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Review by Donald A. Guarisco
Anyone familiar with the work of the Sensational Alex Harvey Band knows the group had an intriguing penchant for performing odd cover versions from all different areas of popular music. This 1976 album allowed the group to give full vent to this obsession: three of the tracks are band originals, but the rest are a series of covers that hit everything from Irving Berlin to the Osmonds to Alice Cooper. The resulting album has a thrown-together feel that keeps if from cohering properly, but still manages to be a worthwhile listen thanks to a combination of spirited performances and interesting arrangements. The highlight of the band originals is"Jungle Jenny," a gender-switched Tarzan tale that sets lyrics about a lusty white goddess who drives the apes mad over a tune that mixes glam rock guitar with tribal drums. In terms of covers, the standout tracks include a moody mid-tempo take on Jethro Tull's "Love Story" and "Crazy Horses," which utilizes Harvey's larynx-shredding wail to bring out the apocalyptic overtones in this surprisingly hard-rocking Osmonds tune. The band also takes some surprisingly effective stabs at country rock with their boozy sing-along cover of "Gamblin' Bar Room Blues" and "Say You're Mine (Every Cowboy Song)," a Harvey original. A few of tracks come off as throwaways ("Runaway" is energetically performed but adds nothing to the tune), but this album is a solid listen overall for any fans of the Alex Harvey sound.
Tracklist:
1 I Wanna Have You Back - Harvey 2:44
2 Jungle Jenny - Batchelor, Harvey 4:02
3 Runaway - Crook, Shannon 2:48
4 Love Story - Anderson 5:02
5 School's Out - Bruce, Buxton, Cooper, Dunaway ... 4:57
6 Goodnight Irene - Leadbelly, Lomax 4:31
7 Say You're Mine (Every Cowboy Song) - Harvey 3:21
8 Gamblin' Bar Room Blues - Alley, Rodgers 4:06
9 Crazy Horses - Osmond, Osmond, Osmond 2:53
10 Cheek to Cheek [live] - Berlin 3:50
11 Shake youre way to heaven 3:52
12 Outer Boogie
This album is really fun :-)
This is my first post here, and the reason is that I don´t speak your language. sry, but if you answer I can only understand it in english or german ;)
Hope everything worked fine.
and the logfile:
Anyone familiar with the work of the Sensational Alex Harvey Band knows the group had an intriguing penchant for performing odd cover versions from all different areas of popular music. This 1976 album allowed the group to give full vent to this obsession: three of the tracks are band originals, but the rest are a series of covers that hit everything from Irving Berlin to the Osmonds to Alice Cooper. The resulting album has a thrown-together feel that keeps if from cohering properly, but still manages to be a worthwhile listen thanks to a combination of spirited performances and interesting arrangements. The highlight of the band originals is"Jungle Jenny," a gender-switched Tarzan tale that sets lyrics about a lusty white goddess who drives the apes mad over a tune that mixes glam rock guitar with tribal drums. In terms of covers, the standout tracks include a moody mid-tempo take on Jethro Tull's "Love Story" and "Crazy Horses," which utilizes Harvey's larynx-shredding wail to bring out the apocalyptic overtones in this surprisingly hard-rocking Osmonds tune. The band also takes some surprisingly effective stabs at country rock with their boozy sing-along cover of "Gamblin' Bar Room Blues" and "Say You're Mine (Every Cowboy Song)," a Harvey original. A few of tracks come off as throwaways ("Runaway" is energetically performed but adds nothing to the tune), but this album is a solid listen overall for any fans of the Alex Harvey sound.
Tracklist:
1 I Wanna Have You Back - Harvey 2:44
2 Jungle Jenny - Batchelor, Harvey 4:02
3 Runaway - Crook, Shannon 2:48
4 Love Story - Anderson 5:02
5 School's Out - Bruce, Buxton, Cooper, Dunaway ... 4:57
6 Goodnight Irene - Leadbelly, Lomax 4:31
7 Say You're Mine (Every Cowboy Song) - Harvey 3:21
8 Gamblin' Bar Room Blues - Alley, Rodgers 4:06
9 Crazy Horses - Osmond, Osmond, Osmond 2:53
10 Cheek to Cheek [live] - Berlin 3:50
11 Shake youre way to heaven 3:52
12 Outer Boogie
This album is really fun :-)
This is my first post here, and the reason is that I don´t speak your language. sry, but if you answer I can only understand it in english or german ;)
Hope everything worked fine.
and the logfile:
| QUOTE |
| EAC extraction logfile from 25. May 2007, 23:40 for CD The Sensational Alex Harvey Band / The Penthouse Tapes Used drive : _NEC DVD_RW ND-4571A Adapter: 2 ID: 0 Read mode : Secure with NO C2, accurate stream, disable cache Read offset correction : 48 Overread into Lead-In and Lead-Out : No Used output format : Internal WAV Routines 44.100 Hz; 16 Bit; Stereo Other options : Fill up missing offset samples with silence : Yes Delete leading and trailing silent blocks : No Installed external ASPI interface Range status and errors Selected range Filename C:\HQ\The Sensational Alex Harvey Band - The Penthouse Tapes\CDImage.wav Peak level 95.7 % Range quality 100.0 % CRC DE037BEB Copy OK No errors occured End of status report |