G-Force --- G-Force --- 1980 (JVC)
One of several side projects Gary got involved in during his pre-blues years, as it were, G-Force was a band put together by him when on tour with Lizzy in the USA. Featuring a more AOR approach to music than his own albums, G-Force only lasted for the one album (though successful) before Gary decided to move on to other things.
Opening with a good hard rocker slightly in the vein of the opener from “Corridors of power”, “Don't take me for a loser”, the first track here, “You”, has a nice guitar sound and good vocals from Willie Dee, with synthy keys from both he and Mark Nauseef, who also played drums in the band. Bassist Tony Newton completed the lineup. Only a few tracks were written exclusively by Gary, including this one, and there is even one on it into which he has no input, quite unknown on his usual output, other than any covers he featured. It's a decent opener, perhaps a little light, but “White knuckles/Rockin' and rollin'”, a combination of Gary's writing skill and that of Nauseef, is much harder and heavier, the first part not surprisingly being a strenuous workout on the guitar for about the first two minutes, while the second part, also featuring fretburning at its best, warps into a fast and heavy rocker, pretty guitar driven with almost no hint of keys at all.
A slow, heavy rock cruncher, “She's got you” is another Moore/Nauseef collaboration, featuring some fine blues licks from the man, and a really finger burning solo, though again I hear little in the way of keyboards, and from an album with two men behind the keys this is a little strange. Okay, so one of them is also at a drumkit, but still... Things slow right down then for “I look at you”, another solo Moore composition, with some nice pedal steel or slide guitar (I know, I should know but it could be either: probably the latter) which then changes into a sort of mid-tempo, almost funk song and the keys can definitely be heard in evidence now. The longest track on the album at just over six minutes, I'm not a fan of how it keeps changing styles all the time: makes it hard to pin down exactly what sort of song it is.
The first (okay, the only) track on which Gary does not participate in the writing comes in on fast rolling drums and takes off as a mid-paced rocker. “Because of your love” is okay, but it's nothing that terribly special, while “You kissed me sweetly” has both feet firmly planted in AOR territory, probably better suited to Bon Jovi, though it's even a little too light for the boys from New Jersey. Violins (probably made on Nauseef's synth) give a sort of ELO feel to the song, and a feeling of latter-day motown too. “Hot gossip” is nothing to write home about either, and the general feel of this album is that it would probably fit into the “Meh” section for my journal; nothing special, not terrible but you can see why G-Force didn't last.
At least Gary turns on his best “Thin Lizzy guitar” during the song, which is probably the only thing that really marks it out. The chorus in particular is very annoying. There hasn't even been a proper ballad so far, and I have to admit that I thought we'd get it with a song called “The woman's in love”, the moreso as it's the penultimate track, but no, it's another sub-standard half rock/half pop hybrid, with a melody that smacks just a little too much of Dusty Springfield's “I only wanna be with you” for comfort. Decent bit of uptempo sax on the track, though it's not credited, but otherwise, meh.
The album closes (and not too soon, to be brutally honest) on “Dancin'”, a title which can't engender much hope that it will raise the bar in any sort of rock and roll way, but in fact it's probably the fastest, rockiest track on the album, veering close to punk at times. Nevertheless, it's way too late to save the album at this stage.
I would consider this the worst combination of AOR/pop/soul/dance with a very small amount of rock thrown in that I have heard from anything connected with Gary Moore, with the possible exception of “A different beat”. It started off well but very quickly dipped in quality and by the end it's slightly rescued by the closer, but the tracks that precede it are so formulaic and by-the-numbers that you kind of have to ask yourself what was the point of getting this band together?
G-force? Never felt any pressure from it, mate!
TRACKLISTING
1. You
2. White knuckles/Rockin' and rollin'
3. She's got you
4. I look at you
5. Because of your love
6. You kissed me sweetly
7. Hot gossip
8. The woman's in love
9. Dancin'