-2
• Review format : CD

The highly recommended blog Heavy Metal Time Machine has been running a topic on supergroups all week. The usual suspects like Asia, The Firm, Damn Yankees and even Blue Murder has been mentioned but its got me thinking about whether the Faces qualify for this status. Three ex-member of The Small Faces left high and dry when Steve Marriott moved on were joined by two member of The Jeff Beck Group post the groundbreaking Truth album. So a line-up then of Rod Stewart (vocals), Ron Wood (guitar), Ronnie Lane (bass & vocals), Ian McLagan (keyboards) and Kenny Jones (drums). If that lot doesn’t qualify for supergroup status then no one does!

The last of four studio album by the band, Ooh La La appeared in ‘73 and followed two very well received albums in A Nod’s As Good As A Wink… To A Blind Horse and Long Player. By now their style was set and although Rod Stewart’s growing solo career was starting to put pressure on the band on this, their final release, sees the band continuing to sound like they’re having a great time in the studio - probably sometimes too good to the detriment of the music!

Both of the opening tracks Silicone Grown and Cindy Incidentally are classic examples of the tight but loose rock ‘n’ roll the Faces mastered. Cindy is the better track and proved a successful single release as well, hitting number 2 in the UK charts and giving them their biggest hit. The folkier feel to Flags And Banners works well and displays the versatility of the band at least up to the two minute mark where the songs end rather abrubtly…. the pubs must have opened. My Fault is next and leads into the klaxon loaded electric start to the excellent Borstal Boys with its classic opening line “Cell Block S how I hate bromide”. It’s a real good rocker and an example of the Faces at their best. Superb instrumental Fly In The Ointment builds from a single repeating bass note with each instrument gradually joining before Ronnie Wood confirms his guitar hero status taking the song to the skies. If I’m On The Late Side is a classic early ’70s Rod Stewart ballad. That unique, instantly recognisable voice over a sparse, mainly acoustic backing it would have fit on any of his solo albums as well and breaks the album up nicely hear as well. The fact that up to about ‘73 Stewart saw his solo career as a nice little side earner pays tribute to just how good the Faces were, in fact much of his early solo work see him backed by the Faces anyway!

The piano dominated Glad And Sorry is another slow paced track with Ronnie Lane on vocals this time. More melodic that the previous song it is actually a better ballad and proves that with Lane the band had a second consumate vocalist. Rod’s back though for the bluesy Just Another Honky before Wood take to the mic for the title track Ooh La La. Written by Ronnie Lane and Ron Wood its a real high moment with the great bar-room singalong chorus of “I wish that I knew what I know now…. when I was younger”. A track that is rightly gaining “great” status and for me is right up there with Stay With Me as the bands best.

Rod Stewart dismissed this album much to the disgust of the other members and Lane soon became disillusioned with Stewart’s increasing absences due to solo commitments. He quit to follow a nomadic life in a gypsy caravan. Although the band soldiered on for a tour with Tetsu Yamauchi on bass, a poor live album release saw Rod “sailing” off into solo waters picking up mega-money and leggy blondes along the way whilst others joined rock giants like the Rolling Stones and The Who and sadly, the Faces were no more.

Summary : To dismiss this album is a shame. Clocking in at a little under 30 minutes it feels a little unfinished, perhaps due to tensions within the band however there is enough quality on here to satisfy any fan. The title track is worth the price alone but Cindy Incidentally and Borstal Boys also rightly make there way onto any Best Of collection; recorded proof of Stewart’s ability to front a rock band rather than the American Songbook crooner he’s become and a lasting testament to the late Ronnie Lane’s ability. This band had quite an influence on future rock music particularly noticable in the work of The Black Crowes and The Quireboys and to overlook them is a rock fans loss.

If You Listen To One Track Listen To : Ooh La La

Score : 3/5

Blackfoot - Marauder

Details :

• Year of release : 1981
• Label : Atco K50799
• Review format : vinyl

Moving away from the ranting and back to the music here’s a decent piece southern tinted classic rock from a band named after a Native Indian tribe and fronted by the grandson of “Train Train” writer Shorty Medlocke.

It’s the manic laugh of lead vocalist and guitarist Ricky Medlocke that kicks the album off with the ultimate post-hangover song Good Morning. A real injection of positivity or simply a good kick up the arse on a slow day its a superb song that bounds along with Medlocke excelling with his slightly raspy vocals, a roaring solo and a really catchy chorus. Next track Payin’ For It takes a bluesier path with the story of an aging prostitute. The chorus has a hint of Rock And Roll Over era Kiss to it I reckon, but I can’t quite put my finger on what song its reminding me of! Diary Of A Workingman is a great song no question. Acoustically introduced its about a man who’s woman leaves him for another just as all his efforts and hard work are starting to pay off. The subsequent suicide of the subject has you really feeling this track. Haunting and quite brilliant its a distinctly southern rock flavoured ballad but the build up to the solo and the solo itself are strong and that mornful guitar that takes you to the final verse could leave scars.

Full-tilt rocker Too Hard To Handle will lift you again though whilst the excellent Fly Away is another distinctly southern-fried chunk of quality, adrenaline pumping classic rock that will ensure you finish side one with the feeling engendered by the opening track.

The pounding prohibition song Dry Country opens the flip and with some aplomb too. Another real strong rocker with Medlocke sounding strong and clear. The whole album has supreme examples of suberb storytelling and gladly an inner cover features all the lyrics as well. Fire Of The Dragon doesn’t quite hit the spot unfortunately and although it tips it hat towards Skynyrd its not quite up to standard. To be fair the excellent ending sequence where the guitarists cut loose and start to rock out is at first promising but sadly isn’t extended far enough - I could have done with a Freebird-esq end section here! Grandad Shorty Medlocke’s emotive banjo introduces Rattlesnke Rock ‘n’ Roller before the electric guitars kick in for another fine southern rocker although it loses a little of its fire in the studio; but live is a stormer!

Searchin’ ends the album at a lower tempo for the versus but builds strongly for the chorus. I think this is the band’s attempt at the big epic number to close the album but to my ears doesn’t quite work. The chorus sounds wrong as the female backing vocals are introduced where if it was left a little more unpolished it would complement and cap the album. The extended solos that end the song are scorchers though and have a suitably southern feel.

Summary : A fine band, often overlooked in the debates on sourthern rock bands due to there leaning more toward a classic rock sound. This did make them extremely popular of here in the UK though to the point where the album Highway Song : Live was recorded on the 1982 tour. It’s not the most consistent of albums but there’s only really a couple of tracks not hitting the mark so its well worth playing, especially if your just after a quick fix of down ‘n’ dirty southern rawk!

Good enough band to finally succumb to reformation pressures a couple of years back although without mainman Medlocke who’s now ensconsed in Lynyrd Skynyrd of course. I saw the reformed Blackfoot at the Rock N Blues Festival near Derby and they played a lot off this album and went down really well with a big crowd.

If You Listen To One Track Listen To : Good Morning

Score : 3.5/5

Confessions Of A Vinyl Collector

Another quick update to Confessions as I’ve added a few titles and need to mention one particularly good ebay seller.

“gdmmusic” is the seller’s ID and the kudos is down to the fact that I won three records ina actions ending at around 3 o’ clock friday afternoon and they were with me the following morning! Added to that they were all in immaculate condition to boot. To say I am impressed is an understatement.

The records….

Blackfoot - Marauder…. a decent chunk of southern rock that I fancied a listen to after a recent discussion on the Classic Rock Newswire forum.  The review of this album follows shortly!

Dio - The Last In Line…. the missing link in the Dio albums I’ve picked up recently. Need to look out for Lock Up The Wolves next.

Thin Lizzy - Thunder And Lightning…. at last and after many years of looking I finally picked up a copy of the double LP gatefold version which adds a 4 track live album to the regular release. Got it for just £5.01 as well which was nice.

Finally entry is from a quick visit into Ammanford on saturday and an emptying of the change in my pocket. For just £2 I picked up a decent copy of the fine Savatage release Gutter Ballet.

A Personal Rant - (20th Anniversary Collectors Edition)

Seeing the announcement of the Whitesnake ‘1987′ 20th Anniversary Collectors Edition details on yesterdays Classic Rock Newswire really riled me. I went to work last night a little angrier, more than a little disappointed and a bit more cynical than normal. Let me try to explain…

20 years or so back, when I was an impressionable 16 year old discovering music that I liked, three of what have become my seminal albums were released. Namely :-

• Def Leppard - Hysteria
• Whitesnake - ‘1987′
• Bon Jovi - Slippery When Wet

They’re all bonafide 5 out of 5 albums in my book and over the years I’ve owned them on LP, picture disc, cassette, CD and had the accompanying VHS video with the promos for each. I love ‘em! I still love ‘em and each get regular plays even these days and most probably always will. They hold special memories and capture a great time in my life.

Now my beef is with these ‘Anniversary Editions’ that are so popular especially with the record companies. A chance to give the loyal fan a little more, a chance to bring a classic album to a new audience or simply a ruse to screw the people that have already bought it once just a little more? To be fair it can be done quite well; reference those Deep Purple reissues that add alternate takes, remasters, outtakes and unused tracks and excellent, detailed sleeve notes. So sadly, I’ve gotten quite excited recently about ‘my’ albums getting the anniversary treatment.

Def Leppard go first with Hysteria and they add a bonus CD full of b-sides and alternate mixes that appeared on the 12″ single releases back in the day. Now I bought this lot in the first place! Hell I was even able to lay out the 12″ single covers on the floor and with the aid of the extra cards in the Love Bites Limited Edition 12″ collectors box set was about to reproduce the cover as a 36″ square picture. In short I earned a bloody bonus CD of these B-sides but where the interesting stuff, the real collectors stuff if you will? I want the unused tracks, the different takes with alternate solo - hey! I want to hear what was so bad about the Jim Steinman mixes before Mutt Lange cameback. I’d settle for a live CD of a Hysteria era show or how about a live DVD of that tour? In The Round was from the new tour wasn’t it so doesn’t cater for this era as well as it might. But no… they say “have a bonus CD of the stuff you already bought once…”

Onto Whitesnake then. Now this is my number one album of all time okay. I had this on LP (embossed sleeve), LP (regular sleeve), US issue vinyl as well (different track listing), the Dutch issue LP (I was on holiday there and bought it - same as the US issue but it said Made In Holland in the small print), the CD, the cassette for in the car and multiple copies of the singles with the 7″, 12″, coloured vinyl and picture disc variations. I played the VHS video of the Tawny featuring promos to death (hey I was a 16 year old lad what do you expect!!!). So what have you got for my special collectors edition then David Doverdale?

It looks like its a CD/DVD double pack with bonus features!! Okay what are the bonus features then… well on the CD its remastered sound… okay but I can’t hear anything wrong with the original sound, and its also live tracks from the album as released on the Live In The Shadow Of The Blues collection… er, didn’t I buy that a few months back? Arn’t DC and Tommy Aldridge the only ones that even played on the 1987 tour? I know I can’t expect to hear Sykes and Murray play these live with DC but the current line up! What about that ’stunning’ band he put together back then??? Hang on, calm down…. take a look at the DVD details. The 4 promos - good, the old VHS is a bit worn, and the same four songs played live…. taken from the even more recent Live In The Still Of The Night release… last bloody years release!!!! Aaaaarrrrgggghhhhhh. Are you telling me there’s no soundboard tapes from that era? Are you telling me that in the studio Sykes nailed the solo first time and never changed an arrangement, that Coverdale didn’t try different words on the odd take? For the DVD did nothing ever get filmed on that huge world tour? Hang on wasn’t Give Me All Your Love a live performance on the promo? Did the cameras just film that song or did they do the whole show - or is it just a studio mock up? Didn’t Vivian Campbell record a new solo for that promo as well. Why isn’t that on the CD as a bonus track. Didn’t a couple of tracks not live up to expectations and stay in the can? Help me out here guys - I’m feeling unappreciated.

So onto good ol’ Bon Jovi. Friends of the fans, man of the people or hard nosed business man? Slippery When Wet - ‘the’ pop metal album of all time. Okay we’ve already had a remaster of this adding a CD video of Wanted Dead Or Alive but that was a few years back now. We’ve had a whole box set from them as well chock full of unreleased and rare stuff - but sadly Slippery era was pretty much overlooked save for a couple of tracks across the 4 CD and 1 DVD. So what will Bon Jovi give the loyal fan 20 years on, an official bootleg of the ‘pizza party jury tapes’ ?, a live DVD of a show from this era? a live double album with concurrent vinyl release in gatefold sleeve with picture inner sleeves (dreaming here I know!) or maybe even the whole album redone acoustically? a ‘new’ DVD of promos to replace the ol’ VHS tape even? Let me check the web-site….. a t-shirt for him or some knickers for her. Cheers!

Next time they’re up on stage giving it “We love you guys” I’ll remember why. Next time the record companies moan about illegal downloads I’ll also remember this… give me some value, something I’ve not bought before and I’ll buy it! I bought everything then - if I’m gonna buy it again at least give me something new, …. please….

Rant over…

“Shot through the heart……………”

Samson - Head On

 

Details:

• Year of release : 1980
• Label : GEM Records GEMLP108
• Review format : vinyl

Following on from the review of arguably Iron Maiden’s most controversial album (at least up until then) we’ll now go way back in the mists of time to the days of the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal, when Maiden were still Di’Anno fronted, Saxon were shining their Wheels Of Steel, Leppard were yet to meet Lange and have a listen to one of the other British gonna-be’s, Samson.

Bluesier than most of their nwobhm counterparts guitarist Paul Samson had been around the scene a few years and this release was actually their second full length album. They had their gimmick in the shape of drummer Thunderstick complete with rapists mask and sometimes caged drum kit but this album marks the debut of singer Bruce Bruce (so named after the Monty Python Australian sketch) who of course would later drop a Bruce as it were and become Bruce Dickinson of Iron Maiden fame.

Hard Times opens the album and is typical of the era in that its pretty strong song but is hampered a little by a sparse production. Right away Bruce sounds great, especially where the instrumental fall away for an almost acapella section. Take It Like A Man attempts to up the speed and build on the opener but is a fairly ordinary, formulaic track unfortunately and sounds like a Gillan outtake. The blues rock plodder Vice Versa is superb however and although Gillan comparisons are obvious once more, particularly with Bruce putting in vocal almost in tribute to his hero, the song sounds just more complete than anything so far. A fuller sound and the rhythm section much more to the fore my guess is they realised they’d got a winner and put the extra effort into it. A typically British metal sounding instrumental section and a lovely time change to the slower section before building it back up again this song is a superb example of just what Samson were capable of.

Manwatcher has a more progressive feel about it not unlike the odd Uriah Heep track but despite a nice solo is ultimately quite forgettable whilst the old school rocker Too Close To Rock closes the side drawing on those established band such as Priest and UFO that influenced so many nwobhm bands. A good track with a distinctly Iron Maiden feel to it which is perhaps unsurprisingly given that they shared the bill on many early gigs.

Side two starts off with a very interesting song. Thunderburst, a slow building instrumental with nicely played powerchords is credited as a co-write with Steve Harris of the afore mentioned Maiden. What the song actually is though, is an earlier version of The Ides Of March from the Iron Maiden Killers album. A little slower and without the impressive solo maybe but its still basically the same song. Interesting to note is that whilst here this is a co-credit, on Killers however The Ides Of March is credited only to Harris.

Hammerhead is a decent rock song with a Priest like opening but Hunted is memorable only for Bruce singing apparently from the perspective of a lion! Gillan comparisons abound again for the faster Take Me To Your Leader which appears to owe much to Unchain Your Brain (a track from Gillan’s own 1980 release Glory Road - which came out first I wonder?) , then its a pounding bass lead in to final track Walking Out On You which turns into a bit of a sprawling epic with time changes, impressive drumming, slower soft passages and big heavy parts with both Bruce Bruce and Paul Samson’s guitar in full cry.

Summary : Very much ‘of its time’ this is an interesting if patchy album that is really of main interest in charting the pre-Maiden history of Bruce Dickinson. Fairly generic heavy rock music with influences worn on their sleeves but let down at times by some basic and predictable lyrics and a cheap production. Nevertheless its a bluesier take on that era’s metal sound and Vice Versa is a great track. Unfortunately Samson will ultimately be remembered as a sidenote in the Iron Maiden story. In my opinion definately worth a listen though.

If You Listen To One Track Listen To : Vice Versa

Score : 2.5/5