Lights out --- UFO --- 1977 (Chrysalis)
Tracklisting:
1. Too hot to handle
2. Just another suicide
3. Try me
4. Lights out
5. Gettin' ready
6. Alone again or
7. Electric phase
8. Love to love
Howard sent me this album, and I will be the first to admit I know virtually nothing about the music of UFO, but do know that they're respected in the rock and metal community as one of the greats. So I'm interested to see if that reputation is deserved.
Have to say, from the opening this sounds very Steppenwolf to me, good hard guitar work and a vocal that's a little raw maybe, few touches of BTO in there too. I have to say I'm surprised to find the great Michael Schenker on guitar: thought he was always in German bands? In fact, if I glance through their alumni it's clear that UFO have been, over the years, something of a clearing-house for some of the best talent in English rock. Names like Bernie Marsden, John Sloman, Neil Carter, Aynsley Dunbar, Simon Wright, Laurence Archer and Jason Bonham show just how respected this band has been, to have featured such luminaries in their ranks.
The introduction of piano for second track “Just another suicide” works very well, tempering the rougher sound and allowing Phil Mogg's vocals to come through clearer and more solidly; great guitar work from Schenker again with Pete Way and Andy Parker holding the rhythm well. I find this a lot more commercial than the opener, “Too hot to handle”. The piano again features heavily, along with a great strings section in the only ballad, “Try me”, which suits Mogg's smoky, aching vocal well, and a soulful and intensely laidback guitar solo from Schenker completes the picture. Standout so far.
The title track, which I think became one of their standards, kicks everything back up into high gear again, with a healthy dose of organ courtesy of Paul Raymond (wasn't he involved with all those Penthouse playmates?)
and I can see why this is so loved among their fans. It's a real anthemic power-rocker, trundling along like a locomotive with thunderous percussion from Parker and pulsating bass from Way. Maybe I was misrepresenting Mogg's voice at the start, or maybe it was just a bad track for him. Certainly seems to be fully into his stride now, and no complaints from me.
This is like those old vinyl records I used to buy as a youth, where you more or less expected eight, maybe a maximum of ten tracks per record, and this has just the eight. “Gettin' ready” again brings in the Bachman-Turner Overdrive influences, a
very seventies rocker which sounds like it belongs more at the beginning of the decade rather than towards the end. Touches of Free can also be made out, but this is a lot less impressive than the previous, then their cover of Love's “Alone again or” is well, just strange. Almost like the sixties trying to muscle in on the seventies. Some great slide guitar on “Electric phase” and then we're into the closer, and the longest track on the album at just over seven and a half minutes.
“Love to love” opens with an almost three-minute instrumental section on piano and guitar, with strings coming in just before the vocal hits, the strings becoming an integral part of the melody as it takes flight, with a certain sense of blues permeating the latter part of the song, however I hate the way it just falls apart at the end and finishes abruptly.
Having listened to this as my first UFO album I wouldn't say I'm that impressed, and it's not likely to encourage me to seek out any more of their stuff, not at the moment. I don't rate albums, but if I did, this would probably get a 4/10, maybe sneak a 5, but no higher.
Thanks though Howard, for if nothing else satisfying my curiosity.