THE GROOVEMAN'S COLLECTION

REVIEWS FROM MY VINYL COLLECTION

Tag: black sheep

IRON MAIDEN – Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son

February 18, 2025 / / 0 Comments

Surprise surprise, if you hadn’t guessed already, this is album number 7 for Arry’s Army. Is this Maiden’s entry into the progsphere? We have lots of extended tunes (what’s new there then), synths, and a much softer production, so sure sounds like it to me.

This is a million miles away from that raw Dianno fronted band that I loved so much, and you have to really dig deep to find anything like that here. You get a super radio friendly single in Can I Play With Madness, which I tolerate. The opener Moonchild is not too shabby once you put those awful sounding synths in a dark place in your mind, but the only song here that has that old Maiden feel is The Clairvoyant which gets my vote as favourite tune.

I know they are know for their “gallops” but there are too many on this one, and this album cries out for something heavy and different. As you can tell, it’s not my favuorite Maiden album but it’s a solid effort nonetheless.

7/10 from The Grooveman.

BLACK SHEEP – Trouble In The Streets

February 16, 2025 / / 0 Comments

This is the one and only album Black Sheep released and it came out through Enigma records in ’85. The band revolved around frontman Willie Basse, who was one of the only black frontman in a rock band at the time. It’s the players that left the band that are of interest however, inlcuding a very young Slash, Randy Castillo, James Kottak, and Paul Gilbert (who does play on the album although he is not pictured on the cover).

The album has a very sparse, in your face, crystal clear production – which I do love. We go from cheesy anthem hair band material on tracks I Will Survive and What Can I Do 4 U, to out and out metal rippers like Love Is Not Enough, where PG gives it all the beans. It’s very reminiscent of early Racer X.

All songs are written by Basse only, except Trouble In The Streets which was co-written with George Lynch. The riff on that track sounds a bit like Turn On The Action by Dokken. It’s definitely my favourite song with lots of shredage by Mr. Gilbert.

I like this record a lot and yes, we’ve heard it all before but it’s fun and that’s what the 80’s were all about.

8/10 from The Grooveman.

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