At around a minute and a half things get all operatically cosmic, and I’m thinking very much of Queen ‘Flash!’ territory here, there’s no avoiding the comparison. ‘Sky’ starts out like a kinda mainstream hard rock ballad, for me one of the low-points of the album, but fortunately the whole track isn’t all like that. I can only hope cynically that someone fucked up just after this point and it all came tumbling to an awkward halt, just so we didn’t really miss out on a great jam. It’s got a similar vibe to the first track, which isn’t a bad thing, fast and hard and choppy, lots of chucka-chucka thrashy riffing to get those heads down and banging, swinging into an intergalactic rumble at the end, which becomes one of those unfortunate fades where you wish they’d kept it running for a while longer to revel in the jamming. ‘Feel So Good’ is an upbeat anthem to the good things in life, namely playing the guitar, driving your car, looking up ladies’ skirts, even putting on a new shirt gives these guys kicks. So, a bit mixed in that regard, but still with some great guitar crunching. ‘Let Me Down’ builds up from mellow beginnings to a chunky slow rock slop boogie-like thing, which funnily enough on the Man topic – having just written the Clive John review the other day – this seems to be not too far removed from the general feel of the more mainstreamy first track on his album, for which see that review or listen to the record. Anyway, musically, this sounds like Deke jamming with Three Man Army, and you can’t argue with that for a tasty mix. 1 ‘Winos, Rhinos & Lunatics’) Perhaps I’ve got it wrong and bassist Gordon Rowley is singing on the tracks that sound like this – I’ve seen photos of him singing on stage so I guess the two must have shared vocal duties. maybe he had a throat job! (There’s a sly in-joke there for those who’ve read Deke’s classic Man-bio pt. Oddly, guitarist/vocalist John Reid’s singing sounds more like Man’s Deke Leonard than on earlier recordings. ‘Shockproof’ get straight down to business with a sharp, choppy razor riff stomping its way into your living room like a prize fighter buzzing to the rafters on crank. But this review is about ‘Back To Thunder’, and so back we go into the mists of time.īy the way, just before the album was recorded, drummer Paul Ellson left and was replaced by his drum roadie, Dave Williams, who did a more than ample job in his wake. Gull took over the reigns from here, releasing the final testament in the Book of Strife, at least until this year’s issuing of the awesome live ’76 ‘Rockin’ The Boat’ CD, as fitting an epitaph as could be wished for by eager fans of this undeservedly obscure cult rock band.
#STRIFE BAND FOR FREE#
In the meantime, they continued stunning as a live band (see review for ‘Rockin’ The Boat’), and in 1977 self-released an EP/maxi-single, the rare ‘School’ (b/w ‘Go.’ and ‘Feel So Good’) (the track ‘School’ is available for free download through ), which was then picked up and re-released by EMI following its initial success with a Strife-starved public. In the four years between this point and the 1974 recording of their first album, the band had to put up with their record label – Chrysalis – unwilling to really support Strife or release another album, leaving them to wait out their contract until they could sign to another label.
/pics/logo.jpg "strife band"){kind=logo}
This was Strife’s second and last album (see my review of ‘Rush’ for the first), and while in my opinion it’s not quite as classic as the debut, it certainly still stands up as a highly-charged, high quality album of intelligent heavy rock.
0 kommentar(er)
