| CD REVIEW Girlschool |
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Band : Girlschool 30 years of Girlschool? That's something to be celebrated in a special way, right? Well, that's apparently exactly what the girls thought! Not only did they invite several Rock & Metal celebrities (whom incidently also happen to be good friends, by the way) to come over and contribute to the album (and in hindsight some of 'em may well have insisted ahead on being in on this special album, you know), but they also found a somewhat ghoulish and never-before-done way to have their former guitarist Kelly Johnson participate in album opening track "Everything's The Same". Ghoulish? Well, the lady díd die in August of last year of spinal cancer, didn't she? "Never-before-done? Whadda ya think about having your ashes being used as a percussion instrument? Special enough? Well, for the girls in the band it was a way to bring a special tribute other that with the song "Legend", which I am dead-sure is about Kelly...I mean, just hàs to be! Other ghost...sorry, guest appearances include Twisted Sister's J.J. French (playing a guitar solo on "Spend Spen Spend") and Eddie Ojeda (doing the same on "Don't Mess Around"), Whitesnake's Neil Murray (playing extra? bass on "Whole New World" and "Legend"), Motörhead's Phil Campbell (playing lead guitar on ""Whole New World"), former Motörhead (and Fastway)'s Fast Eddie Clarke (guitar solo on a cover of Motörhead's "Metropolis"), Motörhead's Lemmy (playing bass and triangle plus contributing vocals to "Don't Talk To Me"),and eventually Heaven And Hell's Ronnie James Dio and Tony Iommi (respectively contibuting vocals and lead guitar to a second version to one of the album's most wonderful songs, "I Spy", one of three of the album's bonus tracks). In essence that leaves only 5 songs (not counting the two new versions of the classic songs "Emergency" and "London" – wrongly placed in the track-list of the promo copy) on which the girls play all by themselves! When it comes to spewing a fair criticism about the girls' new album, I find myself somewhat torn between different feelings. On the one hand, I was a fan from the beginning days and the band's first three albums (1980's Demolition, 1981's Hit And Run, and 1982's Screaming Blue Murder) but kinda dropped 'em when they went commercial on us with 1983's Play Dirty. It would be the last album with Johnson, who would leave to do other stuff (more details in the band's biography on their own website girlschool.co.uk, their page at Wikipedia, or Rockdetector.com). The love was somewhat rekindled with 1986's Nightmare At Maple Cross, but after that I somewhat lost track of the band (in all honesty, things were kinda quiet around the girls towards the end of the '80s, and the '90s weren't exactly good for the band either, apparently (even if Kelly Johnson returned in 1993), as the band actually split with some of its members doing things on their own. A reformation (including guitarist/ singer Kim McAuliffe, drummer Denise Dufort, guitarist/ singer Kelly Johnson, and bassist/ singer Tracey Lamb) occured in 1998, and that same year the live Race With The Devil wasreleased. Still in that same line-up, the band recorded the album 21st Anniversary – Not That Innocent, which only was released in 2001 (with two new tracks added). By then Johnson and Lamb had left and been replaced by new guitarist Jackie "Jax" Chambers and original bassist/ singer Enid Williams. This unit's first recording was the 3-way split with Oliver-Dawson Saxon and Tygers Of Pan Tang titled The Second Wave: 25 Years Of NwoBHM, and issued in 2004...which found me somewhat less than enthousiast about the girls' contribution. Then, I can't remember we at Concrete Web ever receiving Girlschool's previous album Believe of 2004...so it was with a somewhat negative mind that I started listening to the new album. In spite of moments enjoyed from the get go (that album opener, the incredibly catchy "I Spy", and a few other songs), that negative look kinda held during the first listening session. But I found myself liking the album more and more as I gave it continued turns in the cd-player, and it's with some relief that I can now say that the album is actually quite enjoyable overall indeed! I'm not sure how to react about the Dio/Iommi contribution, because somehow Dio's voice messes up the nice female which attracted me at first...but then I'll always be nit-picking at details! Which is my good right, as it is yours to have your own ideas about Girlschool and their new album. You can check out some songs (1 ½ minutes samples of 5 tracks) at myspace.com/girlschool1 (and I'm sure you'll find other MySpace pages giving you full-length versions of some songs, but then I prefered to stick to the girls' official site). 89/100 Tony. |