I really wanted to like this.
I had just turned eighteen (the legal drinking age at the time) and "The Boys Are Back In Town" had begun its run across radio through the summer of '76. I ordered the cassette configuration of "Jailbreak," so I had to wait a few days to get it. John at Custom Sound asked, "Do you know this is their sixth album?" Wha wha WHAT?! The tape arrives and "Boys..." isn't even the best track on it. The title song and album's opener smokes and the final two tracks, "Cowboy Song" and "Emerald," left me wanting more. Decided to order the previous album but it was only in 8-track (never owned the first one) and vinyl, so with my impending move to Florida to begin college, I opted to wait. Three months later I began my career at WPRK over the long Thanksgiving weekend and had plenty of time to myself as I was the only student available to run the station (somewhere on this blog I've told that story...I think). I touched every album in that basement and previewed anything that looked interesting. I reached the "T" section on Saturday and there they were, three of the previous Thin Lizzy albums. I still say "Fighting" is one of the great rock albums of the 70's. Another three months pass and on February 21, 1977, I get to see them open for Queen at the Lakeland Civic Center. I need not elaborate...
I followed the band to its end in '83 and purchased spin-offs and solos. No one was shocked when Lynott died in '86 since the band was known for its drug & alcohol abuse and Irish anger. They were the first hard rock band to use twin lead guitars, influencing rock/metal artists for decades to come. Scott Gorham was/is the main constant to the Thin Lizzy name though it was guitarist John Sykes (final TL album, Whitesnake, Blue Murder) who kept the Thin Lizzy name alive with reformations. That's when they caught flack for using the name without Lynott around. Fast forward fifteen years...
Gorham gets some of the old band members together again and new material starts to emerge. The decision is made not to use the Thin Lizzy name for it, hence Black Star Riders. I understand that Lynott's widow is still alive, and for her, this was the proper call. But what we have here in this new record is a Thin Lizzy album. There are a couple of blatant rip-offs of old TL songs (one is "Southbound" on speed and steroids) and the vocalist (previously in New Model Army and The Almighty) reproduces the Phil Lynott-style as well as the kid in Journey does for Steve Perry. So color me confused. If you're not going to call it Thin Lizzy, then don't give me Thin Lizzy in another wrapper thirty years later!
And that's a Thin Lizzy song if I ever heard one. But I wanted something new and different if you call yourselves Black Star Riders. It's one thing to toe the line with the past sound, but to employ it for 85% of the record? Call me a musical snob (Ms. Rocker does all the time), but I'm not as bad as an old colleague of mine who damns a band to the trashcan if they change a drummer (KG, you there?).
This is one of the keeper tracks. Audio quality is suspect but the visual is up-close...
Gorham may not be able to rock the long blonde locks anymore at age 62 but he can still play! The rest of the band (including credited gigs with Ted Nugent, Alice Cooper, Y&T to name some more) can play as well.
The first clue to all the confusion came from my computer's music program which labeled this album "Various Artists." As such, I'll keep four tracks. If it had been a Thin Lizzy album, I'd have kept it all.
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