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

On to the group's third album.... Produced in part by contemporary studio nutcase Todd Rundgren, this album starts strongly with the muscular and organ-powered Take It All. Also impressive is the slightly rockier Baby Blue. Already I sense that this is possibly going to present a marginally stronger collection of songs than the previous two albums had. Only just, mind. Indeed, maybe not. There is maybe a slight more slickness to the production, but it certainly rocks less overtly than its predecessor which swings me back to that one as a preference. Money is a solid, appealing mid-pace number featuring some nice vocal harmonies. Check out that great bass too.  There has to be some Beatles influence, of course, and it arrives on the Lennon-esque Flying which is backed by some distinctly Abbey Road-inspired fuzzy guitar. How Wings does the introduction to I'd Die Babe sound? It could be off Band On the Run, couldn't it? I'm thinking Mrs. Vandebilt. This adds more weight t

This is a strange album, one that has no relation whatsoever to either the singer's sixties work with husband Sonny Bono or her big production, nineties pop material.  Its best track, by a mile, is the heartfelt title track, which was a US hit and, hopefully opened up many peoples' eyes to the prejudice people such as Cher had suffered due to their mixed ethnicity. Up there with that one is Carousel Man, an atmospheric, suitably swirling fairground narrative that is similar to Cher's big hit from the previous year, Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves.  The rest of the album is mainly typically seventies balladry, the highlights being David's Song, Melody, the cynical This God-Forsaken Day and Chastity's Sun, a Seals & Crofts song re-written by Cher to her daughter. Most of the album is pretty inconsequential, though, including a cover of Paul McCartney & Wings' My Love, one that is spoilt by Cher's strange enunciation of the word "love", something

After 1993's excellent  Back Into Hell: Bat Out Of Hell 2  Meat Loaf released a couple of extremely patchy albums in  Welcome To the Neighborhood  in 1995 and  Couldn't Have Said It Better  in 2003.  On this one, he decided he wanted to revisit the old  Bat Out of Hell  theme again, which, after all, is the only one that ever really, properly worked for him. There was one problem, though, composer and resident genius  Jim Steinman  didn't want to be involved and indeed, began proceedings to sue Loaf over the "Bat" title, as he owned the rights to it. In the end, though, an agreement was amicably reached out of court and seven Steinman songs were used on the album.  Unfortunately, however, songwriter  Desmond Child  was hired as producer, so the album didn't bear any of the Steinman production hallmarks. Can you tell, despite the use of the Steinman songs? Of course you can. For me, the production is willy-nilly, lacking in thought and cohesion. While Steinman&

This album, recorded twenty-eight years since their previous one, is a sprawling, way, way too long double album containing an hour and a half's blatantly retrospective Eagles music.  It is full of jangling riffs and those trademark freeway driving vocals - AOR rockers and AOR ballads and it seems as if the band had never been away. Can I trawl through it, analysing in detail track after track of generically-similar music? No, I guess not. It is suffice to say that I can dip into any of this album at any time and thoroughly enjoy it. The sound quality is uniformly excellent and the band, often at each others' throats over the years, sound as if they really enjoyed recording it.  Roughly, the album can be separated by its two CDs - the first recalling the smooth country rock of the seventies while the second looks back, sonically, to the eighties and has many vibes of Don Henley's The End Of The Innocence album. This is only to an extent, though, because much of the second h

  This was ex-Eagle Don Henley's third solo album.  I remember getting it back in 1989 and being relieved that, for an eighties album, it was decidedly synthesiser-free, and was a proper rock album in that guitar, drum, piano West Coast way that it had. It was a pleasant mix of hard rockers and moving, melodic, romantic rock ballads. I much prefer the love songs, and some of the rockers are a bit run of the mill. For some reason though, I find it a bit dated these days, which is possibly a little harsh as it still has its good points. Possibly the slightly muffled, unremastered sound and those accursed programmed drums. What was with that strange hairstyle on the front cover, though, Don?   The End Of The Innocence  will always be a delight. Featuring the instantly recognisable piano sound of Bruce Hornsby, it is a perfect piece of summer's day, easy West Coast rock. The piano refrain is thoroughly irresistible, as too is the chorus and the lyrics are crammed full of wonderful

Perhaps Walsh's most full-on rocking album is this one.  It is a fine example of riff-heavy early eighties rock but without the synthesisers which would blight so many rock recordings as the decade progressed. Like most of his albums it is short, only eight tracks. I like that. It makes it easier to get into. This album is just proper guitar and drum-driven loud rock from the first deep, bassy, thumping notes of Things. I love the piano and Steely Dan feel on this track. Made Your Mind Up is like the sort of stuff Billy Joel was doing at around the same time when he decided to rock.  Down On The Farm has some madcap country-style violin swirling around beneath the riffage while Rivers (Of The Hidden Funk) uses the voice box gadget that Peter Frampton and Walsh, originally, had used to great effect. It is a track that reminds me of Neil Young's Cinnamon Girl and Paul Weller's The Changing Man in places. I'm not quite sure about the latter link but something about it brin