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

This was the soundtrack album to the (now) cult movie  Slade In Flame , a dour, bleak, realistic movie about the rock music business. It doesn't particularly matter that the songs are listened to out of context of the movie when one listens to the album. It is still a very good album. Possibly one of Slade's best. It is not a stomping glam rock album. By late 1974, the glam thing was becoming old hat. It is a rock album, and a really good one.  The album kicks off with the atmospheric ballad beloved of  Noel Gallagher ,  How Does It Feel . It begins plaintively with just  Noddy Holder  and the piano before it breaks out into a huge, heavy chorus. It is one of Slade's most accomplished compositions, featuring flute and brass sections as well and, of course, a great Noddy Holder vocal.  Them Kinda Monkeys Can't Swing  is a great rocker in true Slade style, full of riffs and another killer vocal.  So Far So Good  is an evocative, catchy rocker as also is the anthemic  Summ

Twelve years after his previous album, the final studio album is The Driver, released in 1991. Terry is back with polished nineties sounds. Lots of keyboard riffs and that synthetic nineties drum sound, produced by Trevor Horn, who always liked that sort of thing.  Fifth Of July  is a sumptuous piece of  Don Henley  meets  Chris Rea  early nineties melodic pop. Interestingly, it was written by  Louise Goffin , daughter of legendary songwriters  Gerry Goffin  and  Carole King . It is pleasant enough, but a bit unthreatening. It was perfect for the times, musically, I guess.  There’s Nothing Wrong  is overflowing with slick, computerised nineties rhythms. Again, Terry is moving with the times. Beneath the polish lurks some nice wah-wah guitar, however, but I still find this much less uplifting than the sixties-early seventies albums. This is simply typical early nineties wine bar pop rock, unfortunately, like a  Rod Stewart   album from the time, or a  Mick Jagger  solo offering.  The sa

The final essential Ijahman release was this one from 1982. It was, unfortunately, starting to sound a bit dated in the face of all the digital dancehall beats now dominating reggae. It is still predominantly roots and that was fine by me. Roots was on the way out, however, which was a shame but it was just the way reggae was progressing. It has always been a fluid genre.  Its highlights are the appealing roots of Jah Watch Man , Praises In Strange Places , Tradesman and Sinner Man . Apart from the eight-minute title track the tracks are all around the four-five minute mark, which shows that Ijahman is trying to produce a slightly more concise sound.

The last of a great run of five albums from Black Sabbath, from 1970-1973, saw the band breaking out into experimenting even more.  We got boogie piano on  Sabbra Cadabra   (played by Rick Wakeman - bored of recording Yes's bloated, indulgent Tales From Topographic Oceans in the same studio at the same time. Sabbath paid him in beer for his contribution, incidentally) , some ethereal folky instrumental in  Fluff , the string orchestration of  Spiral Architect  and, several years earlier than many groups used them, synthesiser on  Who Are You? . The latter is really electro-pop sounding, which is odd to hear. The bit in the middle is like a cross between ABBA and the early eighties post punk bands.  Looking For Today  has a poppy, rockiness to it as well, merging electric and acoustic guitars with a flute, surprisingly.  The  title track,  Sabbath Bloody Sabbath , is no experimental number, however, as it is trademark Sabbath heaviness. That said, even this had a gentle acoustic bri

I must admit I quite enjoyed my  Wet Wet Wet  albums between the late eighties and this one, in 1997. I have no embarrassment about admitting that. This was the last one that I bought, though.  Not that this was a bad album, but it was not really offering too much different than any of the previous albums had. Wet Wet Wet had become the go-to band for cod-funk, cod-soul with tinges of cod-country. The production was now super slick, effortless and, because it was so good, the music was losing any edge it may have had. It was all getting a bit too easy. This was probably the group's most easy listening album thus far, too.  Their previous albums had their share of uptempo numbers, but they are pretty much non-existent on here. It used to be that their albums often faded out in their second halves with slow-paced ballads. This album is comprised totally of them.  In fact, this would be the group's final album until they released a reunion one in 2007. It had been ten great years

Prince Far I  was one of the  “toaster”  DJs , who chanted-spoke-half sung lyrics over deep, dubby  “riddims”  in the mid to late seventies and early eighties.  His style was that of a righteous preacher, railing in his deep, gravelly tones about  Rastafarian ideology  and dispensing warnings of damnation.  Where he differed from other DJs was that instead of toasting over existing backing tracks from previous well-known recordings, the rhythms here were created by Far I and his team themselves. Far I also preferred to label himself as a  "chanter"  as opposed to the more rhythmic  "toasters" . I have covered in the most detail one of his finest albums here. On to this equally well-known album.  Message From The King   has an infectious refrain,  “black reggae music”  sung over a mid-paced rhythm.  The Dream  has Far I croaking about righteousness over not much of a beat at all, to be honest .  Commandment Of Drugs  has a stark, almost indiscernible beat at times, j

With Bob Geldof’s life about to change forever, this virtually forgotten-about release proved to be The Boomtown Rats’ swansong. They just didn’t matter anymore, no matter how much the media tried to talk them up during Live Aid “Bob is out there on stage, doing what he does best - leading The Boomtown Rats”. It didn’t wash, because he clearly could do other things better, and he duly did just that. This album was destined for obscurity.  The  opener,  Dave , however, is a bit of a slow-burning undiscovered new wave gem. The Rats now had to cope with the loss of keyboardist Johnny Fingers, who had joined Gerry Cott in leaving, so tracks like  Over and Over  were driven by synthesisers and programmed percussion, depriving them of some of the vitality much of their music used to revel in. It is still an acceptable track, though, as is the very late seventies Rats-esque single  Drag Me Down , featuring a catchy "de-de-de-de" vocal bit. This would have been fine in 1979, but some

For many, this was  Bread 's best album, containing two of their biggest hits and successfully merging sensitive ballads with some deceptively hard rocking cuts. It shows that they were more than just slushy pop balladeers, despite the perfection of their tracks that fit that particular bill. This is an eminently listenable example of early seventies Californian rock.  Mother Freedom  is a powerful rocker with some killer buzzsaw guitar.  Baby I'm A Want You  is known to many, it's great. Lovely vocal, lovely atmosphere, lovely bass line. Just a perfect easy rock song. So wonderfully early seventies.  A  Byrds -esque jangly guitar riff introduces   Down On My Knees . The track rocks from beginning to end in a seventies-era  Fleetwood Mac  style.  Everything I Own  is, of course, beautiful. As a reggae fan, I always associate this song with the  Ken Boothe  1974 cover that hit number one in the UK, but this is the original. It is moving, sensitive and timeless. When that cho