Howling At The Moon - The Punk Panther's Album Reviews

So , only a year after their last album, Deacon Blue are back with a somewhat gloomy, eight song, thirty minute offering that, although it has a vastly improved sound (only in places, however), has a downtrodden, slightly muffled ambience to it that hasn't caught my imagination as yet.  The album was intended to be a companion piece to the City Of Love album. I guess the thing to do is play them both together.  The opener and the title track,  Riding On The Tide Of Love , starts with a drum sound straight out of Bob Dylan's Rainy Day Women.  The orchestrated Kate Bush-esque  She Loved The Snow , for some reason, puts me in mind of something Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel did around 1975, it's on the chorus refrain.  Nothing's Changed  is archetypal later-era Deacon Blue - nothing has changed, indeed.  The valedictory  Look Up  should really have closed the album and  Time  continues the dense. gloomy feel to the album.  ...

Finally, there was  this valedictory and once more considerably undervalued album. It included  Angel ,  (My My) Baby's Gonna Cry ,  The King & Queen Of America , the beguiling  Sylvia , the attractive but lyrically sad  Don't Ask Me Why  and the excellent  When The Day Goes Down .  All of the Eurythmics albums are perfectly listenable and full of hooky, pop classics, but, for some reason, I haven't got the motivation to review them in the same detail I have done other artists' work. Quite why that is I find difficult to convincingly explain. Just one of those things. Every time I listen to them, however, I like them, particularly the lesser-known In The Garden and We Too Are One. The album seems to function as a starter for Annie Lennox's solo career, the material on here having a similar feel. There is a bit of an underlying sadness present too, as if they knew things were changing.

This was the last album released by Elvis in his lifetime. It is a mixture of studio cuts and live songs.  It did not do much upon release, but, of course, after his death it sold millions.  His live version of  Unchained Melody  is disappointingly underwhelming, as so many of Elvis's perfunctory covers often were. I can't help but feel things like this had him just going through the motions.  If You Love Me (Let Me Know)  is also live and is an appealing enough country rocker.  Little Darlin'  is a live cover of The Diamonds' rock 'n' roll number. Again, it is not a patch on the original. It is sad to think that these songs were recorded live in April 1977, only four months before Elvis's death. He sounds out of condition and uninspired on them, rendering them even more poignant.  The  best of the studio cuts were the posthumous number one in the vaguely funky  Way Down  and the catchy typical seventies Elvis of  Moody Bl...

Look, you know what you’re going to get from  Simply Red , even all these years later - immaculately played white soul-funk topped off with singer  Mick Hucknall ’s genuinely credible soul voice.  This album gives you just that - ten tracks of largely upbeat soul and-or funk full of instantly singable hooks but nothing particularly remarkable. It is just a pleasant thirty minutes or so. It is also nice for an album to be the traditional thirty minutes plus in length, as opposed to a bloated seventy minutes. Yes, you get less music, but, strangely, the shorter time allows the album to be enjoyed more. I’m sure you understand what I mean. An hour of it would have been too much but half an hour suits me fine.  The first four tracks are more what you expect from Simply Red in their eighties soulful style but thereafter the album turns impressively funky. It is far more of a gritty funk offering than a softer soul one, in my opinion. Anyone looking for an album of poppy, ...

A sort of companion piece to the Consequences album is this lovely little nugget of a live album. I say "live" in that it is Joan and her tight band - bass, drums, keyboards and occasional saxophone - playing live in an old South London chapel but in front of no audience.  The recording has omitted Joan's sparse between song chat as well, and so good is the musicianship that it sounds like a studio production. Joan plays all the guitars, by the way.  The track listing is intended to span her career, and does so - it is certainly not a "greatest hits live" release and for that I am glad, the variety and comparative obscurity of much of the material has allowed me to enjoy it far more than if it were comprised totally of over-familiar stuff.  There are several tracks from the Consequences album on here and the seventy year-old Joan plays and sings with the vitality and enthusiasms of someone half her age. It is a delight from beginning to end.  A quick shout out t...

Sometimes, particularly these days, one can get quite disillusioned by what is going on in the country, and indeed, the world.  It is at times like those that I find I turn to Billy Bragg. He never lets me down.  He meets modern day issues head on.  Saffiyah Smiles  is about an Asian girl who faced down a loathsome fascist thug with a smile;  Why We Build The Wall  attempts to ask if there is some sort of reason to Trump’s lunatic America;  King Tide And Sunny Day Flood   addresses the problem of climate change; and on the magnificent  Full English Brexit  Bragg sings in the role of a “leaver” moaning about “measuring in metres not feet”.  Yes, Billy can be a little bit ham-fisted in his delivery, but his heart is in the right place and, as he does here, he is brave enough to sing in the persona of his political opponents, not an easy thing to do.  Thanks Billy. You restore my faith that I am not alone. As you have done fo...

More quirkiness, then, this time with a strangely Caribbean slant in places (not quite sure why that was), but it works, particularly on its lead-off massive hit,  Dreadlock Holiday , resulting, to an extent, in one of the group's most likeable and accessible albums.  From Rochdale To Ocho Rios , for example, is irritatingly catchy. On the other side of the  argument, however, it sounds like a couple of 10cc members being helped out by session musicians (which, of course, is exactly what it was) and the wry humour is starting to wear a bit thin by now (not before time, for me, either).  You can't point too many fingers at classy numbers like  For You And I , however or the irresistible  Take These Chains .   10cc always seemed to be sending up one style or another in their music (such disco on  Anonymous Alcoholic ) as opposed to just playing it straight for a change. That wasn't their  raison d'être , I guess. Either way,...

This was actually Tracy Chapman's last album to date. By now, you don't need me to tell you that it is made up of intelligent, sensitive, meaningful and evocative songs delivered in reassuringly warm fashion and backed by immaculately played and never intrusive music.   Bar a bit of additionally robust backing from her third album onwards, Tracy has been the same for twenty years. She does what she does and she tells it as it is. The world was better for having her music in it for those twenty years.  Highlights are the gently catchy and surprisingly light (for Tracy)  Sing For You , the gospel/country shuffle of  Save Us All ,  the attractively rhythmic  Thinking Of You , the similarly snappy  A Theory  and the pleasingly organ-backed  Something To See .  I can't really analyse each song individually because I would simply describe the songs as "warm", "evocative", "moving", "gentle" etc etc. That is what they are, simple as that. I ...

After the heavily ska-influenced groove of 1968's Engine 54, The Ethiopians returned the following year with this excellent, most enjoyable album that signalled a relatively significant change in sound.  The more jaunty, horn-driven ska grooves were replaced by a sort of rock steady meets roots vibe. Yes, the horns are still there, but the pace is slower, the melody not so obviously carefree as the dense, more serious roots sound started to make itself known. For that reason, this is quite an important album in the gradual transition of reggae from ska-bluebeat to roots via rock steady. For a 1969 reggae album the sound quality is outstanding. It is a great little album that gives pleasure from beginning to end. Probably  the most well-known cut on the album is the insistent and infectious brassy skank of  Woman Capture Man  which is followed by a similarly popular number in the skinhead groove of  Everything Crash , a song that details a general strike that too...

After the experimental five track only album in  Foreigner  that perplexed critics and fans alike,  Cat Stevens  returned with an album that was far closer to his previous ones.  It proved to be one of his most successful and fondly-remembered offerings.  This is slightly less of a folky album than its predecessors,  though, carrying more of a rock thump to it in places. The old Stevens subtlety and unassuming beauty is omnipresent, however.   The opener,  Music ,  is a vibrant, drum, guitar and piano driven number. Very “rock”. Even  Oh Very Young , the melodic hit single, has a catchy, mellow rockiness to it when it kicks in. The tune is just so typical Cat, though. So mellifluous. The piano is sumptuous. The song is simply beautiful.  Sun/C79   has an intoxicating rhythm and pulsating attack from Stevens vocally and with his firmly strummed trusty acoustic guitar.  Ghost Town  is almost bluesy in places, with ...

This was the first "folk rock opera" or "folk concept album" as such. Released in 1971, it threw  Fairport Convention 's fans somewhat in that it was a series of narrative songs detailing the life of  John "Babbacombe" Lee , a Victorian murderer convicted to hang but reprieved because the gallows failed to work properly three times.  It is a quite incredible story of good fortune for a man who was probably a pretty unsavoury character, yet it gains our sympathy throughout the album. Lee brutally murdered his landlady, yet bizarrely I find myself feeling sorry for him as his tale is narrated.  The group is now all-male and the vocals are all strong, vibrant and harmonious, sung in that traditional English, rural real ale-drinking, bearded "folk" style. It is an atmospheric, interesting album and the instrumentation is lively and impressive on the fiddle-dominated, upbeat numbers such as the two parts of  I Was Sixteen  and the sailor's hor...

This was the last studio album by sixties psychedelic rockers  Jefferson Airplane . I knew nothing of it back in 1972, other than flipping past the sleeve in a record shop as I hunted for  David Bowie  and  Mott The Hoople .  The group were never my thing but, ever the retrospective explorer, I am giving this the once-over. Please also bear in mind that I initially wrote the basis of this review before revisiting their earlier albums. Having listened to all of those in detail now, though, I can confidently say that this is one of their folkier albums, as the group revisit the folk roots that were always around, merging it with a solid rock-prog rock early seventies style. It may seem a bit dated in places but each track has its good points - something that is the case on all the Airplane albums, particularly the later ones.  Long John Silver  is a corker of a rocker, featuring some absolutely stonking guitar, killer bass, pounding drums and a shrieking...

Similar, but heavier, chunkier and more concise at twelve tracks, is this one . It was the band’s last great album.  Again there is a US theme to quite a few of the tracks such as  The Selling Of America  and, like with Ships,  We’re Not In Kansas  makes a second, rockier appearance.  A bit of recognisable Big Country guitar appears every now and again, such as on  Alone ,  What Are You Working For ,  The One I Love  and the excellent  Seven Waves .  Long Way Home  is anthemic Big Country at their very best.  Overall, there seems to be just a bit more verve and clarity to the songs than on the previous album, but that is just a feeling of mine, it is not that distinguishable, just something more “oomphy” about it. Oh, and  Ships  is just bloody marvellous. Nobody bothered much about this album and that does it a disservice, because it’s great.

This was unfortunately  Terry Kath 's last album with  Chicago  before he tragically killed himself in a gun accident at home.  It was also their first album after their huge global hit  If You Leave Me Now  (which was always, ironically, quite unrepresentative of their overall sound, even though it was their biggest hit). It is certainly not all an "easy listening" album, containing some blues, jazz, soul, funk and classically-influenced material. It was a bit of a cultural anachronism, however, coming at the height of punk and disco and having no relation to either. The album is an inventive one one full of variety. It doesn't fit into any pigeonholes and certainly has considerable credibility.  The opener,  Mississippi Delta City Blues ,   is a superb, bassy, funky upbeat blues, with Kath on gruff vocals. The ubiquitous brass section plays a big part too. It is very much a throwback to the group's early albums.  Baby, What A Big Surpr...

This was, unfortunately, Bobbie Gentry’s last album and, in many ways, it was her most adventurous.  Populated with all Gentry original songs, it contained little of the Stax-y soul of her previous two albums, or much of the Mississippi blues of her first three outings. Many of the songs are separated by short instrumental interludes and there seems to be a loose concept, but, if I’m honest, I struggle to pick up on what it is. It is a quirky, Impossible to categorise piece of work, but it is appealing in a strange sort of way and its creativity-originality should be admired. In many places, a string autobiographical streak can detected and also a sad, seeming admittance of defeat along with the more familiar Gentry nostalgia. It was like she knew this was her last shot, which contributes to the general feeling of sadness.  Benjamin   is a laid-back piece of singalong bluesy jazz while   Marigolds And Tangerines   is a low-key, acoustic and evocative number. ...

After albums of blues rock, psychedelic rock, soul rock, funk rock and heavy rock,  Jeff Beck  was back (without his Jeff Beck Group, but with other musicians. Only keyboardist  Max Middleton  remained from earlier groups) to give us some funky jazz rock.  It was an instrumental album and was produced by  George Martin . The album is certainly nothing like his work with  The Beatles . It was, for 1975, an innovative, quite ground-breaking album. You do find yourself wanting a few vocals every now and again, however.  You Know What I Mean  is a catchy slice of funky jazz rock to open up, with some (for the time) adventurous synthesiser riffs thrown in. Beck's guitar soars all around the punchy rhythm and there is also some funky clavinet.  She's A Woman  is delightfully infectious with a slightly reggae-influenced keyboard sound and wah-wah guitar laying down a fine rhythm. It is an old  Lennon-McCartney  song, but its inve...

  After nearly nine years of releasing quality funk and soul albums, this was, unfortunately, the last outing for this excellent New Orleans band. They had given consistent pleasure from the late sixties through to the mid seventies in their eight high quality albums.  No More Okey Doke  is a pounding, upbeat brassy funk grinder, with horns to the fore and a it sees a return to their finest funky feel. The organ, bass, drum interplay at the end is impressive, as is the gritty soulful vocal.  I'm Gone  is a lively piece of poppy soul-blues, with once again features some kicking horn parts.  Be My Lady  is a sumptuous smoochy soul number, with great bass and horns, as is now expected. For this final album, The Meters have merged their natural funk with soul a lot more obviously than on previous albums. The track maybe doesn't justify six and a half minutes, but it doesn't grate in any way.  My Name Up In Lights  is a delicious slice of insisten...

Grace  Jones got involved with production for the first time on this album, teaming up with flavour-of-the-month Nile Rodgers, fresh from his success with Chic and David Bowie. Apparently they rowed all the time and the studio atmosphere was tense, but listening to it, you would never have known. It remains of of my favourite albums of hers. It is vibrant, poppy, commercial-sounding and extremely accessible. I'm  Not Perfect (But I'm Perfect For You) was a single, and it bore hints of Bowie's1983 Let's Dance in its infectious backing. Hollywood Liar is just as catchy as indeed is the deliciously upbeat and intriguingly-titled Chan Hitchhikes To Shanghai .  Victor Should Have Been A Jazz Musician is just gorgeous - jazzy, late night in vibe but summery too, enhanced by Grace's semi-spoken vocal. It's one of her best and most underrated tracks. Party  Girl reminds me of mid-eighties Talking Heads quite a lot, something about the African-sounding, subtle rhythm...

Tragically, three days after this album’s release, three members of Lynyrd Skynyrd and several members of their management and road crew were killed in a plane crash.   It would mark the end of the classic first Lynyrd Skynyrd line-up. It is an improvement on the previous album, both sonically and compositionally. However, it has a bit of a change in style and by the end it has gone decidedly country rock.  What’s Your Name  is a brassy rocker with a bit of a loose, easy edge to it.  That Smell , horrible in its prescience, is a broody, bluesy number that tells that  “the smell of death’s around you” . Check out the great guitar solo on it, however, despite its eerie coincidence it is a corker of a track. It was probably the first incarnation of the group’s last classic song.   One More Time  is a typical Skynyrd slow pace but powerful rock ballad. They specialised in this sort of thing and did it so well,  making these sort of songs very much the...

Free bowed out in 1973 as they had begun in 1968, with more blues-drenched rock. No pretensions here or in any of their six studio albums and one live album.  You knew what you were going to get from these tight denim-trousered lads - big, ballsy blues rock. This was also the first album to feature Japanese bassman Tetsu Yamauchi who also went on to (briefly) play with Rod Stewart & The Faces. However, as already mentioned, it was to be their last album and it has a sort of Beatles' Let It Be feel to it. Bassist Andy Fraser had left (replaced by the afore-mentioned Yamauchi) and guitarist Paul Kossoff's soon to be fatal drug habit (1976) meant that he only featured on about half the album.  There was, therefore, a fractured nature to the album that contrasts strongly with the cohesive bonhomie of the previous offerings. Keyboardist John "Rabbit" Bundrick also arrived and the album was made up with material from several...