Tag: april wine

To the rest of the world, Harder Faster is April Wine’s most popular album. Hey, it got them on the original Monsters Of Rock festival at Castle Donnington, so they must have been doing something right. Canada, however, knew them from way back, and were known for more poppier tunes like Bad Side Of The Moon and You Could Have Been A Lady. So, was Harder Faster a one off?

This album came out in ’84 and was three albums after Harder Faster. I would say, yes, they had reverted back to a more poppy sound with only a couple of hard rockin’ references. Hard Rock Kid is one of them but it could have been so much more, and Rock Tonite, which is head and shoulders above anything else on the album and is my favourite.

I find this album a bit if a mish-mash, and it feels like they are trying to please everyone instead of concentrating on what they were good at.

6/10 from The Grooveman.

Now this might come as a surprise to none-Canadians, but this was the band’s 8th album released in ’79. This was the first time I had paid attention to the band, as previous efforts were a tad poppy and a bit weak for my tastes.

It was the lead off track, I Like To Rock, that got my attention and they were even asked to play the very first Monsters Of Rock festival in the UK. They were 4th on the bill after Saxon and before the Scorpions. The very radio friendly, Say Hello, was the second single from the album and did a lot better in North America than it did in the UK. There is a brief section in Tonite that rocks, and Ladies Man does rock harder as well, but other than I Like To Rock, it’s a very AOR record. There is a very strange choice of a cover that closes out the record, with King Crimson’s 20th Century Schizoid Man. It’s an ok rendition, but I would be interested in finding how they chose that one.

I don’t think this album has aged that well and the production is a bit flat, but it’s still an enjoyable album.

7.5/10 from The Grooveman.