LUCIFER'S FRIEND II: SUMOGRIP

I remember that I bought this album many years ago, in connection with my initial discovery of Lucifer's Friend. I particularly remember how utterly disappointed I was with this album after having quickly grown very fond of the bands early albums. Hearing it now, years later, I must say that it still is very disappointing, particularly in comparison with the great classic albums, but I do find some minor qualities in Sumogrip. The guitar work in particular is often nice as are the always strong vocals of John Lawton. But overall this is a rather uneven album that ranges from good to decent to downright awful. The music could be described as a mix of Rock 'N' Roll, Hard Rock and AOR with only very occasional and slight flashes of Prog. The four short instrumentals give a bit of diversity to the whole.

They cover themselves with Ride The Sky, originally from the self-titled debut album from 1970, and this is a really great version of that old Lucifer's Friend classic! They also do a cover of Uriah Heep's Free Me and this, on the other hand, is absolutely awful in comparison with the original (which is not that great in the first place, I must say)! It is hard to understand the decision to include this cover as the album runs for over an hour anyway (including two different versions of You Touched Me...!)

This album can only be recommended to fans and collectors of the band (and even for us, this is disappointing despite some worthwhile moments). Two stars is a generous rating!

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