It was tough being a female rock band in the early eighties, especially if you were British. The whole NWOBHM movement was an all masculine, chest thumping bravado and the one thing that was levelled at female artists was “they can’t be good because they’re women” – nonsense. A couple of British bands did cut through however, one was Girlschool and the other was Rock Goddess.
This was the band’s second release that came out the same year as their first in ’83. The production values were very high on this album and the only band that were doing something similar at the time were Def Leppard.
The title track opens up the album and the first thing you notice is it sounds HUGE! A hands in the air anthem and the vocal harmonies are superb. Back in ’83 Gary Glitter wasn’t known as a full on sleazebag pervert, so I will forgive them for their cover of I Didn’t Know I Loved You. Next up is Kiss-style rocker Gotta Let Your Hair Down. The vocals and harmonies are superb, it’s the basic 12 bar blues riff that lets it down somewhat. In The Night opens up with huge vocal harmonies over a somewhat basic chord pattern. Hold Me Down closes out Side 1 and this is my favourite track. There is a harder edge to this one with a Thin Lizzy vibe to the harmony guitar, and as with the rest of the tracks it’s the vocals that drives the song.
An impressive dramatic keyboard intro opens up Side 2 with The Visitors Are Here, a track that has a mid-seventies Sweet vibe. You’ve Got Fire follows and is a typical NWOBHM riff and vibe. It Will Never Change is the big production number on the album and I like the dramatics in the quieter sections, but there is something missing and it doesn’t quite work. Quite an uptempo intro to Don’t Want Your Love and the basic song structure is not bad. The album closes out with God Be With You and it’s the heaviest track in the album.
I’m afraid time hasn’t been to kind to this album and it does sound somewhat dated.
6.5/10 from The Grooveman.
