How do you follow up a masterpiece that is Jailbreak? It’s surprising they even did anything after it, with all the issues they were having at the time. Phil being hospitalized with hepatitis, and the ongoing confrontation with Brian Robertson. In fact, this would be Robbo’s last album as part of the band. He only co-wrote one song (Borderline) on this album so he wasn’t bringing too much to the table anyway, but the solo on Borderline is beautiful.
The big hit on the album and one of my all time favourite tunes is Don’t Believe A Word. It’s a perfect rock tune. Killer main riff and groove with Phil’s vocals just superb and the solos… oh my! It’s a true goosebumps tune! The other big track was the title song Johnny The Fox. A great funky under groove that was so different from anything else they were doing at the time. Let’s not forget Massacre, which was a return to the Jailbreak feel with the Celtic overtones.
I think you can call this a treading water album with flashes of Lizzy brilliance spread around, but it is still better than what most bands were putting out in ’77.
8/10 from The Grooveman.
