By Dave Wood
1. Outlaw Man
2. Quicksilver Rider
3. Serenity
4. Deadman Walking
5. Shadow Dancer
6. No Revolution Song
7. Sea Of Faith
8. Fighting Man
9. Perfect View
10. Crossing Over
11. Hawaii (instrumental)
I think that it's fair to say that his is going to be an album you either love or hate. My own personal opinion is that this is a very cool CD, one that becomes a favourite straight away rather than having to grow on you a bit first.
It's not another Walk On Water, 1995's glorious comeback album, and in fact is not another Covenant.. it's altogether something different. To give you a feel for the sound it's more a heavy Chocolate Box (Mogg/Way) than anything else, and you get the distinct impression that the direction of the songs has been very much steered by Phil Mogg, heavily influenced by his recent collaborations with Jeff Kollman (Chocolate Box and the brilliant 'will be released sometime' Stonetown).
That's not to say that it's not a UFO album.. there's enough familiarity of style to convince you of that. And the Maestro? Although sometimes catching you off guard with some rather un-Schenkery guitar work ('Sea of Faith' has a really catchy riff to it), you still get enough flashes of the old brilliance to confound the critics (check out 'Deadman Walking') and the occasional MSG (Unforgiven) sounding guitar work ('Serenity' and 'Perfect View'). Given the recent rumours, lack of tour durability, and very public selling of his treasured Flying V's you may expect his contribution to this album to be a token effort to put money in the bank. However, as has happened so often in the past put Mogg/Way/Schenker in a studio together and the old chemistry fires up again as if it were still the 1970's.
Best tracks would be purely a personal choice, but for me the opening track 'Outlaw Man', 'No Revolution Song' and 'Sea of Faith' are all great songs, and apart from one track there aren't really any weak songs on there.
The one down side of the album has to be the final track, 'Hawaii'. It's an instrumental, but don't get too excited!
Overall, a good solid album, 8.5/10.
Dave Wood, August 2002.
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