Eddie And The Hot Rods - Thriller

 

Eddie And The Hot Rods' third album was a huge disappointment when it was released. At the time I thought it had one great track ( "The Power And The Glory" ), one half-decent ( Media Messiahs ) whilst the rest was virtually unlistenable. Whereas I had previously like Steve Nicol's high energy drumming, on "Thriller" I found it to be irritating, and I think one review described it as drumming as if he only had only one arm. As a consequence of poor sales of the album, The Hot Rods lost their recording contract with Island Records.

I probably only played the record three of four times, and it was never going to be confused with Michael Jackson's subsequent album of the same name. Hearing it again was not something I was particularly looking forward to but it wasn't actually as bad as I feared, and it wasn't a total dud.

The opening track "The Power And The Glory" remains a great song and in some ways is the "Do Anything You Wanna Do" power-pop anthem of the album. The screeching guitar and bass are great, the tune is decent and fortunately the drums are low down in the mix.

"Media Messiahs" didn't sound as good as I thought it was, but it had a nice guitar solo and is quite catchy.

Of the remainder, "Echoes" and "Breathless" were OK but unexceptional,"Circles" was another song with good guitar but an ordinary tune, and "Out To Lunch" was reasonable boogie, not too dis-similar to Dr Feelgood's "Lucky Seven", although that was hardly a great recommendation as it wasn't one of their better songs.

"He Does It With Mirrors" was just a mess, with feedback, an echo vocal and the guitar which seemed to be playing a different song."Take It Or Leave It" was just awful and "Living Dangerously" was a pointless rehash of "Get Out Of Denver". In many ways this summed up "Thriller" in that the band appeared to have run out of ideas and were no longer clear as to what they were still about or what direction they were heading.

Track Listing :

Side One :

1. The Power And The Glory
2. Echoes
3. Media Messiahs
4. Circles
5. He Does It With Mirrors

Side Two :

1. Strangers
2. Out To Lunch
3. Breathless
4. Take It Or Leave It
5. Living Dangerously

Released 1979
UK Chart Position :50

Singles :

Media Messiahs ( - 1979 )
The Power And The Glory ( - 1979 )