REVIEWS FROM MY VINYL COLLECTION

Day: April 5, 2022

ANGEL – Helluva Band

This is the band’s second album released in ’76, and is a pomp rock fans wet dream. Whether Casablanca records saw them as the exact opposite to Kiss with their dark image, it made perfect sense to market Angel in all white (I remember thinking it was a cool gimmick if it were true). Other than the Tower, I thought the first album was lacking somewhat in decent tunes, but this album is a lot stronger – and with all the keyboards it almost feels like a Prog album.

The Fortune is grandiose and overblown with a killer intro – Genesis would have been proud. Songs like Pressure Point have a more traditional rock approach, with the stock riff-by-numbers sound. They were a quirky little band that sort of existed in their own universe, until the record company put pressure on them and they slowly changed their sound and became just another rock band. This is probably my favourite Angel album other than the Live one.

7.5/10 from The Grooveman.

BOZZIO LEVIN STEVENS – Black Light Syndrome

For Terry Bozzio and Tony Levin to come together in a project like this is no big stretch, as they have both been in Frank Zappa and King Crimson respectively, so you would think the chemistry would work with them. But to throw in Steve Stevens (who was known for being Billy Idol’s guitar player) was a bit of an unknown. Well, we needn’t have worried as he is the stand out guy here.

The idea of this project was just to go into a studio for 4 days and improvise the music that we have here – then do overdubs at a later stage. 7 pieces of music were the result and captured in the grooves. This is a 2013 vinyl reissue on Magna Carta. This not an album you play for dinner parties, you play this when you have some alone time so you can immerse yourself in the vastness of it. Great playing by all three guys, but mucho kudos to Steve Stevens as his playing is a revelation.

8.5/10 from The Grooveman.