Wednesday, December 28, 2005

Reviewing Christmas presents

My wife asked me if I wanted a cd for Christmas and I said sure, but that I wanted it to be sort of a surprise. So I made a list of four cds that I wanted and asked if she could pick one for me. Well, I was surprised when she got all four of them for me so I decided to write some mini-reviews on my presents. Since I want to review all four cds in one blog, I am going to limit myself to only four lines per review. This will give me the challenge of trying to condense my reactions. This is also good because I tend to ramble on in my reviews at times. I had actually only heard one of these before and that was TNT and it has been at least 15 years since I have heard all of it.

Danger Danger-s/t, 1989
I do remember hearing the opening track Naughty Naughty on the radio back in 89. This is a fairly commercial outing with lots of keyboards and somewhat repetitive choruses. Guitarist Andy Timmons shines at times with some of his solos. I can see why these guys got some notice back then, but I can also see why they didn't make it that big either.

Dirty Looks- Cool from the wire, 1988
The singer sounds quite a bit like Bon Scott and that's a plus, but the music doesn't sound much like AC/DC. The mix on the album is a little low and muddy at times. The music moves along well, but it doesn't stand out all that much either. Overall it's a fun album, but could used just a little more energy behind it.

Four Horsemen- Gettin' pretty good at barely gettin' by, 1995
I used to have their debut lp Nobody said it was easy and sold it because I needed the money. This album is not quite as raw as their debut lp and it could have used a bit more of an edge. It's a little like Black Crowes lite, but still has enough changes to make it interesting. These guys got some good press in the early 90's, but then they went through some musical differences and eventually some tragedies.

TNT- Tell no tales, 1987
I make no secrets about being a big fan of these guys. Knights of the new thunder was much more a metal album, but here the band let's their Journey and Queen influences come through as well. This album might be their most even release overall and that has both good and bad points. My only real complaint is the complaint I have about all of their early albums which is it's under 40 minutes long.

I overall liked all four of these albums, but TNT was far and away the best of the bunch. I hope that you got some good presents as well.

4 Comments:

Blogger David Amulet said...

I always want to like TNT more than I do. For whatever reason, though, the band just refuses to grow on me.

Still better than Danger Danger, though.

-- david

7:51 AM  
Blogger Metal Mark said...

TNT may be an aquired taste. Danger Danger's second album is probably better than their debut. I never heard any of their others and I have no desire to since I believe they are without guitarist Andy Timmons and singer Ted Poley.

9:11 AM  
Blogger David Amulet said...

The thing that I remember most about my Danger Danger CD (other than the dust accumulating on it, which I have decided not to disturb so I can preserve it as an archaelogical treasure someday) is that the songs on it -- remember, this is on the album "Danger Danger" by Danger Danger -- include "Naughty Naughty" and "Bang Bang."

Were Andy and Ted stutterers?

The only hair metal comparison that comes to mind is Kiss's "Crazy Crazy Nights" album, which includes the similarly phrased song "Bang Bang You."

Happy holidays.

-- david

5:47 AM  
Blogger Metal Mark said...

I can't justify those song titles either, but no one ever claimed hair metal bands had the greatest song titles. Mentioning Kiss made me think of a real doozy of a song title and that is their 1988 song "Let's put the X in sex". They obviously put quite a bit of effort into that one.

6:50 AM  

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