Record Reviews Blog

Album, EP and DVD reviews, with an emphasis on the UK progressive rock scene.

Yngwie Malmsteen – Attack!

Posted on October 28, 2002 by Tim Hall

Widdlywiddlywiddlywiddlywiddlywiddlywiddlywiddlywooooo! Yes, Swedish neo-classical guitar shredder Yngwie Malmsteen has a new album out.

As ever, the revolving door of musicians gives yet another line-up. This time he’s got ex-Rainbow singer Doogie White, former Dream Theater man Derek Sherinian on keys, and Yngwie stalwart Patrick Johansson on drums.

Musically, it’s much what we expect from a Yngwie album; a lot of blindingly-fast scales and arpeggios, and songs with violent imagery. Sadly, most of the songs are fairly ordinary, with the standouts being the two of the instrumentals, “Majestic Blue” and “Air”. Derek Sherinian’s talents are largely wasted, since the keys are mostly inaudible. On one song, Yngwie proves to the world he can’t sing when he takes the vocals of “Freedom isn’t Free”.

Lyrics are either mindless macho crap or gloriously dumb, depending on your opinion. For example, in “Valhalla”, we get this Spinal tap-esqu gem:

We come from the north
We come from the ice
We live dangerously
And very short lives
We fight day by day
Sailing the seas

Makes his earlier “I am a Viking” look like a classic.

Overall, this is neither better nor worse than any of his previous umpteen albums. Yngwie has been a parody of himself for years. Although he’s got an undoubted instrumental talent, he’s never been more than a mediocre songwriter and a truly terrible lyricist. He really ought to team up with a singer that writes, but sadly his gigantic ego prevents him from collaborating with anyone else with some compositional talent, I’d love to hear him do an album with Dio, for instance, but I can’t see it ever happening.

I’ll rate this one as a mere two (out of five)

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Spock’s Beard – Snow

Posted on September 25, 2002 by Tim Hall

With their sixth album, Californian prog-rockers Spock’s Beard have done what many prog-rock bands have done at some point in their career, produced a double concept album. In prog-rock history, such beasts have either been their creator’s finest hours, or marked the point where hubris got the better of them. So, is “Snow” a ‘Lamb Lies Down on Broadway’, or is it a ‘Tales from Topographic Oceans’?

For the uninitiated, Spock’s Beard are a 5-piece from San Francisco, comprising of Neil Morse on lead vocals, keyboards and acoustic guitar, Alan Morse on lead guitar, Ryo Okumoto on keyboards, Dave Meros on bass and Nick D’Virgillo on drums. Over the course of the previous five their sound has blended influences of Pink Floyd, Yes, The Beatles, and more obscure English progressive bands like Gentle Giant with that of American bands such as pre-blandout Kansas into a seamless whole; their sometimes lengthy songs feature strong melodies with big sweeping choruses, punctuated by manic instrumental sections. Eschewing modern synths sounds and and samples, they play 70s instruments, with heavy use of Hammond organ and Mellotron.

The concept is a trifle vague; with the central character ‘Snow’ a Tommy-like messaianic figure; but progressive rock isn’t really about the lyrics, it’s about the music. And music-wise, Spock’s Beard deliver.

All these trademark Spock’s Beard elements are present on “Snow”. The songs on both disks run into each other to produce a pair of hour-long pieces, in true concept album fashion. There are some noisy guitar-driven songs, such as heavy “Devil’s Got My Throat”, jazzy instrumental passages like the instrumental break on “Open Wide the Flood Gates”, and even an ELP-style keyboard explosion in the appropriately-titled “Ladies and Gentlemen, Mr Ryo Okumoto on the Keyboards”. The strongest individual song has to be the ‘Comfortably Numb’-style ballad “Solitary Soul”, penultimate number on disk one.

Overall, a strong album even if the two-hour length means there’s a bit of filler there, although I found it took quite a few listens to really get in to. If you like this album, there’s a good chance you will also like their five previous albums.

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UFO – Regenerator

Posted on August 23, 2002 by Tim Hall

It was January 28th, 1982, the day after my 21st birthday. As part of the celebrations, I had tickets to see UFO at the second of three sell-out concerts at what was then the great temple of British rock, the Hammersmith Odeon in London.

The BBC recorded the show for their regular Saturday night ‘In Concert’ broadcast a couple of weeks later. This has shown up as a bootleg in the past, now it sees an ‘official’ release. While many people associate UFO with Michael Schenker, the often overlooked period with Paul ‘Tonka’ Chapman saw their greatest commercial success. This recording shows just why; it shows the Phil Mogg/Paul Chapman/Pete Way/Andy Parker/Neil Carter line-up at it’s peak.

In complete contrast to the classic “Strangers in the Night” live album released just three years earlier, they draw the bulk of the songs here from their most recent albums ‘No Place to Run’, ‘The Wild, Willing and the Innocent’ and ‘Mechanix’. Just a few Schenker-era favourites remain, four on this album, since the final encore ‘Doctor Doctor’ is missing.

High spots are the “No Place to Run”, the harder and heavier version a great improvement on the weak studio version (I always felt the lightweight production on ‘No Place to Run’ was the major blot on George Martin’s copybook; perhaps hard rock just wasn’t his forté), a fast and furious “Long Gone”, and the storming cover of Elvis’ “Mystery Train”. Paul ‘Tonka’ Chapman’s playing is superb throughout, unconvinced Schenker fans should listen to his solos on “Only You Can Rock Me” and “Love to Love”.

This is of course an ‘official bootleg’, no overdubs or edits, and suffers from the odd pops, clicks and fades. But the live intensity of the performance shows though; this is just what live albums are supposed to be about. The only thing missing apart from the final encore is the bit where Phil Mogg announced that the gig was being recorded for the radio, and got the audience to shout “Hello Mum”. Turn up the volume as far as the neighbours will tolerate, and enjoy!

And I do still have the T-shirt, 20 years later.

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