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Alcatrazz -Dangerous Games digi cd

98.00kr149.00kr

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Description

2013 remastered with 3 bonus tracks

After taking it in the teeth from two of the ’80s greatest young guitar heroes, Yngwie Malmsteen and Steve Vai (both of whom performed on but one Alcatrazz album each, before abandoning ship for greater solo glory), vocalist Graham Bonnett decided to anchor 1986’s Dangerous Games to a slightly less gifted, but much better travelled guitar wiz in the plainly named Danny Johnson (ex-Rick Derringer, Rod Stewart, Alice Cooper, Blackfoot, etc.). Unfortunately, ironically, and through no fault of Johnson’s, just when Bonnett regained control of his own group, Alcatrazz wound up delivering their least distinctive album; more consistent, perhaps, than the previous year’s idiosyncratic but frankly song-challenged Disturbing the Peace (Steve Vai defined), but also “safer” and utterly subservient to the 1980s’ soulless mainstream rock conventions. Rare highlights such as “Ohayo Tokyo,” “Only One Woman” (actually a re-recorded tune from Bonnett’s first name band, Marbles), and the title track still saw the singer’s passionate delivery rising victorious above the generalized, over-produced blandness (further exacerbated by that synthetic cleanliness and punched-in drums typically used throughout rock’s “lost decade”). But, more often than not, utterly faceless fare like “It’s My Life” and “That Ain’t Nothin'” found Bonnett wallowing in a trough of mechanized AOR alongside his dispirited and long-suffering bandmates: bassist Gary Shea, drummer Jan Uvena, and, most tragically of all, keyboardist Jimmy Waldo, wasting all of that classical training on synthesized sequences a machine could have handled (sorry, Mrs. Waldo). And, for his part, though he certainly had chops to spare, Johnson only contributed truly scintillating solos to “Undercover,” “Blue Boar,” and the aforementioned “Ohayo Tokyo” (where he does his best Brian May impression) — probably reflecting his selfless sideman’s discipline, rather than lack of inspiration. At the end of the day, though, inspiration was exactly what Dangerous Games lacked most, as it ushered Alcatrazz towards their ignominious demise in a desperate state of (no doubt record company-assisted) formulaic coma, sounding nothing like the same band responsible for 1983’s monumental No Parole from Rock’n’Roll.

Track listing:
1. It’s My Life
2. Undercover
3. That Ain’t Nothin
4. No Imagination
5. Ohayo Tokyo
6. Dangerous Games
7. Blue Boar
8. Only One Woman
9. Witchwood
10. Double Man
11. Night of the Shooting Star
12. Hiroshima Mon Amour-live Los Angeles 1984
13. Suffer Me-live Los Angeles 1984
14. Somethin Else-live Tokyo

Additional information

Label

Metal Mind Productions

Release Year

Catalogue Number

MASS CD 1483 DG