What, you think I'm such a huge Gary Moore fan that there isn't one of his albums I don't rate? Think again. Although he has had pretty much consistenly great and on occasions excellent material over the course of his career, there have been one or two occasions where, for me, he stumbled, wandered off track, got it completely wrong. This particular album I'll be tackling in a moment, but first...
Victims of the future --- 1984 (10 Records)
This, and “Corridors of power” --- already reviewed a long time ago by me --- were the first two Gary Moore albums I bought. Well, correction: the first two my brother bought, but which I half-inched and listened to. Although the previous album edges it for me in terms of just total song quality and quantity, I have a real soft spot for “Victims of the future”, not least because of the classic “Empty rooms”. But it's not by any means a perfect album, as we will see.
It opens on the title track, which fools you into thinking it's going to be a ballad, with its crying guitar intro and the slow synthesiser melody, Gary's vocal slow and mournful, with nice vocal harmonies until he strums one more chord on his guitar and the whole thing explodes into a heavy rock cruncher with political overtones, Gary punching out the vocal with his full power, guitars crashing like an indictment on our leaders. This is the only song on the album on which the entire band collaborate, though keyboard player Neil Carter does pen two more with Gary. It's a thundering opening to the album, which unfortunately takes a serious nosedive next with the frankly awful “Teenage idol”.
It's almost like someone bet Gary he couldn't write the worst song of his career, and he took up the bet. The lyric is puerile, banal, cringeworthy, the idea in the song put forward that anyone can make it as a rock star if they want to --- forget all the many hundreds or thousands who fall by the wayside, and the fact that a very small percentage of “wannabes” even make it out of the traps --- I find to be intelligence-insulting to the max, and in fact the whole song annoys me so much that I'm going to pass it over, but not before giving you a sample of the kind of lyric in the song:
”He dumped his chick/ Sold his car/ Bought himself a hot guitar/ He joined a band/ And they cut some tracks/ He hit the road/ And he's never looked back.” Er, yeah. So if it was that easy, why aren't we all doing it? God, that song makes me so.....
Aaaaanyway, luckily enough normality is quickly restored, albeit via a cover version, the Yardbirds' “Shapes of things”. However, Gary gives the song (which originally sounded quite plodding and boring in my opinion) a real rock makeover, hard thundering drums, screeching guitars and Gary's voice rising to near-manic scream right at the end. It's followed by the pure classic rock ballad, “Empty rooms”. Mostly carried on soft synthesiser and acoustic guitar, the song is a sad, reflective look at a broken love affair, and features some of Gary's most delicate guitar work, as well as excellent and deep lyrics:
”See her face in every crowd/ Hear her voice but you're still proud/ So you turn away/ Tell yourself you'll be strong/ But your heart tells you/ This time you're wrong.”
Gary rerecorded this for 1985's “Run for cover”, which I think was a mistake, as it sort of diluted the song, and it was only a year later: it's not like he waited ten years and then re-released it. But anyway, it's a great track and one of his best ever ballads. It's also one of the ones on which he collaborated with Neil Carter, proving that the pair were quite a songwriting team. It features a quite stunning instrumental midsection, including a soulful bass solo by Mo Foster which would have probably made Phil Lynott weep, then a fantastic soaraway guitar solo from Gary.
The quality stays high then for another standout. Referencing the shooting down of Korean Airlines flight 007 over the Sea of Japan in September of 1983, “Murder in the skies” opens on an angry, heavy guitar solo, which goes on for over a minute before the song gets going properly. It's a rockin', pounding axefest with some very effective keys from Carter and thunderous drumming from Ian Paice, Gary bewailing the loss of over two hundred souls on that fateful day. No doubt the song was banned in Russia, as Gary does not pull his punches in the lyric!
”The Russians have shot down a plane/ On its way to Korea/ Two hundred and sixty-five innocent victims have died!” This song is a continuation of the partnership with Neil Carter, and it's no coincidence I think that the two tracks are the standouts on the album. Great, raging guitar solo by Gary here, and a fadeaway, siren-like ending.
After that, “All I want” comes as something of a disappointment. It's not as bad as “Teenage idol” (nothing could be!) but it's a fairly standard rocker, and really passes by not quite as filler, but not too far from it. “Hold on to love”, on the other hand, gets the top quality going again, with a yearning, powerful fast ballad, if you can imagine such a thing. With the definite elements of a love song it's nevertheless a fast song, more in AOR mode than heavy rock, bringing to mind the likes of Journey or Asia, with a great keyboard melody laid down by Carter, and a great hook that should have made it a hit single, but didn't. This song is in fact so good that it should have been the album closer, but there is one more track left.
“Law of the jungle” is not bad, a down-and-dirty rock cruncher with Gary screeching the vocal, but I don't feel it's the proper closer the album needs. It opened well, dipped once or twice, but generally speaking maintained a high level of quality throughout, and I think it should have finished better than it does. That said, the closer is not a bad song at all, just somewhat rock-by-the-numbers, opening with an almost Peter Gabriel vibe circa “No self control”, then Gary tries to go all Metallica, slow and doomy chords with a sort of drawled, growled vocal while Carter does his best to keep his at least interesting keyboard melody at the forefront, but is mostly drowned out by Gary's heavy guitar and the bassline.
Despite its few defects though, I still consider “Victims of the future” to be one of the best Gary Moore albums released. It has the classic hit single, the political commentary, the updated cover song, and unlike many of his later releases does not rely too heavily on Gary's love of the blues. It's very much a snapshot of the man at a particular time in his career, when he was beginning to achieve some chart success, which would be extended with “Run for cover”, but then more or less dry up, and he would concentrate more on the blues and re-recording old standards.
TRACKLISTING
1. Victims of the future
2. Teenage idol
3. Shapes of things
4. Empty rooms
5. Murder in the skies
6. All I want
7. Hold on to love
8. The law of the jungle
So that's not my
favourite Gary Moore album --- that's between “Corridors of power”, which was already reviewed and so can't be included here, and “Dark days in Paradise” --- but definitely one of the ones I consider among his top five. The rest that I've heard are all pretty good too, with one or two rare exceptions, but mostly they follow the standard and trusted format, and so are unlikely to disappoint.
This one, however, is a whole different kettle of blues...
A different beat --- 1999 (Castle)
I don't know, maybe the impending new millennium shook him up, or maybe he just went a little crazy, but there are few reasons to explain, or excuse, this serious blip in Gary Moore's career. Like a speedbump you suddenly and unexpectedly encounter while tearing along a flat, smooth road you've travelled many times before, “A different beat” was certainly that, different, but not in a good way. At least, not for those who prefer (like, I would think, the vast majority of us) to hear Gary play rock and blues. Hey, if I want to hear dance beats or hip-hop I know who to listen to, but I don't expect to run into it on a Gary Moore record!
That however is exactly what you get with this album. Gary unaccountably decided to start stretching out beyond his rock/blues base and experimenting with dance beats, calling in house/rave producers Jay Hurren and Alex Banks, together known as E-Z Rollers, to mix and produce the album. But these two can't be blamed for the content of the album, as Gary again wrote every track himself. And helped produce the album, and it
still turned out as it did! Oh, shame on you, Gary!
It starts out encouragingly and innocently enough, as “Go on home” opens with the familiar snarling guitar, some house-ish beats behind it, then someone pops up with a rap-like backing vocal (presumably one of the E-Zs?). Roger King and Phil Nicholls are both at the programming board, the former also playing keys, and as an opener this is not the cold-water shock I'd been led to believe this album would hit me with, though behind the hard-edged rock there is a suspiciously dancy beat. Nevertheless, Gary's guitar shines through as ever, commanding and in control, then “Lost in your love”, far from being the expected ballad (although this would be a little early in the album to slow things down, true), is another acceptably rock track, but with a funky dancebeat that removes it from the grinding rock we've come to expect from Gary. Sort of more leaning in the direction of pop, but not too bad a song for all that.
Gary tries his hand at keyboards on this album, also bass, and not surprisingly he's very competent on both, though as ever it's on the guitar that he shines, and there's plenty of that here. So far anyway. You would hope that a song titled “Worry no more” might calm any fears about the content of this album, but this seems to be the first time that the emphasis shifts from hard rock towards more dance music, though the guitar is hard and heavy; the drums definitely sound like they're being made electronically, whether they are or not I don't know, but they sound programmed. It's the chorus that saves this song, with its tough, rough, loud guitar chords churning out some great sounds, but when it drops back to the verses there's a definite sense of restraint, of the guitar being pushed to the background.
Still, I'm not traumatised yet. And his reworking of Hendrix's “Fire” is certainly encouraging. The dance rhythm is pushed right to the side as Gary stands front and centre, loud and proud as he racks out the classic, perhaps to the bemusement of the E-Z Rollers... Hendrix lives again? No, it's not that good, but it's damn close, a faithful retreading and a great tribute to one of the guitar gods. Unfortunately, that's about as good as it gets, and things take a decided turn for the worse with “Surrender”.
Slow, lazy, laidback is all very well, and the soul-type melody is quite nice, but the song is overlong at almost ten minutes, and based mostly around keyboards with a slow dance beat, ending up as being quite boring really. It probably wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't so long, but though I've heard and enjoyed Moore songs this long, and longer, before, this one just doesn't cut it for me. There's not enough variety, there's not enough direction, and there's not nearly enough guitar. Oh dear. “House full of blues”, despite the title, starts off at least like some sort of new romantic song, like maybe Fiction Factory or the Human League.
Guitar bites a little as it goes, but the song isn't rock enough for me, relies too much on the synth and the muted percussion. “Bring my baby back” goes back to stripped-down Memphis blues, with an almost bluegrass feel to it, some nice harmonica in there (made on synth? Perhaps) and some fiddle (ditto) providing a welcome return --- if only temporary --- to the sort of music we want to hear from this man. Is that a jews harp I hear? VERY country. Sadly, “Can't help myself” goes right back to the left-of-field, with a clangy, almost The The drumbeat and a very restrained vocal from Gary, lots of keyboard and synth fiddling, very little actual guitar, and a dancy beat more suited to the likes of Prince than Gary Moore. Worryingly, the album closer is an extended version remix of this track. I don't like the original, and I'm certainly not looking forward to hearing a longer version!
“Fatboy” doesn't do a lot to help, with semi-rap and dance rhythm, although Gary does get some nice guitar licks in, but they're kind of subsumed by the synthery going on, and it really comes across as more of a sampled track than a proper song. Quite annoying, I have to say. “We want love” then is the closest we get to a ballad since “Surrender”, and it's equally unimpressive: dull, lifeless, monotonous, boring. At least it only runs for just short of six minutes this time. The scratching on the track just makes me hate it more.
And so we close with the dreaded “E-Z Rollers Mix” of what was in the first place a mediocre song. I'm torn between whether I would have wanted a new track to close, given the generally disappointing quality of the songs on this album, or just for the album to have stopped at “We want love” (or, indeed, “Bring my baby back”, which seems a very long time ago now!) At least the track opens with some decent guitar, but it's not long before the synths are at it and the drum machines are fired up, and the expected double-tracked/echo/sampled vocals start being fired off like the opening salvo of a barrage that I feel is sure to destroy any lingering hopes I had that this album might not be as bad as I had been led to believe.
Basically, it just goes on and on, as remixes often do. It certainly doesn't endear itself to me anymore the second time around. And then, at the eight minute mark, for no obvious reason, they throw in another recording of “Surrender”. I mean, why? What is the point? Just lunacy, which in some (unkind) ways describes this album.
I'm reluctant to put down any work by Gary Moore, but we have to be objective, and it's quite clear that this was a failed experiment, an idea he had that did not work out, as evidenced by his return to, and remaining with, the blues and rock of his youth for the remainder of his catalogue. Some things do not mix, and some things should never be put together. You'd never have bananas with burgers, would you? Well, maybe you would, but you'd probably be sick afterwards. Might seem a good idea at the time, but...
There's not an awful lot good I can say about this album. There are a few good tracks on it before the dancebeats kick in, and in the middle there somewhere “Bring my baby back” is welcome respite from what goes on for most of the album, but generally speaking I would have to unequivocally place this as the very worst Gary Moore album ever. Thankfully, he learned his lesson and it was never repeated.
TRACKLISTING
1. Go on home
2. Lost in your love
3. Worry no more
4. Fire
5. Surrender
6. House full of blues
7. Bring my baby back
8. Can't help myself
9. Fatboy
10. We want love
11. Can't help myself (E-Z Rollers remix)