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Old 06-26-2012, 03:19 PM   #5 (permalink)
Trollheart
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You want mean? You got mean!


Artiste: Y&T
Nationality: American
Album: Mean streak
Year: 1983
Label: A&M
Genre: Heavy metal. No Progressive, Power, Nu or bloody Goth!
Tracks
Mean streak
Straight thru the heart
Lonely side of town
Midnight in Tokyo
Breaking away
Hang 'em high
Take you to the limit
Sentimental fool
Down and dirty

Chronological position: Fifth album. Well, third really: the first two were released under their original name (see below) and “Earthshaker” is widely accepted as their proper debut.
Familiarity: “Earthshaker”, “Black tiger”
Interesting Factoid: Y&T began life as Yesterday and Today, shortening their name in 1981.
Impression: Love it!
Best track(s): Mean streak, Lonely side of town, Midnight in Tokyo
Worst track(s):Straight thru the heart (too similar to the Dio track of the same name), Take you to the limit
Intention: Listen to more, rediscover this band
Comments: Okay, okay! So I've broken my own rule in the first three days! This ISN'T a first-listen album, but in fairness I've only ever listened to it the once (as my brother owned the only copy we had) and never really took it all in. Now I can say it's a very worthy successor to “Black tiger”, shows Y&T really finding their feet and trying some trickier compositions like “Midnight in Tokyo”, which has some (sort of) progressive influences, while both “Lonely side of town” and “Sentimental fool” shows them crossing over briefly into AOR territory, in which they don't stand out as strangers in town, like you would probably expect! There's more straight-forward metal too though, as in “Hang 'em high”, not to mention their emulation of AC/DC on the closer “Down and dirty”. With crystal clear production from Chris Tsangarides, and no ballad this time round, this album is a winner, and mean indeed!
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Last edited by Trollheart; 01-12-2015 at 05:56 PM.
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