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.

DOKKEN – TOOTH AND NAIL (1984)

Since it has been nearly six years since I wrote about a Dokken album for “The Cassette Chronicles” series, I thought now might be a good time to take a look at another one.

I chose Tooth and Nail despite the fact I don’t actually listen to the full album that much. I know it’s got plenty of the band’s best known songs on it, but when I looked at the track listing as I prepped to write this article, it dawned on me that I usually just listen to those well known individual songs rather than do full album listen.

So I figured it’s about time I do that full listening session and give more of a thought to the album cuts as well as those big numbers.

The first sort of surprise for me was the instrumental “Without Warning” opening up the album’s first side. Obviously owing to the fact that I don’t listen to the full Tooth and Nail album all that often, I’d kind of forgotten that Dokken chose to have the instrumental open things up. It’s a short bit, just about 90 seconds or so but it’s pretty cool. I like the main riff that runs through it at the beginning where the music is a bit softer in delivery. That opening sound fades into the background over the 2nd half of the track as a more intense and crackling electric sound takes over as the song ends its run.

It leads into the album’s title track which is a frenzied and fast paced rocker. I actually like the song a lot and have heard it any number of times over the years, but I’m not sure if it is considered a “hit” track for Dokken or not but that could be just my own personal ignorance talking. Still, it certainly gets your blood pumping. Not that I don’t like the instrumental track, but in my own personal hindsight, having the “Tooth and Nail” song open up the album might’ve been a better sequencing decision so that you get hit right at the start with Dokken’s fiery delivery. Don Dokken sounds pretty good here and actually has a nice big scream at one point in the song. George Lynch’s guitar work is phenomenal and clearly his six-string work merged perfectly with the bass and drums from Jeff Pilson and Mick Brown.

The biggest track on Side One is “Just Got Lucky” which is pretty much one of their best known songs. The song’s title refrain in the song lyrics hit hard and I can imagine that it comes off as a perfect spot in a live setting for the audience to pump their fists in the air or have that back and forth with the band letting the crowd to provide the vocal. The song is another high energy rocker and remains a particular favorite of mine.

While the song title “Heartless Heart” might conjure up the notion of some kind of power ballad, you do get a bit of a twist when it turns out to be a full on rocker track. But I couldn’t rightly tell you that I’ve really had this one in my memory over the years. As I listened to the album, the chorus seemed to be a bit familiar to me but overall it was almost like it was a brand new track to me in a way.

Yet more in the way of indictment on my criminal underappreciation of the Tooth and Nail album is the Side One closer “Don’t Close Your Eyes”. Man, that song is a freaking killer track! Another cool Don Dokken scream and a monster musical score that kicks up the adrenaline factor immensely.

For the second side of the album, you get two more stone cold Dokken classics with “Into The Fire” and “Alone Again”. The latter track is the band’s first big ballad number. And while a lot of 80’s ballads don’t age well, “Alone Again” still retains its original allure more than four decades later. The opening of the song fits right into that ballad designation with a soft musical score and a rather involving vocal take from Don Dokken. As the song progresses towards the first chorus break, the music kicks up the intensity so the power portion of “power ballad” gets its time in the spotlight. As the tempo alternates between these two deliveries, Dokken fashions one of the better ballads of the era.

As for “Into the Fire”, its place in the pantheon of great Dokken songs is secure. It’s got a tiny bit of a softer delivery in the song’s immediate opening but then turns up the pace. I love the part in the song, after the solo, when the band is singing in full with the lyrical passage that begins with the line “Take me back…”. I still get a bit of an extra kick when that part of the song plays.

But of course, before you get to those songs, you’ve got the side opening “When Heaven Comes Down”. That’s a pretty straightforward rocker but while there’s plenty of uptempo pacing in the song, you’ve got a bit of an additional thump going on as well. Not that Mick Brown doesn’t announce his presence throughout the album, but I think he gets just a bit more room to shine through on this number. And the solo from George Lynch is damn good as well.

While my memory does fail me at times when I need to recall certain songs or albums that I haven’t listened to in a while, for some strange reason I also seem to remember other tracks that you’d wonder how they made an impression when the rest of an album might not have. Such is the case with “Bullets to Spare”.

As I looked at the song title on the track listing, I couldn’t remember what the song sounded like. But then the song started playing and man, I could actually sing along with the track. I remembered the song but I don’t know why that particular album track stuck with me and others didn’t. Still, the song kicks ass! Fully rocking on this track, I really need to give more respect to the song from now on.

The Tooth and Nail album closes with the song “Turn on the Action”. The funny thing is I remember the song more for its appearance on the band’s live album Beast From The East than the studio version here. On that live album, the song closes out the live show and is introduced by Don Dokken as a song that just has “pure attitude” (though I don’t remember the exact quote). He’s not overselling that notion because it is a full on burst of killer rock and roll. There’s no reinventing of the rock and roll wheel here but the song makes its bones for that very attitude Dokken referred to on the live album.

When I was reading the story behind the making of this album on the Tooth and Nail Wikipedia page, it made me wonder how the hell it ever got made. The fighting between Don Dokken and George Lynch is well known but the other parts of the creative process and album’s production might not be quite as familiar. The fact that the album turned out to have some of the biggest Dokken tracks is testament to the songwriting capabilities of all involved. Especially since you are left thinking it is amazing no one killed each other during the recording process.

That said and set aside, Dokken really hit their stride on this album and it led to two more platinum plus selling studio albums in the succeeding years for the band. And for me, listening to Tooth and Nail now shows me just how much I’ve been missing out by not doing more full album listens all these years because it is just a damn fine album and I need to spin it more often.

NOTES OF INTEREST: The Tooth and Nail album peaked at #49 on the Billboard album charts. It became a Gold selling album in 1985 but it hit platinum record status for Dokken in 1989, the third of their albums to do so overall. The increased sales figures gave them a much bigger profile to say the least. Not bad for being a last chance album with Elektra ready to drop the band if the album hadn’t been successful.

All four members of the band had a hand in the songwriting credits.

The tour in support of the album saw Dokken opening for Y&T, Twisted Sister, Dio, Sammy Hagar and Kiss. They did some co-headlining dates with Loudness as well.

I never saw Dokken live in concert during their heyday. It wasn’t until 1995 when they were touring for the Dysfunctional album that a friend of mine got us on the guest list to see them play a show in Rhode Island. I actually had to go look up the info on that Setlist.fm website. It was at the Strand in July of that year when we saw the show. I remember the bands that opened for Dokken on that date were awful but Dokken themselves put on a pretty good show.

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.

COUNTING CROWS – AUGUST AND EVERYTHING AFTER (1993)

“…and a child shall lead them”.

Now now, I’m not actually going all religious buffoon on you. But that phrase does flow more smoothly than “the daughter of one of my favorite thriller writers shall lead me into choosing this week’s album to write about.” Plus, I’m sure I’ll get some crap from her for referring to her as a child so cut me a little literary device slack, will ya?

Anyway, the daughter has been engaged in a 3rd round of album spotlights on her Facebook page and one of those albums was indeed August and Everything After, the debut album from Counting Crows. When I read her take on it, I was reminded that I had indeed bought the album myself on cassette when it was originally released. But other than the two hit singles, I don’t recall the album having much staying power with me and it found its way out of my music collection.

So after reading “the daughter’s” reaction to the album, I found myself at Purchase Street Records in New Bedford and wouldn’t you know it, they had a cassette copy of the album. So I decided to pick it up and give the album a new listen to see if time had changed my opinion about it. I mean, it has been more than three decades since the album was originally released, it is possible time has altered my take on things. Also, the fact that it has been more than 30 years…I really feel old now!

The first side of the album has the two big hits off of the album. “Round Here” opens up the album and then of course there is “Mr. Jones” which was a worldwide hit that seemed to be on the radio or MTV every five minutes back then.

For “Round Here”, technically referring to it as a hit is inaccurate because when it was originally released there were rules in place that barred it from charting. I’m not sure what the rules were that kept it off the charts because I can’t find anything online. As for the song itself, it starts off with pretty spare instrumentation and a kind of plaintive vocal from singer Adam Duritz. I liked the song back in the day but as I listened to it now, I realized it has been so long that I forgot how the song grew to have much more musically going on from the 2nd verse onward. That doesn’t alter the fact that I like the song still but it was interesting to realize what I’d forgotten about it.

As for “Mr. Jones”, before the song became so overplayed that I would dread hearing it start playing, it hit #5 in the US, #1 in Canada and #7 in France. It was, to say the least, a MONSTER hit for the band. Hell, the video even won the band the Best New Artist award at the 1994 MTV Video Music Awards. And while I still remember how much I hated to hear the song towards the end of its single cycle, as I listened to the song here, I remembered what I liked about it when I first heard it. It’s got a nice rollicking pace with Duritz providing a vocal performance that draws you in. The song’s chorus gets you a bit amped up too.

As for the other songs on the first side of the album, the track “Omaha” kind of just sat “there” for me. I was trying to get into the song but I just didn’t hear much to make me want to rewind the tape and play it again. I would say kind of the same thing about “Perfect Blue Buildings”. In fact, the lyric “Help me stay awake, I’m falling asleep…” kind of sums up my feeling about the song.

Maybe it is simply the fact that Counting Crows seemed more interesting to me when their songs were more in the uptempo vein. When the music is slow and contemplative, I get bored because the songs have a bit of “sameness” to it.

Of course, the song “Anna Begins” is a more interesting to me. While it does start off a tiny bit slow, there’s a good dose of thump from drummer Steve Bowman. The song does mostly hit a mid-tempo pacing thanks to the drumming and the rising and falling of the other musical parts.

The first side of the album closes out with the song “Time and Time Again” which finds the band slowing down once more as the track begins. But it does get more musically driven for the song’s chorus at least. What I noticed here is that the kind of whining yelp from Duritz really started to grate on my nerves by this point in the album. If I could tune out or at least down his vocal in this song by a half, I would’ve liked the song a lot more because musically this isn’t a bad track.

The second side of the album is where I ended up discovering that two more of the songs had been released as singles. They didn’t chart or anything but they’d gotten that individual treatment. I had probably checked out on the band before either song had gotten released which would account for why I didn’t know (or perhaps had forgotten) about that particular point.

The song “Rain King” opens up Side Two and it was the third single. The idea that I enjoy the band’s music more when it has a more rocking tone to the songs is given more credence because “Rain King” is uptempo throughout and I found myself digging the song quite a lot. As I listened I did recall this track from when I first heard the album but not that I’d heard it as a “single”. The vocals are more direct without quite so much whining and the fast pace was a audio feast for the ears. Hell, I probably enjoyed this song here and now even more than the two charting singles.

Counting Crows immediately slows things back down with the song “Sullivan Street”. I like the guitar line that fuels the song during its slower sections. The thing that made me enjoy the song more than I thought I would is that even though the vocals are slower in nature, they are delivered (mostly) in that same kind of direct fashion that you hear on “Rain King”. That is to say there is a lot less of that annoying and cloying emo whining than is on other songs.

Much like with “Omaha” on Side One of the album, I found myself just unable to get into and therefore appreciate what was going on with the song “Ghost Train”.

As much as I prefer when the material is more along a fast moving rock type song, I have to say that the piano driven “Raining in Baltimore” kind of blew me away. Between the heavy tone the piano gives the track and the impassioned vocal performance from Duritz, this track gained a new life with me as I listened to it for this article. It not only had me saying “Wow!” but also wondering why I’d forgotten the song in first place.

The album closes out with the song “A Murder of One”. The song was the fourth and final single released from August and Everything After. It’s got a solid rocking beat to it from the get-go. As I listened, the music carried me along and at one point I even found myself slapping my knees in time to the rhythm.

Confronting an album from the past that I’d heard, not really gotten into and sort of mostly forgotten about is part of the conceit of The Cassette Chronicles series to be sure. And the Counting Crows album August and Everything After certainly fits the bill. I guess the stuff I didn’t like as I listened to the album now is likely what drove me away from it back in the day. But those things are offset by what I do like after my new listening session. I’m going to definitely be keeping the album in my collection this time around. I won’t say that it will be in heavy rotation or anything but I do admit I’ve gained a new appreciation of the release as a whole.

NOTES OF INTEREST: The August and Everything After album sold 7 million copies and hit #4 on the album chart. When the album was reissued in 2007 it had 6 bonus tracks added to the end of the first disc. The second disc was a live concert recording.

One of my favorite singers, Maria McKee (from Lone Justice and a solo artist), is credited with providing backing vocals on the album.

Bonnie Aarons, the actress who appears in the video for the song “Round Here” would go on to appear in movies like The Conjuring 2 and The Nun.
The song “A Murder of One” would be used in an episode of the TV series Scrubs and The Bear.

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.

LOUDNESS – THUNDER IN THE EAST (1985)

While I normally travel back in time for each article in The Cassette Chronicles, I rarely venture further than England when it comes to where each band featured comes from. But if you will forgive the cliche writing, I’m not only going back in time this week but I’m travelling (so to speak) to the Land of the Rising Sun for a look at Loudness album Thunder in the East, which is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year!
Given that the “Rising Sun” artwork serves as the album’s artwork, I don’t feel too bad using that particular that cliche no matter how overused it is.

While Loudness had released four albums in Japan by the time 1985 rolled around, they’d yet to have an album officially released in the US. That all changed when Atco records made the band the first Japanese band to be officially signed to a major label in the U.S. (Atco was a subsidiary of Atlantic Records at the time).

To be clear, I have never heard this album before. I have a vague recollection of hearing the song “Crazy Nights”, probably on the radio back in the day. So this was pretty much a brand new listening experience for me. And after doing all the listening sessions, I have to say that I was astounded by just how much I enjoyed the album.
Founded by guitarist Akira Takasaki (the only constant in the band’s lineup all these years and who wrote all the music for this album save one track) and drummer Munetaka Higuchi, the lineup that recorded this album included singer Minoru Niihara (who wrote all the lyrics) and bassist Masayoshi Yamashita (who wrote the music for the song “Heavy Chains”).

Musically speaking, Thunder in the East was eye-opening to say the least. To say Takasaki was absolutely shredding on these songs is an understatement. He was just freaking fantastic as he had tons of six-string pyrotechnics to enliven each track.

The song “Crazy Nights” opens the album and it is still the band’s best known song. It’s got a bit of an anthemic feel to it. Each of the first nine songs on the album is pretty much an exercise in fast moving up tempo rock and “Crazy Nights” gets things going right from the start of the song. And while there are some songs where Niihara’s vocals either get drowned in the mix or could’ve used a bit more in the way of clearer enunciation, on this song his gritty intonations were perfectly cast alongside the music.

Loudness continued that kind of fiery delivery on “Like Hell” where Takasaki’s playing was particularly immense.

While the opening of “Heavy Chains” starts off with a slow roll intro, the song quickly gives way to a heavier rocking tempo and sound.
The last two songs on Side One of the album are “Get Away” and “We Could Be Together”. Each track pretty much just bursts out of your speakers to grab you from the first note and shake you around until the very last second.

I was feeling pretty invigorated after those first five tracks and once I flipped over the cassette, that same level of excitement continued with Side Two’s opening track “Run For Your Life”. The song opens with a rocking intro but then slows down as Niihara’s vocal run of the first lyrical passage kicks in. But as you get to the song’s chorus, the music ramps up and by the time you get to the conclusion, the song is a full on rocker!

The song “Clockwork Toy” is musically explosive with a soundtrack that will definitely get you pumped up. And you can say that about both “No Way Out” and “The Lines are Drawn” as well.

Thunder in the East closes out with the band’s power ballad “Never Change Your Mind”. Maybe because I was on such a musical high with the rest of the more rocking songs, I had no gripes with this track either. Well, maybe it could’ve been earlier in the album so things finished on a more energetic level but for the song itself, I actually rather enjoyed it for what it was.

While Loudness never really quite broke through in the US, they’ve certainly enjoyed a long career having released 26 studio albums (which according to the band’s Wikipedia page only 6 have been licensed in the US), three EPS, eight live albums and had 16 different compilations put out as well.

But as the album marks that 40th anniversary I mentioned earlier, I have finally heard my first Loudness album in full and I have to say that Thunder in the East has kind of lit a fire under my butt to check out more of what the band’s discography has to offer. And luckily, I won’t have to wait too long to do that because I actually purchased another of their albums on cassette when I bought Thunder in the East.

Meanwhile, I’m going to be enjoying Thunder in the East a bit more because in a failure of more clever writing, the music is quite thunderous indeed!

NOTES OF INTEREST: The Thunder in the East album peaked at #74 on the Billboard album chart. There have been at least 2 reissues of the album. In 2005, there were 2 bonus tracks. In 2015 there were two different bonus tracks plus two DVDs.

Founding drummer Munetaka Higuchi passed away in 2008 from liver cancer.

While singer Minoru Niihara has been the primary vocalist for Loudness, the band has had two other singers in their career. American singer Mike Vescera fronted the band for three years and ex-EZO singer sang for the group for 8 years before Niihara returned to the lineup in 2000.

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 under-appreciated 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.

DIAMOND HEAD – BORROWED TIME (1982)

You’d think that with my overwhelming love of heavy metal that I would’ve been way more into the New Wave of British Heavy Metal bands than my research for this article showed me.

In prepping to write about Diamond Head’s 2nd album Borrowed Time, I looked up a list of bands that were part of this particular brand of metal. One of the things I found is that a lot of the bands started out (and finished) well before I even got into metal.

But the list of bands I saw on Wikipedia showed me that there are only 4 bands from that time that I actually listened and/or still listen to nowadays. Iron Maiden, Def Leppard, Grim Reaper and Saxon. I did hear one album from Lionheart from their recent run of releases too, but nothing else from them. And while I recognized a few other names, none of them were ones that I actually heard any material from.

And so as I set out to listen to Borrowed Time, I knew this was going to be an almost completely new experience for me. I say almost because of course I knew of the song “Am I Evil?” because of the Metallica version of the song.

Yes, Diamond Head’s best known song is also best known for the cover version of it rather than their own original recording. It seems that the band had a hex on it when it came to any hope of big commercial breakthrough. They didn’t have professional management, they never played in the States until 2002 and they were on a TERRIBLE record label for their style of music.

But what about the actual music? And that’s what I was looking forward to discovering since I can’t even be sure I’d heard Diamond Head’s “Am I Evil?” before checking it out on this cassette.

The Borrowed Time album is considered the band’s 2nd album but from what I saw online, it was originally supposed to be their first album. The band’s first release Lightning to the Nations was apparently only supposed to be a demo.

Which would explain how an album with just seven songs on it would end up having two tracks that had already been released on Diamond Head’s “first” album. Besides “Am I Evil?”, the song “Lightning to the Nations” (or “Lightning to the Nation” as it is listed on the actual cassette and insert) were released on both of the first two Diamond Head albums.

With “Am I Evil?”, it is possible that I’ve heard this original version in the past, but I just don’t remember doing so. As I listened to it here, I found that I liked it. But that enjoyment felt a bit tempered for me because I’d heard Metallica’s version first and in my head that’s the version that is THE version for me. I know that makes little sense logically but that’s just how it is I guess.

As for “Lightning for the Nation”, I definitely have no recollection of hearing this track at all. I liked the way the song opened with a big thunderous kind of ovation and then launched into a far more fiery rocking tempo for most of the rest of the song. Singer Sean Harris sounds really good on this track and the band really lays down some serious metallic chops.

Of course each of those two tracks close out each side of the cassette. What about the rest of the material?

Well, the song “Call Me” opens up the first side of the album. My initial reaction to the song was that it sounded rather commercially accessible (or at least what would be considered accessible in 1982). I’m guessing that might be something to do with what I saw online about how signing with MCA Records led to Diamond Head smoothing out their sound a lot from their first album to this 2nd one. Still, I don’t think it was all that detrimental to the overall effect the song had on me. This track seemed much more of a hard rock song than a metal one and you got that big backing vocal sound on the chorus that would become VERY prevalent throughout the 1980s metal years.

For “In The Heat of the Night”, the song is more of a midtempo slow burner, at least until the crackling good guitar solo that lends a bit more of an edge to the overall feel of the song. It took me a couple of listens to really appreciate the song but it did grow on me pretty quickly I must say.

The most surprising track for me on Borrowed Time had to be “Don’t You Ever Leave Me”. Like “Call Me”, it is definitely more of a hard rock song. But what really got me into the song was the bluesy rock sound I heard in the music at points and the fact that it is a pretty lengthy song, clocking in at just under eight minutes long. I loved the guitar playing and solo from founding guitarist Brian Tatler as well. He just wails on this song.

Before I talk about the songs on Side Two, I thought I’d go into why being on MCA was such a bad move for the band. It really kind of breaks down to the fact that MCA just didn’t seem to know how to market the band. Case in point, the cassette edition I have doesn’t have official liner notes for the album. Instead, the insert has two lists of other MCA artists “you will enjoy”. And most of them are country artists like Barbara Mandrell, the Oak Ridge Boys and Merle Haggard. Sure, there’s few listings for The Who and Lynyrd Skynyrd but then you’ve got Neil Diamond and Olivia Newton-John too. Not exactly feeling the love of metal here people!

As for Side Two, besides “Am I Evil?”, you’ve got the album’s title track which is another one that runs nearly eight minutes in length. It’s pretty interesting though not one of my personal favorites on the album.

As for “To Heaven From Hell”, I think this is the album where Diamond Head really cuts loose fully and sounds like what  you might expect from a heavy metal band considered such an early influence to metal music and to Metallica and Megadeth in particular. Start to finish, this song just rocks relentlessly. I love the guitar playing on this song a lot.

As I said at the start, I’ve never really heard much from Diamond Head in the past despite knowing who they were. The Borrowed Time album struck me as being pretty good even if it didn’t bring the band the commercial success that would’ve broadened their fan base at the time. I don’t know that I would listen to it on repeat or anything but the album does make me want to hear more of their albums which makes this foray into the Diamond Head catalog a rousing success in my book!

NOTES OF INTEREST: Besides singer Sean Harris and guitarist Brian Tatler, the Borrowed Time recording lineup included Colin Kimberley on bass and Duncan Scott on drums.

Diamond Head has recorded nine studio albums over the band’s run, though their most recent was a 2020 re-recording of their first album Lightning to the Nations. They’ve also put out six live releases and shockingly enough eleven compilations.

Guitarist Brian Tatler joined fellow NWOBHM band Saxon in 2023 and recorded the 2024 release Hell, Fire and Damnation with them.

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.

STONE FURY – LET THEM TALK (1986)

When Kingdom Come hit it big with their debut album, a lot of the talk centered around how the band sounded like Led Zeppelin. Particularly singer Lenny Wolff.

Well, it would seem that, at least in part, that was something he was doing well before Kingdom Come came around.

Stone Fury, the band Wolff co-founded with guitarist Bruce Gowdy, had a lot of that same Zeppelin vibe going for it as well. However, as I listened to their 2nd and final album Let Them Talk, I noticed that the album actually sounded like a typical 1980s rock/pop album with plenty of keyboards threaded in the mix as well.

But the album does open up with what definitely is a Led Zeppelin inspired track in “Too Late”. Lenny Wolff’s vocals are hard to miss, that’s for sure. What does give the song a bit of its own identity is how strongly those aforementioned keyboards come through. Unfortunately, like a lot of stuff from that time period, the keys actually overpower everything else going on in the song and kind of wrecked it for me as a whole.

I did actually mostly enjoy the next song “Lies on the Run”. First off, kind of cool song title. It’s a bit more of a straight on rocker from beginning to end. There is JUST a touch too much keys in this song but the song sounds more of its own thing and not a clone of Zeppelin. As I was listening to the song, I was searching my brain for another band comparison for this particular song and I kind of settled on Honeymoon Suite…except the latter wouldn’t have had quite so much in the way of keyboards in the mix. Still, I enjoyed this track.

The album’s title cut sticks mostly to a slow and midtempo groove. It’s kind of a power ballad in spots but doesn’t quite blow up to a more intensely rocking sound towards the end as most songs of its ilk would tend to do.

What can I say about the the song “Babe” (not a cover of the Styx classic)? Well, honestly, the song was just pretty freaking annoying the whole time it was playing.

I was a tiny bit surprised at how much I liked the Side One closing track “Doin’ What I Feel”. I liked the rhythm established by the music and I thought the vocal delivery was pretty good as well.

As for the 2nd side of the album, it opens with the song “Eye of the Storm”. The song really gives Stone Fury another song that sounds something original versus being a clone. Uptempo in nature, it works pretty well.

On “Let the Time Take Care”, the opening flourish is uptempo but when you hit the first main lyrical passage, the music drops into a lower intensity and Wolff’s vocals get a bit softer in delivery. The chorus ramps the music back up of course, but the switching between sonic avenues gives the listener something to swing back and forth with, rhythmically speaking.

Wolff’s vocals get a bit more strident for “I Should Have Told You”, the shriek echoing what you are probably used to from the Kingdom Come material. What I did like about this song is that it has a vibe to it that left me thinking it would be used in some kind of montage street scene for a movie or TV show. The music, in the main passages anyway, has that kind of cinematic flair going for it.

The Let Them Talk album closes out with the singularly  titled “Stay”, which is a track that starts out with a mid-tempo pace. There’s a bit too much production on the vocal track but I like the way the song’s music comes through here. And while this is hindsight nearly four decades late, I think the lyrics would’ve been better served without the Wolff shriek. Still, this was another song that kind of grew on me as I listened to it.

While I don’t know that Stone Fury’s 2nd and final album Let Them Talk will be an album I go back to continuously from here on out, I am now kind of interested to check out their first release Burns Like a Star to see and hear what the band had going for them their first time out. 

I will say that I found this album’s 2nd side a lot more to my liking, but there was a surprising amount of stuff I enjoyed hearing for the first time. This musical history lesson definitely served to inform me better about what Lenny Wolff was up to just before he hit it big. So I’d say that Let The Talk did a pretty good job of getting me interested in the band as a whole.

NOTES OF INTEREST: After Stone Fury broke up when Let The Talk didn’t break them into commercial success, singer Lenny Wolff would return to Germany. He’d be back in the US a year later with Kingdom Come’s debut album which did turn out to be a commercial hit.

Despite having only two studio albums, there was a Best of Stone Fury compilation released in 1988.

Guitarist Bruce Gowdy would go on to work with prog rock band World Trade and the band Unruly Child as well.