DEATH WALKS BEHIND YOU

I got this album while I was on leave. The reason I bought it was because it had 2 big(long) songs on it and the band looked like they might be on the heavy side. Back in those days, I would buy many albums without ever hearing a song on the radio first. I was what you might call an "underground" listener.

The first song "Death Walks Behind You," engages your ear right away. It is hard and heavy. Then the band moves to a faster pace as the singing becomes a little more frantic. Then the middle section, where Vincent Crane plays a cheap solo. What I mean by cheap is, a very simple melody that I think any beginning musician could play. After that we come back to the frantic part and then the end, where John Cann plays some really nice harmony guitar parts. They are also cheap, but much more interesting than the piano solo. This tune would have been great if it were about 31/2 minutes shorter. I wished they would have had more going on in the song than they did.

On the other hand, "Vug" is just right. From the first note to the end the song is very enjoyable. Mr. Crane simply wails on the keyboards and I am wondering why he didn't do the same thing on the first song.

I just love "Tomorrow Night" to no end. I have recently seen the video for it and it cracks me up. The band is playing this nice heavy music and they have a bunch of nicely dressed and beautiful women dancing around them. You would be hard pressed to find any nicely dressed women in videos now a days. Those lucky dogs!

"Seven Streets" ends the first side with some excellent metal sounds, along with good soloing by Cann and Crane. Top notch stuff!

"Sleeping For Years" ought to be required listening for heavy metal freaks. John Cann gets what sounds like a rooster making noise out of his guitar. This song is very cool! Cann just wails away on the guitar solo. He can give any guitar player of his day a run for their money. John is what I would call an under rated guitarist.

"Can't Take no More" is another quick rocker. I could just imagine those girls dancing to this one also. It is a good sounding piece.

I think my favorite song is "Nobody Else." Very moody and delicious. The middle section picks it up with some good musical moments.

"Gershatzer" Is the 8 minute ending that finds the boys jamming. The only fault I found with the song is one time during the drum solo, Paul Hammond hits his sticks together. He probably figured that no one would notice it, since he did well on the rest of the solo. Sometimes musicians let mistakes stay on the record for the sake of the song. Vincent Crane gets some spacy stuff to come out of his organ also.

All in all this is a great sounding album. I give it 4 stars.