08. Moxy Moxy 1976 (Polydor)
Hard Rock
Baby don't hesitate........it's getting late!
Overview
The Moxy debut turned out to be easily one of the best hard rock debut releases over the 1975 to 1976 period and believe me a lot were released! The current problem at the time, was that ‘hard rock’ had finally broken big stateside initially with the British wave of bands led by Led Zeppelin and now bands like Aerosmith and Kiss were leading the charge there. Hence the current problem, as around 50% of these new North American bands simply tried to duplicate both the Aerosmith and Kiss sound, but most of the time they would fall well short of this. The other 40% had decided to give us a basic hard rock approach name-checking previous hard rock icons, but usually fell well short on creativity. Luckily though there was a redeeming 10% who knew what they were doing and had the talent to pull it off, Canadian band Moxy were one such outfit in this respect. Originally this album had been released back in their native Canada in 1975, but luckily I’ve qualified it for this year thanks to the fact that it got its rest of the world release in 1976! Moxy were originally formed by Buzz Shearman after his previous band Leigh Ashford had folded and thanks to his musical links the new Moxy line-up quickly got a deal with Polydor Canada and set about recording this debut set. Now the album has something of a conundrum attached to it, in that super-duper guitarist Tommy Bolin whose praises I’ve sung often enough here had added extra guitar parts to the album. His presence on the album was purely coincidental rather than planned, as when Moxy were recording this album in California, Tommy Bolin just happened to be in the next recording studio and was said to have been really impressed with what he was hearing and would then add some of his own guitar work to the album. This now begs the question of just how good this album would’ve been without Tommy Bolin featuring on guitar and would the album have had the same quality if he hadn’t featured? The album was an instant success in terms of getting airplay and its quality was head and shoulders above most other bands new on the hard rock scene at the time, but alas as is often the case the early fire that surrounded the band quickly diminished, as their second release also out in 1976 just didn’t have the songs, despite being produced by the ever productive Jack Douglas who failed to spark the band. The album cover is also great with its simple black and white style and it certainly denotes that the album is heavy, I'm guessing AC/DC may have picked up on this album style as well.
Buzz Shearman- Vocals
Earl Johnson- Guitar
Buddy Caine- Guitar
Terry Juric- Bass
Bill Wade- Drums
Tommy Bolin- Guitar solos
Production- Mark Smith
Album
Fantasy- With an almost film-score start, the song soon mellows out but the song constantly maintains its subdued heavy backdrop, before a guitar solo by Tommy Bolin guides the song out.
Sail on Sail Away- Some nice guitar plucking to start the song before phasing us into a heavy section and then back into a mellow section again, but ultimately the song ends up as a heavy effort in the end.
Can’t You See I’m a Star- Now things start to sound a lot cooler, as the song is a fairly infectious hard rock stunner with some great vocals by Buzz Shearman and one of the best on the album.
Moon Rider (Moonrider)- This Led Zeppelin inspired track follows on from the quality of the previous track and gives us some of Tommy Bolin’s best guitar work on the album, I’m certain that Rush at a much later date ripped part of this song, but who can blame them when a song is this good!
Time to Move On- A steady song but nothing to set the world alight with.
Still I Wonder- Another slowish and heavy workout and probably the best of its type on the album.
Train- Another one of the overtly Led Zeppelin style tracks on the album and again they do it well here.
Out of the Darkness- Slow, heavy and a real pounding mother….. hell this is what’s it’s all about!
Verdict
First up this is a strong album in most facets and from the opening track the feel of the album is quickly embraced, as most of the songs have that slow, often mellow and then heavy style backdrop where it matters. The opening track “Fantasy” encompasses most of the above and is further highlighted by one of the Tommy Bolin’s solos on the album. The second track “Sail on Sail Away” is a great combination of mellow meets heavy and is focused on strong rhythm changes within the song. By the time of the third track “Can’t You See I’m a Star” things start to sound really cool now and the song is almost Led Zeppelin in its style and in its execution, and then the band take us one step further up the ladder with the epic “Moon Rider (Moonrider)” and Buzz Shearman gives a display of what hard rock singing is all about here, whilst Tommy Bolin drop his pants again! Overall the majority of the tracks tend to veer themselves to the slower and heavier side of the hard rock spectrum and songs like “Still I Wonder” and “Train” are prime examples of this, but of this style it’s the album closer “Out of the Darkness” that steals the show here in this respect. Overall the album does have a couple of tracks that seem to just exist, rather than sounding as good as they could have done and a song like “Time to Move on” is a perfect example of this, where the guitar work overly dominates the rest of the track. The Moxy debut in many ways kind of reminds me of the Hard Stuff debut
Bulletproof, which was released a few years earlier and previously reviewed by me. Both albums display an honest sounding hard rock effort full of solid tracks, but with enough variety in tempo to keep the listener interested all the way through. One of the stars of the album is certainly vocalist Buzz Shearman who sounds like a muscled up version of Geddy Lee at times but with a Robert Plant type swagger to his voice. On the slower tracks he hold his own, but it’s when things get heavier and sweatier that Buzz Shearman shows us his worth in the vocal department, but the ultimate failure of the band basically denied us one of the great heavy vocalists of the time.