The bass player leaves (or is sacked from ?) the band - and Byford takes over the bass while singing, for this recording. I do think this ads to a flatter and overall less optimal sound. On the other hand, it does make a bit of a throwback to earlier days, in some sense, which is not necessarily a bad thing.
Lyrically they don't seem to have evolved much over their career to this point we are still doing the anthemic "We Came Here To Rock" kind of stuff mostly, and it is starting to sound like a joke. It may have worked in 1981, but in 1986, this sounds old - though I would still give this particular track the honour of being one of the better ones, kind of Accept'ish style and quality.
When that is said, even if there are still remnants of the poodle hair rock of the previous few albums, this time we are treated to things like proto-power-metal like "Battle Cry", which is surprisingly solid and could fit into any Hammerfall album of the nineties. This seems to be a new opening for them to follow to at least add another dimension to their repertoire than only anthemic crowd pleasers.
"Waiting For The Night" is an old-school mid-tempo Saxon style hard-rocker and with a grat melody line. It is poppy, but it is just lovely to sense that they can still do this kind of stuff and a refreshingly simple melody and riffing is enough satisfy me. Much better than the pretentious crowd pleaser stuff. A solid "side 1" - the best by far since the "holy album trilogy" of the early 80s.
Side 2 is not quite up to the standard though. Basically fillers and then a weird funky track "Party Till You Puke" - I guess it is just a tongue in cheek kind of one-off thing, but it ads nothing to the mix imo. The most interesting here may be that Elton John, yes that Elton, plays piano on this one and the closing ballad "Northern Lady" that attempts to do a Scorpions kind of thing, and fails miserably to be honest. Ok, it is not exactly atrocious, but it has no bite or sensitivity to it. Byford is NOT a crooner like for instance Klaus Meine could be if he wanted.
Definitely an improvement over recent albums all in all, though it is still uneven. They do try various new tricks and I will tip my hat to that, it may not all work but it does feel like they are now at least trying to be creative and find new avenues of expression. Comes recommended.
- Rock The Nations
- Battle Cry
- Waiting For The Night
- We Came Here To Rock
- You Ain't No Angel
- Running Hot
- Party Til You Puke
- Empty Promises
- Northern Lady