By JAY ROBERTS

The Cassette Chronicles is a continuing series of mini reviews and reflections on albums from the 1980’s and 1990’s. The aim of this series is to highlight both known and underappreciated albums from rock, pop and metal genres from this time period through the cassette editions of their releases. Some of the albums I have known about and loved for years, while others are new to me and were music I’ve always wanted to hear. There will be some review analysis and my own personal stories about my connection with various albums. These opinions are strictly my own and do not reflect the views of anyone else at Limelight Magazine.

KROKUS – CHANGE OF ADDRESS (1986)

As I planned to write about this ninth studio release from Krokus, I had to head off to research some stuff online. I have to say that I was pretty surprised to find out that just two albums after Headhunter, the band ended up releasing what is considered one of the worst albums of their career. I read that online and I found myself intrigued to discover if that was totally true, a little true or completely false.

As always, the truth does seem to fall somewhere in the middle. At least for me. Krokus has said that the record label put them and their music under incredible pressure during the recording of Change Of Address. I can see some of that in terms of how commercially oriented the material turned out. But that’s not always a sign that it was all bad.

On the first side of the album, “Now (All Through The Night)” and “Hot Shot City” got things going. The first track started off with a bit more of a mid-tempo pacing but once the song got to the first chorus, Krokus kicked things into a higher gear and I thought the track turned out okay. “Hot Shot City” was a much faster rocker track that wasn’t bad either.

Next up was Krokus covering the Alice Cooper classic “School’s Out”. While you could make the argument that a cover of a track that was just 14 years old at the time it was re-done by Krokus wasn’t really necessary, at least they did a pretty good job with it. Seriously, I think singer Marc Storace’s voice is uniquely qualified to pull off the vocal performance and the Krokus version got me just as pumped up as the original version.

Now, if you want to talk BAD music well you can start with “Let This Love Begin”. I know that longtime readers will know about my hindsight disdain for ballads, but in this case I think I’m on solid ground. This is simply putrid. It’s not just that it is a shameless attempt at power ballad glory and sales, it is also because it is so wretchedly banal that even the biggest supporter of power ballads would have a hard time saying they liked it with a straight face. I would love to know how they managed to record the track without vomiting.

Now for all the complaints about the album’s musical style from critics, fans and the band, I would have to say that the side closing “Burning Up The Night” is actually a fantastic song. Yes, it is pure pop-oriented metal with a great hook and a draw-you-in chorus. But again I ask why is that always considered a bad thing? I loved this song and quickly found myself humming along to the chorus.

Flipping the cassette over to Side Two, the opening song “Say Goodbye” has a pretty good sound to it. The track starts off with a heavier thump to it, even with a more mid-to-uptemp pace than a full-on rocking style. But the song lyrics are telling a story that seems to have a darker take on things. The chorus has a big backing vocal sound giving it a bigger canvas to draw you in. But I was definitely intrigued by the lyrical content so for me, the song worked rather nicely.

That sense of intrigue continued with “World On Fire”. The song is over six minutes long (which seems long by 1986 standards) and it feels like Krokus is world building something throughout the song. The song doesn’t fully break into a full on rocker except for a few flourishes but I was quite keyed into this track from start to finish.

“Hard Luck Hero” is a hard rocking track that sounds like it should’ve been a single. I could see how it might’ve been used over the end credits of a 1980’s action movie as well. It’s a straightforward kind of track but I enjoyed it a lot.

The album closing “Long Way From Home” was an uptempo track for the most part but again, this song felt like Krokus was doing a bit of world building with the lyrics that were reflective in nature.

As I listened to that last song, it struck me that the Change Of Address album feels like two different albums. The first side feels like the band’s complaints about pressure from the record label forced them to write pure pop-oriented material. Even though it turned out that I liked most of the songs on that first side, as I listened to Side Two which sounds mostly like the band wrote material that appealed more to their own tastes, there is a marked difference in the tone of the songs from side to side, even allowing for the more accessible sounding “Hard Luck Hero”.

But whether pure commercial metal or the possibly deeper sounding material, I found that I enjoyed Change Of Address for what it was. Hey, it may not make anyone but me happy but I would have no problems listening to this album over and over again, though I’ll skip that ballad track!

NOTES OF INTEREST – Guitar legend Allan Holdsworth provided the solo on the album closing track “Long Way From Home”.

The track listing provided on the outside and inside of the Change Of Address liner notes is out of sync with the running order that actually appears on the album itself. I found it more than a little annoying.

The band must’ve really hated this album because even though they were promoting the album on tour with Judas Priest, they reportedly barely ever played any of the songs in concert.

When I wrote about the band’s Headhunter album back in 2018, I noted that Krokus was heading off on a farewell tour in 2019. They had a planned November 2020 date in Massachusetts that a buddy of mine and I got tickets for but the show never happened due to the pandemic.