Go My Way - Robin Trower

 

Provenance: I know why I bought this album - Classic Rock magazine told me to - but where I bought it is lost to the mists of time. I vaguely recall buying Go My Way at the branch of WHSmith where I held a weekend job, but that seems unlikely. We only stocked the top sixty (nice round number) in the album charts.

Incidentally, I checked the official charts site to see whether there was a chance that Trower snuck into the top sixty in the heady days of summer 2000, I was aghast to see that neither Twice Removed From Yesterday nor the majestic Bridge of Sighs cracked the top forty. Check for yourselves!

Review: If you want me to like your album, do you reckon the opening gambit should be a nine-minuter that mostly consists of wah-guitar going "weow weowoeoowooeoow"? Well buddy I've got great news - that's pretty much exactly what I'm after. For fuck's sake, why else am I buying a Robin Trower album? The percussion? The cover art? (Look at that typeface - is it from Ecco the Dolphin?).

The biggest surprise, if one is allowed to be shocked at the contents of a Robin Trower album, is hearing el jefe stepping up to the microphone for a few numbers. You wonder why he hasn't done it so much before - it's really pleasant, not dissimilar to that of Mark Knopfler's (with the added bonus that Trower doesn't use homophobic slurs on his most beloved songs). Then again, when your vocal foils have included Jack Bruce and the mighty Jimmy Dewar, perhaps it takes time to wind up the courage to give it the tonsils.

I may be committing a heresy here when I say that this might be my favourite Robin Trower album. Better than Twice Removed From Yesterday? I think so! Superior to Bridge of Sighs? Maybe! This does fit in with a pattern of deviancy that considers Trans a stellar Neil Young release, Recycler a worthwhile ZZ Top platter and Love and Theft to be Bob Dylan's finest collection. In some parts of the globe such opinions can have you thrown in jail. But! Listen!!

For a start, the production and musicianship are far sparkier than anything from Trower's 1970s heyday. Normally I'm a sucker for the slightly muddy, claggy atmosphere many records of the era had - it's warm, organic-sounding and tend to make harmony vocals sound amazing - but Trower's guitar playing is such that it works better with a background wrought in sharp contrast. The benefits of the production job are a revelation, revealing ever more shading to Trower's remarkable playing.

You see, I think Go My Way features Trower's best instrumental performances. He blazes through songs like 'This Old World' and 'Run with the Wolves' (the latter of which sounds like an early Blur track, of all things) but it's on the gentler numbers that the guitar work properly shines. 'Into Dust' is a gorgeous thing already, but Trower's playing here is stunning, fragile and aching and kaleidoscopic all at once. In my personal pantheon Trower is right up there with Blue Oyster Cult's Buck Dharma as a stylish, characteristic player anyway, but here it's like someone stuck a rocket up him. His tone is like liquid caramel, and he bends his luminous, fragmentary blues guitar abstractions around these numbers with an understated virtuosity. 

If I could make a guitar sound like anything, and the good Lord knows I've tried, it would be like the guitar on Go My Way.

Is there a weak point here, a moment that drags, any slips into territory filler? Nah. Trower tries on a few different moods, ranging from wistful to hard-nosed but there's a remarkable consistency on Go My Way both in terms of quality and the sound universe the album inhabits. Does it just boil down to sequencing that everything links so neatly together that it can trick the listener into thinking there must be some kind of underlying concept? Perhaps. Am I just over-egging it all because I love Go My Way without reservation? Very possibly.

However, nobody reads this blog for dispassionate perspectives. I likes what I likes, and Go My Way has never long been off my stereo these past twenty years. Anyone who wants to make halfway tasteful noises on guitar should get turned on to some Trower power in any case; and there are few better examples of how to do it than the eleven tracks on Go My Way.

Abraxas - Santana

 

Provenance: If you ever slapped on a rock compilation or two, it was near-inevitable that you would encounter Santana's version of 'Black Magic Woman' at some point. A good song which stood out from the pack thanks to its sinuous Latin rock rhythms. In comparison, much else sounded altogether a bit 'meat 'n' potatoes'.

Around the time I was first trying to wrest a noise from a guitar my mum worked at a library, which meant that I'd get free access to whatever was on the shelf at the time. Well, one day that happened to be Santana's Caravanserai album, which I really dug. Again, it sounded like little else I had hitherto been exposed to.

So, when the chance came to purchase Abraxas (second hand) for a fiver, it felt like I was hardly gambling with my admittedly meagre earnings from my weekend job. That said, a fiver was big money back then (and still is, right?).

Review: When will Santana undergo the kind of critical re-evaluation that the likes of Fleetwood Mac and Steely Dan have enjoyed in recent years? Perhaps never; because although the two latter examples probably have stronger overall back catalogues, Santana remains tragically unhip. Yes, he became wildly popular again, for a New York minute, right around the turn of the millennium but even that unlikely comeback was tinged with snobbery. And since then, Carlos Santana hasn't helped his cause with a series of guest-packed, cover-heavy collections that have tried to ape the success of Supernatural with diminishing returns.

Perhaps it's time he engaged a business manager with a little more nous than the Archangel Metatron.

However, going back to the material that put Santana - the man and the eponymously-named band - on the map is a rewarding experience. Albums like Santana III, the aforementioned Caravanserai and today's subject - Abraxas - is to take a trip through some very groovy musical landscapes. The bald fact is that nobody had knitted samba, rock and psychedelia together so successfully, so organically as Santana, and arguably their early run still sets the standard. It also helps matters that Carlos had an instantly identifiable electric guitar tone and a facility with sustain techniques that gave his playing a rich, weeping quality.

Some of it also sounds resoundingly modern; the hypnotic bassline beneath windchimes and hand percussion of opener 'Singing Winds, Crying Beasts' could quite easily be pumping from the subwoofers as the dawn breaks over HawkFest or Bimble Bandada. Another aspect in Santana's favour is that the lightness of the percussion prevents this music from sounding lumpen in a way that, say, Cream or Black Sabbath sometimes do to contemporary ears. Even the lead guitar work hasn't particularly dated, in the sense that it frequently works in the service of the song and never disintegrates into the undisciplined wig-outs that were de rigueur at the time. Jeff Beck is a fine, very fine guitarist but how anybody can endure an entire Beck, Bogert & Appice album is beyond my ken. 

Did anybody attending gigs in the 1970s really enjoy it when Deep Purple or Led Zeppelin took their audience on half-hour noodle odysseys? I would genuinely like to know.

Only three tracks, really, sound rooted in the distant past. Two of them - the acid-rock of 'Hope You're Feeling Better' and 'Mother's Daughter', I like a lot. They're the most straight-ahead numbers here, but with little imagination could be a Shocking Blue and Mountain tracks respectively (again, no bad thing in and of itself). The other one is 'Samba Pa Ti', which has fallen victim to its usage in one of those horrible, soupy Marks and Spencer adverts that turns food into softcore pornography. True, it's the closest to elevator music on Abraxas but along with Fleetwood Mac's 'Albatross', any charm it used to hold has evaporated through its association with pretentious nosh.

However, that does leave a whole heap of really strong material that still sounds fresh - slinky 'Black Magic Woman', the gang-chanted version of Tito Puente's 'Oye Como Va', the jazzy 'Incident At Neshabur' (a reference to Toussaint L'Ouverture and the Haitian Revolution, apparently) and the aggressive chord-stabs of 'Se A Cabo' all possess a sprinkling of magic. Incidentally, my Duolingo Spanish tells me that the latter should be called 'Se Acabo' ("it's over") - pero, es posible que estoy incorrecto! Anyway, Abraxas is great, a supple counterpoint to the chest-beating testosterock that was in vogue, and, like the band itself, is long due reappraisal.

License To Kill - Malice

 

Provenance: Another present, either birthday or Christmas (one arrives hot on the heels of the other, alas), but not anything out of the blue. I had included this on some list or another. Why, I'm not so sure, but it's called License To Kill and the band's name is Malice, all of which is suitably metal.

Having said that, what a bait 'n' switch it is to call yourself Poison, a very cool name, only to dribble out crap like 'Unskinny Bop'. Any other examples spring to mind? If you were going solely on the cover art, you'd expect Molly Hatchet to sound like Manowar instead of workaday southern boogie. Meat Loaf falls into this category a little, doesn't he? Quite metal album art, songs that sound like showtunes. 

Incidentally, if you're stuck with buying me a gift, an album or two always does the trick. Not hinting at anything, but yeah, just think about it.

Review: Thank fuck Malice don't sound like Poison.

Thank fuck, instead, that License To Kill sounds like a cross between Riot, Ratt, Y&T and especially Killing Machine era Judas Priest. In fact, on opener 'Sinister Double' I felt compelled to (sinister) double check the liner notes to make sure Priest main man Rob Halford didn't have a hand in any of the wailing. This is meant as nothing other than a compliment to actual vocalist James Neal (Halford is my favourite metal vocalist), and his performances throughout are consistently excellent.

More good news - License To Kill is fat free, coming in at a taut thirty-nine minutes-and-change; it's nine tracks of beefy heavy metal with nary an acoustic moment or prog flourish to be seen. It's a diesel-charged, palm-muted chuggathon with all the elements for a rollicking good time present and correct: sticky hooks, laser-cut guitar soloing and positively brobdingnagian power chords festoon the nine tracks on offer here.

If I could offer the most muon-sized criticism, it's that Malice, on the basis of License To Kill at least, sound so comfortable because they remind you of other bands you probably also like. I've already mentioned how close Neal cleaves to Halford in the screaming stakes; in addition, some of the guitar tones resemble those of Dokken's George Lynch; and there's a moment in the intro to 'Chain Gang Woman' where the whole package comes together to sound like vintage Motley Crue. (Incidentally, 'Chain Gang Woman' features backing vocals by Daves Mustaine and Ellefson of Megadeth fame, alongside Jaime St. James(!) and Jeff Warner(!!) from Black 'N' Blue(!!!!), and current Kiss guitarist / Easter Island head life model Tommy Thayer - wowza!).

The star of the show is the title track, 'License To Kill', which could have easily been one of the stronger cuts on Priest albums like Point of Entry or even Screaming For Vengeance. See what I mean? Even when praising them, I can't help but slip into comparisons with other, better known, acts. Failure to establish a distinct identity may have been what ultimately holed Malice below the waterline, because on the basis of License To Kill alone they should've been a force. Nonetheless, it's 2020 and here I am thoroughly enjoying the whip-crack riffage of 'Breathin' Down Your Neck', so by no means can we consider this enterprise a failure.

Frankly, any metalhead worth his, her or their salt should own a copy of License To Kill. It combines so many classic and recognisable aspects of what built the genre in the first place, and executes them with aplomb and no little flair. In addition, unlike many metal releases of the era, there's simply no filler to be found. Tight songwriting, good singing, good playing - what more could one want? Perhaps they could've upped the Black 'N' Blue quotient a little?

Lastly, I've just tweaked something in my neck nodding along to 'Breathin' Down Your Neck'. Irony aside, 'License To Kill' failed to injure me, so I'm declaring the former song to be the strongest joint on the album. That's how it works with metal - I don't make the rules! (But yes, 'Breathin...' is probably the better track thanks to its neat chorus and the fact that bits of it sound like a good UFO number.)

Montrose - Montrose

Provenance: This is considered in some quarters to be the ur-text behind the whole Van Halen school of rock (and this lineup even contains a future member of that mighty band).

Moreover, it's generally thought to be a pretty sweet classic rock album by its own merits. Julian Cope loves Montrose (he's also a better writer than I am), and who is going to dispute a druid who made up his own Blue Oyster Cult compilation called In My Dreams or In My Hole?

Review: You know that in some of my reviews I can get a bit huffy about boneheaded, hairy-chested affirmations of masculinity? How I can be a humourless prig when faced with the lazy objectification of women? Well, that's all true, mostly - but when faced with such a monumental feat as Montrose I pretty much say "fuck that", break out my biggest Maltese Cross medallion and bellow along. "YOU'RE ROCK CANDY BABE - HOT, SWEET AND STICKY!!!"

This is it, boys. Here's how to do it. Sure, by the Taylorist mechanics of Robert Christgau's reviewing system, this gets a half-grade off for clocking in at thirty-two minutes, but why hang around when you've made your point as beautifully as this? Simply, Montrose is the best thing Sammy Hagar ever did, the best thing the late Ronnie Montrose ever did, and I'm going to say that even with their storied respective resumes, Bill Church and Denny Carmassi never kicked out the jams like this, before or after. I know Church played on Van Morrison's Tupelo Honey - and so what? Fuck that, Tupelo Honey doesn't have a song on it called 'Space Station #5'.

Montrose is hard rock boiled down to its most necessary constituent elements - drums, bass, guitar and hollerin', with precious little more added into the mix. It's what happens when you take the boogie elements of Grand Funk Railroad and the heaviness of Led Zeppelin but reduced them to their hard, glistening essentials. Shorn of the dopey plodding that many bands confuse for profundity, and drained of the self-regarding substrate of pretentiousness that undermines so much of Zep's output, we're left with a balled-fist of solid rawk, a battering ram of steely riffage.

All this goes hand-in-gauntlet with some great playing and zipped-tight arrangements. Nothing here outstays its welcome; in fact, Montrose barely has its coat off before it's time to go. 'Rock The Nation' is pretty much the keystone on the towering ziggurat of songs about rockin' out and having a good time ('We Rock' - Dio, 'Rock You Like a Hurricane' - the Scorpions, etc. - you get the picture, Jack). Have you ever seen the wonderful short documentary Heavy Metal Parking Lot? That's it, right there - it's the spirit of 'Rock The Nation' made flesh and Aquanet. I like to think that, any time someone cracks a long necked bottle of beer in a car park somewhere, in the name of loud guitar music, they're channelling 'Rock The Nation'.

Plus! Plus! Have you ever heard such a good song about space stations? Yes, 'Space Station #5' implies four other space stations, but this is the only one that comes with a juddery riff and some of Hagar's finest hollerin'. I didn't hear it played once during that recent SpaceX/NASA manned mission. It's official - Elon Musk is too much of a nerd to blast Montrose into space. Do you reckon Musk has ever listened to Montrose? My guess is, 'absolutely not'. Well done mate, you might have blasted a couple of fellow dorks to the ISS, but have you ever downed a Pripps Bla in a Malmo car park? Once again, 'absolutely not'.

I once snuck 'Bad Motor Scooter' onto my student radio station playlist and got it aired one lunchtime. I didn't know what I was trying to achieve at the time, as I could've tried it with any track; only now is the clarity of purpose manifest. I needed a bunch of millennials to hear just how freaking it cool it is to make moped noises with an electric guitar. It's one of the dumbest songs out there - imploring the subject of the lyric to take what seems to be a lengthy scooter ride for the purposes of a booty call - but by god it's majestic. The engine humming noises under the guitar solo are badass and should be done more (sparingly, but more).

The only charge I can lay against Montrose is that its crystalline simplicity - no fussy drums, laser-cut guitars, vocals that cleave strictly to melody - opened the door for many more bands who got the message about paring everything down but forgot to bring talent to the table. I'd compare (please stop me) Montrose with a good Cormac McCarthy book. McCarthy distils English to a kind of singing purity, a form with such a brutal inner musicality that digression, exposition and even punctuation become superfluous. Montrose is its hard rock equivalent, only with less violence and more scooters. An essential listen for any serious rock fan (and what other kind is there?).

Fire Down Under - Riot

Provenance: No big story behind this purchase, I just happened to read about this album and it sounded up my street.

Review: Before anything else is said, can I please ask what the fuck that abomination on the front cover is supposed to me? It appears to be some kind of ghastly Dr Moreau hybrid man-seal, but for the life of me I can't fathom why it's gracing the cover of a hard rock album. I'm not the only one affronted by this abortion. This is worse than Y&T's stupid robot, and has possibly edged it ahead of Iron Maiden's incompetent Dance of Death artwork to be the worst album cover of any I've reviewed so far.

However - starting off your album with a track called 'Swords and Tequila' is dope as fuck, a completely alpha move that almost excuses the fact that you've put a baby fur seal on your album cover. It matters little that Fire Down Under sounds as if it's been recorded inside a shipping container, or that the lyrics are so mind-bendingly on-the-nose that you're weeping for a simile or metaphor by the last few tracks; you start a rockin' album with a track called 'Swords and Tequila' and you're cooking with gas, baby.

There's something extremely lovable about Fire Down Under that cloaks it's myriad demerits. Never mind the fact that this is metal as written by people who palpably haven't ever looked into a book that doesn't possess illustrations. Ignore the fact that the influences begin at track one of Judas Priest's Killing Machine and end at track eleven of Judas Priest's Killing Machine. Don't sweat that every guitar solo sounds the same. Try to drink yourself into such a stupor that you forgot you ever saw that crime against nature on the album cover.

See, what Fire Down Under has is guts, sincerity and an all-in, gonzo belief that rocking hard is the apogee of human experience. Seeing as an actual Nazi has laid claim to the expression I would use to describe why this album works, I'll settle with stating that this is a victory due to nothing less than bloody-minded and blinkered commitment. Passion and sincerity can take you a long way when some of the subtler arts employed by most artists are absent.

Besides, there's a base level of competence here - everyone can play, the vocals are appealing enough if generic - which means that Fire Down Under keeps its head above water where it matters. On top of that, although I did mention that every solo sounds the same, that's no bad thing because that one solo fucking smokes. The aforementioned artlessness that went into the creation of Fire Down Under works in its favour, as it's absolutely free of pretensions towards anything other than sending the dandruff flying. So, whilst 'Outlaw' has a chorus that is - literally - about playing roulette, it's certainly the best heavy metal roulette song I've ever heard.

The sheer joy in Fire Down Under is that it creates a feedback loop of adrenaline, each subsequent track galvanised by the momentum of what came beforehand (that is, until 'Altar of the King', which takes inspiration both in name and ponderous intro from Rainbow, before morphing into some tight shit that could've graced the first three Saxon albums). I feel it's impossible to not be caught up in the clattery stampede, and I couldn't guarantee you that I wouldn't be bellowing "swords, and tequila, carry me through the night!" once I got a few Peronis in me. Just imagine how much adrenaline you'd have pumping through you when you're down bowling alley and you've got 100mph tracks like 'Fire Down Under', 'Don't Hold Back' or 'Run For You Life' running walloping through your cerebral cortex - you'd be windmilling those balls at the skittles overarm.

To sum up, then, Riot's Fire Down Under works for me because it appeals to every weekend warrior who picks up a guitar and bashes out Foghat covers to sparse, drunken crowds. There's no cynicism behind that kind of slog - there's a purity of purpose (sheer love of rock music) that is reflected in the almost naïve thump and rumble of this album. It possesses an intangible quality that might be best described as 'spirit' - and no matter how clumsy the execution, that spirit shines through. Wonderful! Ditch the seal though, lads.

The Best Air Guitar Album In The World...Ever! - Various Artists

Provenance: This was a Christmas present from back in 2001. One might say it personifies the very essence of the phrase 'stocking filler'. Like the football blooper VHS / DVD, though it has no overt relationship to the festive season there is virtually zero chance you'd buy this at any time other than the three weeks leading up to Christmas.

Review: Whilst I'm admittedly a bit snobbish about 'best of' collections, I'm quite partial to a compilation, especially if there's precious little discernible link between any of the tracks. Having said that, the blue ribband examples - I'm talking the original Nuggets compilation, or the wonderful Close to the Noise Floor, chronicling the early days of the British electronica scene - are propped up by some kind of conceptual scaffolding.

Such is the case of the hubristically titled Best Air Guitar Album in the World...Ever!, created under the aegis of Queen axe-mangler Dr Brian May. The gag here, I guess, is that every cut on this double dose of rawk is going to get you Tom Cruising it on the sofa with your imaginary gitbox. Observe:



(Incidentally, the second instalment of the franchise, which, given the title of the first album is implicitly inferior, featured beloved amateur astronomer / full-time bigot Sir Patrick Moore in its TV advertising campaign.)

You know what? It's pretty damn good! But it's probably in spite of, rather than due to, its stated remit.

I like the way it starts, because disc one does something a bit weird; it launches you into the coda of Queen's 'We Will Rock You', the only bit with a guitar part worth talking about. Essentially, the first slice of action is one-fifth of a track from 1977, which then segues into 'Tie Your Mother Down', one of the few genuine headbangers from the Queen oeuvre, albeit from a completely different album. Eh? Is this going to be some kind of strange high-concept mishmash like Frank Zappa's Shut Up 'N' Play Yer Guitar, which consisted entirely of his guitar solos? Sadly not.

Instead, we are treated to some of the hoary old classic rock dinosaurs one expects on such a project. Except that...w-w-what's this? I'm enjoying them?! To quote marble-mouthed former US Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin, "you betcha!" For example, I could quite happily never listen to Deep Purple's Machine Head ever again, nor indeed endure yet enough saloon bar bore recount how 'Smoke On The Water' was inspired by a fire at a Frank Zappa show, but shorn of its leaden context it sounds pretty cool. I don't have to slog through seven-odd minutes of 'Lazy', because on this doozy I get the short, sharp gut-punch of Blur's 'Song 2'. It's fun, a musical pick 'n' mix that cocks a snook at the rules. Follow up Def Leppard with the Troggs? Sure! Amputate Duane Allman's gorgeous slide guitar solo from the end of 'Layla'? Why not!

Like a pick 'n' mix, there's also the odd crumb of shit in there (Black Jacks, in case you're interested; foul little rectangles of liqourice hatred that look like a chainsmoker's lung). Whoever thought that Paul McCartney's version of 'All Shook Up' merited inclusion needs a few words in the mirror, and the suspicion of log-rolling creeps in when Robbie Williams' 'Let Me Entertain You' makes an appearance (NB: did Williams ever make good on that offer?). Amidst the Planet Rock staples there's a smattering of left-field choices that do work, though; both Weezer's 'Hash Pipe' and Wheatus' 'Teenage Dirtbag' fit the vibe but give the proceedings a sheen of modernity. There's even space for the true shred believer to have their moment in the sun, with Joe Satriani's 'Surfing With the Alien' bringing about a startling change of pace. That no room could be found for Vinnie Moore, Rusty Cooley or Michael Angelo Batio was noted by this listener.

That the platters from Rainbow, Dire Straits, Free and Thin Lizzy are exactly what you expect them to be (need I even list them?) comes as little surprise, but there is one very bizarre inclusion; the Jeff Beck / Terry Bozzio / Tony Hymas instrumental 'Where Were You'. There is simply no place on this riff factory of an album for this celestial, floating dream of a soundscape. It sounds ephemeral and ghostly at the best of times, but here it righteously gets the stuffing knocked out of it by Joe Walsh's sturdy 'Rocky Mountain Way'. 'Where Were You' is the beautiful, frail goth child forced to play in nets during games lesson, flapping in futility as 'Monkey Wrench', 'Paranoid' and 'Free Bird' blooter volleys past it from six yards out.

One last thing: as much as I find the space-race twang of the Shadows appealing I would be hard-pressed to say they were air-guitar worthy. Has anyone ever been driven into a frenzy by Hank Marvin? I very much doubt it.

How wrong am I? This wrong, apparently:



In conclusion, The Best Air Guitar Album in the World...Ever! is not - and does not aspire to be - high art, and nor does it do much to distinguish itself from the slew of rawk compilations that infested the shelves of music stores throughout the early days of this millenium. It does scratch an itch, though. Put simply, listening to lots of loud, dumb rock can be a hell of a lot of fun. Think of this as the lamb doner with extra chili sauce one enjoys as a guilty pleasure after a gargle down the local, just before you top off the night by kicking the shit out of 'Where Were You' in a supermarket car park.