Wild Frontier (1987)
One of my favourites of his, 1987's
Wild Frontier betrays Gary's deep connection to his Irish roots, and many of the songs on the album are either written about Ireland or in an Irish, Celtic style. The album would have been topped off by having Phil Lynott sing the title track, as was Gary's intention, but Phil's passing the previous year put paid to that, and so Gary took the vocals himself. There's a huge feeling about this album, a feeling of wide-open spaces and nature, and yet at the same time the sense of being crushed and crowded and pinned down by the weight of history, particularly the troubled history of Northern Ireland. All drums were programmed, though no programmer is credited, and Gary uses only two other musicians on this, surely his most personal album.
It opens with “Over the Hills and Far Away”, which was also released as a single, and the Celtic feel is immediately evident, with fiddle and uileann pipe sounds made by Neil Carter on the keyboards, Gary's guitar as ever the star of the show as he tells the story of a man who must go to prison for a crime he did not commit, rather than betray the honour of the woman he loves. The sheer power in the song is almost breathtaking, reminiscent indeed of the very best of Big Country, with a huge sound and an atmosphere about the music that makes you think in terms of ancient battles and castles, men riding or marching to war, smoke and banners in the air, and shouts of “Freedom!” all around.
The title track then, is Gary's first and most direct reference to “The Troubles”, as we colloquially called the thirty-some years of sectarian violence, death and conflict that plagued Northern Ireland till just relatively recently. It's another powerful rocker, riding on squealing guitar from Gary, as he cries
”I remember the old country/ They called the Emerald Land/ And I remember my own home town/ Before the war began.” There's a lot of uninhibited anger in the song, anger for those who lost their lives for a pointless cause, but halfway there's a short, introspective little guitar passage, when he sings softly
”Those are the days I will remember/ Those are the days I must recall/ We count the cost/ Of those we lost/ And hope it's not in vain/ The bitter tears of all those years/ I hope we live to see those days again!” This was, of course, before peace, of a sort, came to Northern Ireland, thankfully.
After two strong tracks, I find “Take a Little Time” slightly weaker, a fast rocker built mostly on a keyboard melody, though with plenty of Gary's trademark screaming guitar. Top quality is soon restored however with the amazing instrumental “The Loner”, which I have featured probably about three times already in my journal. The first song not written by Gary, it's a searing, emotional workout on the guitar which just wrenches at the heart, and demonstrates not just how proficient Gary's guitar playing was, but how he could make the instrument do just about anything he wanted it to: cry, sing, scream, yell, whisper.
I could definitely do without the cover of the Easybeats' “Friday On My Mind” - I didn't even know who they were until I heard this song, and I care less - I think it takes from the general theme and feel of the album, and is a cheap attempt at creating a hit single for the album. Which in fact it was, but it does not to my mind reflect the kind of music I associate with Gary Moore, not at all. Much better is “Strangers in the Darkness”, co-written with Neil Carter, which tells the harrowing story of the dispossessed, the homeless, the destitute, those who walk our streets, no matter where we live, and pass by as unnoticed by us as ghosts. The whole aura of the track is of desperation and danger, the vocal from Gary low and restrained until it rises as his guitar punches its way into the song, backed by Carter's expressive keys.
Gary sings of the woman who
”Sells her fading beauty/ To the passersby/ And tries to hide that far-off look/ That's in her eyes.” and as for the guy? Well,
”They found him after midnight/ On a city street/ A young man with a problem/ That he couldn't beat.” The guitar goes into overdrive as the song winds to its end and Gary asks
”Why is it no-one seems to care?” His other effort with Carter is next, the rocking, blazing “Thunder Rising”, with not surprisingly a strong keyboard melody from Carter to lead the song in, in fact in some ways he emulates Darren Wharton on Thin Lizzy's “Angel of Death”, his keys shimmering and racing while Gary pounds out the chords and sings with effortless power.
The Celtic theme is back for “Johnny Boy”, an almost acoustic, indeed almost
acapella ballad sung in traditional Irish style by Gary, as he sings
”When I look to the west/ Out across the River Shannon/ I can still see you smiling / Johnny boy, oh Johnny boy.” Whether this is a reference to someone he lost, or just a generic character I don't know, but it's a moving and powerful song, amply demonstrating that the deepest emotions and the biggest effect can be achieved with the very minimum of instrumentation, mostly driven as it is on I think uileann pipes or maybe even bagpipes.
The next two tracks are twelve-inch (ask yer dad!) versions of two of the tracks, and so not really worth discussing, but the closer certainly is. Starting off with a very Journey-ish keyboard intro, quite similar in fact to “Who's Crying Now”, it's another ballad which again explores the plight of the lonely, this time two lovers who see each other, having broken up, but ignore each other, perhaps unable to look into the eyes they used to adore, or else just not caring, hatred or apathy having replaced love. Again, Gary looks at the problem from the view of both a woman and a man, cleverly (or not) simply switching “he” for “she”, “his” for “her” and repeating the same lyric in alternating verses, thereby avoiding laying the blame, as it were, at the feet of either. And so the lyric goes from
”Sometimes he sees her walking by/ He never looks her in the eye” to
”She doesn't know, she doesn't care/ What he is feeling” and so on. Great soulful little guitar solo to back up Carter's lush keyboards as the song moves towards its conclusion, as well as good backing vocals from the keyboard man.
Like I say, one of Gary's best albums, or certainly one of my favourites of his,
Wild Frontier occupies pride of place in my Gary Moore collection, alongside the likes of
Corridors of Power and
Run for Cover. Rarely has any artiste delved, I believe, so deeply into their own emotions and history to lay bare their soul and committed it to music. But then, with Gary you always got one hundred percent, and you would have expected no less.
TRACK LISTING
1. Over the Hills and Far Away
2. Wild Frontier
3. Take a Little Time
4. Friday On My Mind
5. The Loner
6. Strangers in the Darkness
7. Thunder Rising
8. Johnny Boy
9. Crying in the Shadows
(The album also contains 12” versions of both “Over the hills and far away” and “Wild frontier”, but as they're additional/bonus tracks I haven't included them in the tracklisting here.)
Rating: 9.2/10