At the time of its release in 1990, this was one of the best funk-metal albums of the new and exciting offshoot in the scene at the time. For some reason, that simply blows my mind, as this, and the Back From The Living album, are the only ones that are readily available outside of Japan. I saw him play at a small club/bar in Toronto called Stones Place, which was just a jam night, and it turned into one of the best gigs I have ever seen. Stevie wears his influences on his sleeve, mainly James Brown, Parliament, and Funkedelic. Bootsy has recorded a few albums with Stevie, and Stevie has guested on his.
The awesome, Stand Up, starts the album off with its heavy funk groove and sets the tone for the whole album. Blind is next, and is another killer tune. Caught In The Middle is a perfect piece of pop rock that should have been released as a single, but in typical Island fashion, they dropped that ball. Just Like That follows, and would not have been out of place on a Mellancamp album. Side closer, Two Bullets And A Gun, is another ripping tune and really grooves with some great playing by Stevie.
Side 2 starts with the best song on the album, The Harder They Come, and is a monster tune. Some serious funk-rock groovin’ going down. Over And Over Again is next, and the tempo seriously slows down with its Hendrix feel, and is as close to a ballad as Stevie gets. Baby Walk On has things heading back to funky town with its big sing along chorus. Indian Chief is another tune that has the Hendrix feel – not in a guitar-explosion way, but Jimi in his mellow moments. The album closes out with Cover Me, with a big fat riff and is more of a straight ahead rocker.
About the same time as this, Stevie was dating Sass Jordan. He helped out with her Rats album and his stamp is all over it. I really like this album, and would recommend this to anyone. There is a lot harder edge to the music here, compared to say, Dan Reed Network, who were a lot more commercial sounding.
9.5/10 from The Grooveman.
