BAKER GURVITZ ARMY: HEARTS ON FIRE (1976)
1) Hearts On Fire; 2) Neon Lights;
3) Smiling; 4) Tracks Of My Life; 5) Flying In And Out Of Stardom; 6) Dancing
The Night Away; 7) My Mind Is Healing; 8) Thirsty For The Blues; 9) Night
People; 10) Mystery.
Now who was it ordered a change in style? They
had such a lovely thing going on, and without a single warning, in just one
year's time, they went from a smooth synthesis of jazz, prog, and roots stuff
to a disheartening brand of heavy funk, bordering on disco (and sometimes
crossing over directly — on ʽDancing The Night Awayʼ, which, alas, is anything but a throwback to Cream's ʽDance The
Night Awayʼ, even though Ginger at least must have felt a slight discomfort). I'd
like to place this burden on the conscience of Mr. Snips (because what the hell
of a name is Mr. Snips, anyway?), but apparently, he is only credited for two
of these songs, so what we are really
dealing with is nothing less than a shameless sellout by the Gurvitzes — and
Ginger playing submissive accomplice.
Not that these songs are all that awful. The
Gurvitzes' songwriting instincts were honed well enough by the first two albums
to produce a set of decent riffs, shuffle in some variety and play around with
guitar tones and overdubs. It's just that ʽHearts On Fireʼ, with its macho
stomp and electronically treated guitar solos, rather belongs on a Peter
Frampton album. These guys did not
really have enough brawn to «sex it up» — Mr. Snips, as a vocalist, lacked
personality or power, and the riffage was too clean anyway to inspire the
expected dirty thoughts.
There is one interesting composition here:
ʽNeon Lightsʼ, despite the misleading title, is actually a tight, swinging
blues-rocker with a subtle, cool-oriented chorus and a weird selection of
guitar tones — hard to describe, but it seems to generate a gloomy forcefield all
its own, with a wobbly psychedelic aura, not terribly original, but standing
out a bit. Everything else is simply «listenable» and even «memorable» after a
few listens, but you'd have to have those few listens first, and why should
you, when there were probably about five thousand albums released all over the
world that year, covering the same grounds?
The band even stoops to including a generic
12-bar piece, dressed in a «blues-de-luxe»
treatment (ʽThirsty For The Bluesʼ) — to my ears, even more of a
lowlight on this album than the cheesy disco stuff: Adrian Gurvitz is no B. B.
King, and neither is Mr. Snips, and the worst they could do was drag down the
tempo so that, for over five minutes, we'd have to slowly savour each bar, delivered
in pseudo-vintage fashion (and wasting Ginger's presence — this man has no
business whatsoever doing generic blues material).
Granted, ʽThirsty For The Bluesʼ may simply
have been a chunk of filler that they came up with at the last moment, with
ideas running low and contractual obligations pressing closer. But the truth is
that I really cannot recommend any other tracks — ʽNeon Lightsʼ is okay, and
«funk-rock» collections may probably benefit from ʽHearts On Fireʼ and ʽFlying
In And Out Of Stardomʼ (the latter is at least fast and furious, if only they
had a better singer), yet even these are only impressive while they last.
Consequently, here is just another of the many
examples of decent bands eaten up by the commercial bug — since Elysian Encounter did not cut it with
the crowds (it hardly had a chance anyway, with progressive rock already drifting
out of mainstream fashion by 1975), they tried to go the Physical Graffiti-era Led Zep route here with a foray into
accessible, danceable hard-rock and predictably fell flat on their faces. The
only honorable decision after that would be to commit seppuku, and that they
did, disbanding once and for all. Which is a pity: had they been able to remain
satisfied with what little they had, and develop it further, we might have seen
many interesting developments that could organically grow out of the Elysian Encounter stylistics. As it is,
they just cruelly aborted the baby, and for that, they get a merciless thumbs down
from me — even though, on my third listen, having overcome the initial
disappointment, I could already stomach most of these songs with good old
toe-tapping indifference. But is that enough for a change of heart? And
speaking of hearts, an extra -100 for the album title. I cannot exclude that
Mr. Snips' heart was indeed on fire during these sessions (you'd have to be a
professional cardiologist to reach a proper diagnosis), but I am more
interested in Mr. Ginger, and this just isn't the sort of music that he was
born to play.
Oh, I kind of like Hearts on Fire with its decent riff as much as Neon Lights (not too much). Smiling has nice play from the rhythm section, but it's just not my cup of tea. Tracks of my Life is a shitty power ballad though, at this moment I can't think of any cheesier example. It has strings for the atmosphere, backing vocals that would ruin a cheap soul song plus some misplaced keyboards. End to lift the emotional factor a bit further we can enjoy a powerful wide vibrato from Mr. Snips at the end. I wanted to write that GS is a bit harsh on this album, but this crap alone is already enough for a thumbs down.
ReplyDeleteThat same sentimental factor also ruins Thirsty for the Blues.
Flying in and out of stardom is not fast - up tempo at best. The riff is uninteresting; Baker tries to save the song, but lifting a song from generic to mediocre is not enough to keep me interesting.
I didn't care anymore to listen the other songs.
Albums like this are emblematic of the stagnation "classic rock" had come to by the mid-70's. As much as I hate punk rock (I said it and I meant it), I also hate that rock and roll had basically petered out to groups of this caliber, followed by Boston, Foreigner, and the like. The well simply ran dry, and the world moved on.
ReplyDeleteThe Gurvitz Bros should join forces with Brett Gurewitz of Bad Religion and start a supergroup: The Gurvitz-Gurewitz Blitzkrieg.
ReplyDeleteI first heard Night People on the AM radio and purchased two albums based on that. I always thought that was by far their best song at the time. I never thought much of the rest of the album was very good. Lover of power pop-The shoes rule
ReplyDelete