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.

SASS JORDAN – RATS (1994)

Back in September of 2022, I wrote about Sass Jordan’s breakthrough album Racine. I’d always meant to get around to writing about the follow up release Rats but just never got around to it for whatever reason.

And now I’m writing it for an entirely different reason than the simple fact that I enjoyed Sass Jordan’s music. Because just about two weeks ago, Sass Jordan passed away at the age of 65. 

So in memory and in tribute to her, let’s dig into my thoughts on Rats. 

After the success of the Racine album, Sass Jordan’s profile in the U.S. was pretty high. I loved that Racine album a lot so it was a bit of a surprise to discover that Jordan had amped up the rock and roll to a much stronger and harder edged tone for this album.

The material, mainly co-written by Jordand and Stevie Salas, kind of just shreds. The odd thing for me was that it was only by doing research for this piece that I learned (from the album’s Wikipedia page) that the album was Sass reflecting on having been in a relationship with a heroin addict.That would certain account for the musical direction moving towards a darker tone.

The first side of Rats opens with the high energy rocker “Damaged”. The music rocks from first to last note and Jordan’s vocals are both edgy and hard-hitting. It’s like she took the faster moving songs and gave them an additional burst of energy.

The song “Slave” is more of a methodically paced stomper. It still has a pretty lively beat but the tempo is clearly slower than on “Damaged”. Meanwhile, the song “Pissin’ Down” became a small bit of renewed surprise to me. I’d forgotten that the song starts off pretty slow in terms of pacing. It isn’t until over a minute into the track that the song explodes into an almost confrontational bit of rock and roll fury. I may have forgotten about that pacing, but I do remember that the way Sass Jordan’s vocals alternated between a softer delivery and then rises up to the point where she’s got a full on near screech (though under clear control) to her vocal take.

I’m not sure if there was any other song released as a single from the Rats album but whether or not there was, I think anyone listening to the album has to be in love with the song “Hard Road Easy”. It’s got a great hook musically and one of my favorite vocal performances from Sass. She’s got a zesty swing to the way she delivers the vocals and it all combines to make an electrifying track! I mean, you can’t help but feel jazzed up after listening to the song.

I liked the way Jordan musically switched gears right after “High Road Easy” with the song “Sun’s Gonna Rise”. It is a much slower song, though not quite a full-on ballad. But it does seem powered by an acoustic guitar as the foundational building block of the musical soundtrack. It might just be the “lightest” sounding song on the album but it still manages to pack a pretty solid musical punch.

The closing track of Side One is called “Head” and it is pretty good, the swifter moving rock and roll sound is back, even if not quite as hard and heavy as some of the earlier tracks on Side One.

The second side of the album opens with the song “Ugly” and the song is anything but. It’s a hard-driving rocker with a smoking hot guitar sound, a bluesy intro with a male vocal (I’m not sure who did that) before Sass comes in with her own full blown vocal take. As I was listening to the album for this article, I was kind of taken with this song anew, finding that it hit me different than all the times I’ve heard it in the past.

The song “I’m Not” continues the uptempo side of things with Jordan’s music. It blends a bit of the softer sound with quick moving rocker sound woven into the song, particularly the in the song’s chorus.

When looking up information about the album, I saw that one review at the time of the album’s released referred to the song “Honey” as the only song on the album that kind of missed the mark, saying it was a run-of-the-mill rocker.” Maybe I’m just hearing something other than that person did at the time but I loved the way the song was just a sonic assault to the senses. I don’t know that every song has to be drawn together with a specific intent other than to just pull out all the stops and have a damn good time. For me, “Honey” was definitely a kick ass rocker that I enjoyed. 

And that kind of go-for-broke rocking continues apace with the song “Wish”. It doesn’t quite attack the senses all the way through like “Honey” does, but you will not find  yourself lacking for a shot of adrenaline when you listen to the song.

I mentioned before that “Sun’s Gonna Rise” is probably the lightest song on the Rats album. Silly me, I forgot about the song “Breakin'”. It’s definitely a rival to “Sun’s Gonna Rise”. Once again, built around an acoustic guitar line, the song gets into your brain. There’s no real rise and fall to the delivery but the way the song comes together, it is still an intense experience as you listen to the song.

The closing song on the album is called “Give”. It is the only song that Sass Jordan wrote on the release with someone other than Stevie Salas. It was a guy names Tony Reyes who gets the co-writing credit. He played bass, acoustic guitar and provided some backing vocals on the album. And this track was definitely a classy one. It’s got kind of a mid-tempo pacing throughout the song. You can almost feel like the song is just waiting to break out into something heavy and/or faster, but I like the way the music stayed fully in control of itself. Sass Jordan’s vocals combined with the accompanying male vocal (though the song is NOT a duet) gave the song a nice point counterpoint feel to it.

I don’t think the Rats album gets nearly the appreciation it deserves. Rock fans definitely missed the boat on this one. I think that it still maintains the high artistry that I heard for myself on the Racine album, even if the material sounds markedly different.

Sass Jordan was one hell of a rock and roller. She was also a wife and mother, an actress, served as a judge on Canadian Idol, was an entrepreneur in the alcohol field and reinvented herself musically as more of a blues artist with what would become her last two albums. And if you want a definitive showcase of her hard rock side, you would do yourself a great favor by checking out this under the radar masterpiece! 

NOTES OF INTEREST – While the album sales for Rats were disappointing enough that Sass Jordan got dropped by her US label, the lineup of people who helped make the album is impressive. Besides drummer Brian Tichy and guitarist Stevie Salas in the main band that recorded the music, you’ve got backing vocal guest appearances from George Clinton and Richie Kotzen as well as Cheap Trick’s Tom Petersson guesting on bass.

One thing I never knew before now was that Sass Jordan spent at least a month jamming with Van Halen back in 1996 after Sammy Hagar was out of the band. Some reports say she was offered the job as their new vocalist but most say that while Van Halen was considering a female vocalist, Jordan reportedly told them putting a female singer in the band was “the dumbest idea she’d ever heard in her life.”