Black Rose - Thin Lizzy

By the time that 1979's Black Rose album was offered up for public consumption, Thin Lizzy had a decade of experience behind them, which had seen them rise from the best kept Irish secret to an international group with a string of top selling albums behind them. Changes in the line up, mainly amongst the ranks of guitarist had blessed the band with some of the biggest names in seventies rock and made for a range of styles that allowed the band to ...
...they had set for themselves. Black Rose is the watershed album between the great days of the seventies and the eighties that would see them as really just another good band, good but no longer great.

What is quite good about this album, though, is that in style it represents a large swathe of what the band do best. Not so much for having any all defining Thin Lizzy songs or major hits, but more that the range of styles seem representative ... more

By the time that 1979's Black Rose album was offered up for public consumption, Thin Lizzy had a decade of experience behind them, which had seen them rise from the best kept Irish secret to an international group with a string of top selling albums behind them. Changes in the line up, mainly amongst the ranks of guitarist had blessed the band with some of the biggest names in seventies rock and made for a range of styles that allowed the band to embrace a wide range of musical ideas. This album also featured a change in the six-string department. Brian Robertson had departed, soon to turn up as Lemmy's sidekick in Motorhead, to leave a gap in the ranks allowing Gary Moore to return to the fold. Along with long-term guitarist Scott Gorham and founder members Brian Downey and the legendary Phil Lynott the four had a hard act to follow, the last few years had seen them knock out a body of truly great work but if any band were capable of meeting that challenge, this was it. The scene was set to create their last truly great album. Thin Lizzy were the product of the seventies, as the eighties dawned, personal problems, in band rivalries and maybe the plain fact that they had given all they had to give meant that in many peoples opinion, the bands glory days were behind them and they were never again to achieve the high standards they had set for themselves. Black Rose is the watershed album between the great days of the seventies and the eighties that would see them as really just another good band, good but no longer great.

What is quite good about this album, though, is that in style it represents a large swathe of what the band do best. Not so much for having any all defining Thin Lizzy songs or major hits, but more that the range of styles seem representative of the band past and present and so it acts as a good overview of the area covered by Dublin's finest. The album opens with "Do Anything You Want To" and immediately that twin guitar attack and driving bass groove dispels any doubts that you may have had about the change in the line up. Plying their trade of solid rock, infectious riffs and foot tapping back beats and Lynott's typical "I've written too many words but I'm going to get them all in anyway" the band then move on to a song in the same vein "Toughest Street In Town". Its not until we come to the first song that you hear the band moving in new directions. S& M is a bass fuelled number that seems at odds with what you have just heard, but then the eighties were looming, punk had opened up new areas for music to go and even the old school rockers were pushing their own personal boundaries. Inventiveness scores 10 out of 10 but as a song it's not their finest hour.

What follows though possibly is. "Waiting For an Alibi" is the band distilled into one song. The simple and yet mesmerising bass line opens too be joined by one of those cool guitar lines that youngsters have been learning in their bedrooms for the last 25 years, once that they realise that you can' t learn "Stairway To Heaven" overnight, out come the Thin Lizzy albums. But in typical style the loose, laid back air to the playing belies the fact that these are four guys on at the very top of their game and the throwaway riffs and seemingly casual attitude to the music covers the fact that it is a lesson in melody, harmonious guitar work and tight playing. "Sarah" harkens back to the early days, a mellow ballad but with intricacies that lesser musicians wouldn't dream of let allow write. It is a spacey laid-back affair with the guitars pushing small fluttering riffs into the gaps. For those that think that the band was all about hard rock and those songs like "The Boys Are Back In Town" sum it all up, then this song will introduce a whole different side to the band to you.

"Got To Give It Up" also shows a more thoughtful side to their writing. Beginning with Lynott bemoaning the problems of addictions (a cry for help?) the song carries a dark undercurrent. For all its big rock sound it has hidden depths and features the most eloquent set of lyrics on the album. "Get Out Of Here" seems to combine a newer eighties rock sound with the Thin Lizzy of old and this may be due to the fact that it was co-written by Midge Ure. Before Ure went on to do the hole new wave thing in Ultravox he toured with the band filling in for Robertson who quit mid tour. It's a good album track but nothing amazing, not only have you heard it done before, you've heard it done better. "With Love" is another mellower number; great harmonious vocals lay over a mid paced acoustic affected piece.

If this album contained only the one last track, the title track, then it would still be a masterpiece. Black rose is instilled with the spirit of Irish history. Lyrically it weaves a web of Celtic myths and folklores and musically its long play out is a medley of folk tunes, but given the Thin Lizzy rock sound. Moore and Gorham have a field day riffing one melody into the other, the bass line holding things in place and Downey's ever busy but never extravagant drumming rooting the song. Once the song is fading out you will feel like you are as Irish as the band (yes I know Gorham is American) such is the wash of history and cultural references that hit you.

As I said this is a watershed album, later albums never seemed to capture the raw passion and understated brilliance of the band but then nothing lasts forever and though Phil Lynott is no longer with us, his words and music remain. Play this and think of him.
 

...less