Wolfsbane - Black Lagoon

ORIGINATION Down Fall The Good Guys
LAST LISTENED TO mid december
CHANCE OF WAKING TO IT no so big
RATING

Oops. I hit the publish post button and sat back. And then i gradually noticed the chorus from this running about inside my head. Hey, where'd that come from? Then i realised i have a morning song after all. What a relief. Obviously it just took my brain a while to come online this morning.

So, Wolfsbane. Top early '90s good time hard rock. They cropped up a few months back with a song from their first album, which you can find here. This track is from their second full album, which suffered from a degree not-as-good-second-album-itis. Of course, their first album was so very, very good, as well as the mini album that came between these two (titled All Hell's Breaking Loose Down At Little Kathy Wilson's Place) that an amount of drop-off in quality was inevitable. It also means that that album is only not very, very good. So it's quite good.

Black Lagoon is one of the faster tracks on the album and it's pretty good. It's got the pace, the apparent simplicity and the catchy chorus that is to be expected for Wolfsbane. The playing is more accomplished than it at first appears, which is a trick the Wolfsbane often pulled off. For a group of seeming hard drinking, hard playing, hard rocking, scruffy metallers, they actually were a very tight outfit, something that their image was somewhat at odds with. Other than that there is little to say, except that the Black Lagoon of the title may in fact be an a certain alcoholic beverage. Certainly that's the impression i'm getting. Could this be Wolfsbane's warning about the perils of drink? Not very likely, i'll admit.

I'm falling down…

Wolfsbane - Tears From A Fool

ORIGINATION Live Fast, Die Fast LP
LAST LISTENED TO a few weeks back
CHANCE OF WAKING TO IT confusing
RATING

After almost a week of almost nothing but funk, it came as quite a surprise this morning to wake with this in my head. Especially considering that it is the weakest of all the tunes from this, Wolfsbane's debut release. There are far better and more catchy tracks on it that i really like, why it wasn't one of those, i don't know.

Wolfsbane, for those who are unfamiliar with them, and that's much more likely to be more than less of you, where a small, hard rockin' heavy metalish crew who first hit in '89. They went on to produce three and a half albums. Their singer, Blaze Bailey, then became singer for no less than Iron Maiden during a number of years in the mid to late 90s, before Bruce Dickinson returned.

'Tears From A Fool' is the ballad from their fast, exciting and slightly scuzzy debut. As a ballad on a metal(ish) LP chances are that it'll be crap and it is, kind of. However, it has a strange appeal that is rather hard to discern. Lyrically there are more clichés than even slightly sensible writers would have considered and the old accoustic guitar strumming up to electric guitar solo is a tired formula. Tired and clichéd. Yet, and this is the puzzler, i actually quite like this song. Maybe it's just a soft spot i have for Wolfsbane. Maybe it's nostalgia, i can't tell.

What i can tell is that the song, like most of theirs, is played surprisingly well. For all that Wolfsbane played the part of a scuzzy, half-arsed, layabout metal band, they were actually really tight. Going back to their music after a number of years, i was surprised at how well played it was. There is also humour and humanity in it, traits that most metal sadly lacked. Maybe that's the appeal.

For all this track's clichés and predictability, it's pulled off convincingly and there is something quite appealing about that conviction.