How does it compare to the artist's other releases
Good
Value for Money
Excellent
Advantages:
Old rock never sounds old !
Disadvantages:
Track 11 - I'd prefer to have tooth extraction without anaesthesia !
Recommend to potential buyers:
yes
Full review
Think Thin Lizzy and I'm guessing that to most people this sparks off da da da dah dah, da da da dah dah - The Boys Are Back In Town, probably their most famous hit. However, that was off the 1976 album Jailbreak, Vagabonds of the Western World was the band's 3rd album released in 1973...
------------------ Band History ------------------ The original Thin Lizzy was formed in Dublin, Ireland, in 1969 consisting of Phil Lynott, the legendery front man vocalist and bass player, Brian Downey on drums and Eric Bell on guitar, this latter being the only instrument which involved a change of band personnel throughout the band's career during Lynott's life - he died of a drug overdose in 1986, the band reunited without him in 1999. This original line-up is the one that features on Vagabonds (with some randoms on certain tracks playing 'cello, violins, violas etc.).
--------------------- Cover and inlay --------------------- The album cover, as pictured with this review, is a drawing of the 3 band members looking out across a moon type landscape with a spaceship rocketing by overhead. The inlay has a bit of history about the "legend of the vagabond" followed by a bit of history on the band. The back of the inlay is quite a cool image of a 3 leave green-tinged clover with each leave featuring a band member in action.
-------------- The Music -------------- Now to the most important bit. The general description would be that Thin Lizzy are a rock group, nothing heavier than that, at least not on this album, although this album showed where their future direction would lie. Over the top of drums, bass and guitar is Lynott's gravelly Irish voice, I'm guessing the man smoked, but this does not affect the smoothness of his delivery.
The opening track Mama Nature Said is a gently rocking tune, one that induces foot tapping without much thought and from my point of view it's nice to hear a good solid bassline/melody plugging away.
Track 2, The hero and the madman is a bit of an odditiy, beginning as it does with Lynott talking almost like a voice over : "the hero rode a white horse to where his woman was"., kinda like Jim Morrison from The Doors. Needless to say the woman is locked in a tower, as Lynott continues his story-telling the tempo picks up...when the madman comes in he is climbing a "steepled spire" being cheered on by a crowd.....yeah, just listen to it!
The third track, Slow Blues, does what it says on the tin really (although to me, perhaps in my naievity there is a bit of reggaeness about it), it is a slow bluesy track about a woman leaving a man and in one sense I think this already showing the diverse sound that Thin Lizzy could manage - this is more than just a plain rock album.....
....but that is where track 4, The Rocker, takes us, pure ROCK! Often used as an encore and you can understand why, a catchy riff all about being, well, a rocker, perhaps slightly autobiographical?! Lyrics say it all:
"Down at the juke joint me and the boys were stompin? Bippin' an a boppin', telling a dirty joke or two In walked this chick and I knew she was up to something I kissed her right there out of the blue
I said "hey baby, meet me I'm a tough guy" Got my cycle outside, you wanna try? She just looked at me and rolled them big eyes And said "ooh I'd do anything for you 'cause you're a rocker"
Class, the guitar work is pretty imressive once the lyrics are mostly out of the way, Bell has some fun while Lynott and Downey just pound on....understandable why this one would be used as an encore! Just turn it up ;-)
If I had to pick a favourite off the album then the next track, the title track Vagabond of the Western World, would be it. Really powerful bass driven stuff about the story of a vagabond, very catchy chorus...in fact as I listen I've just gone back to the beginning and turned that volume up a bit!
"I could tell you the story of a vagabond A playboy of the western world One day by chance he came upon A fair young maid, a country girl
He told her that he loved her And he took all of her silver He told her that he needed her too He said "hey baby, you got eyes of blue" But he was a vagabond
Blue eyes, oh baby blue, oh blue eyes The kind of eyes that say "i do" eyes Oh baby blue, oh blue eyes Oh baby blue, oh blue eyes"
Needless to say that stealing aside I've come across one or two people throughout my life who fit into this vagabond/sleep-around lifestyle and although not there myself, if I was going have a sound track to my life I could do worse than this!
Things slow down for Little Girl In Bloom - there can't be many rock songs that get a verse dedicated to cricket, but this one does...not that that's the point of the song, the in bloom referring to a young girl who's pregnant, watching cricket while wondering how to tell her father of this fact....
Gonna Creep Up On You comes in next, another powerful track, but not one of the stronger tracks so I'll gloss over this one and move rapidly on to A Song For While I'm Away....a quite pathetic song, weird to think that the same guy who penned The Rocker came up with the lyrics:
"You are my life, my everything, you're all I have You are my hopes, my dreams, my world come true You're all I have Please heed me now these words I have to say"
Vomit-inducing for me, but hey I suppose everyone shows their softer side time to time and it does break up the album a bit in terms of heaviness.
Track 9 is one of their most famous being a rocked up version of the traditional Whiskey In The Jar (full length, no radio edit here!) The guitar intro. is as distinctive as that of Black Sabbath's Paranoid. The weird thing is that when younger my dad had plenty of Thin Lizzy albums and yet I had heard numerous folk versions of this before this one passed my ears! There are some alight lyrical alterations - check out www.songmeanings.net if you want the ins and outs of it! In fairness I prefer the folky versions, but the guitar soloing here is quite cool and it's easy to understand why stations like Virgin play this as often as they do. For me though this is a song I associate with old men with beards and a bleary club back home where I once saw The Dubliners - yes that's right a man like me with a penchant for heavy metal saw The Dubliners live and very good they were too!
Black Boys On The Corner has one of the wickedest basslines ever, forget Another One Bites The Dust by Queen, this is the bassline that everyone should be learning...written by Lynott I think there is something very much about him in the lyrics, plus he gets to have fun on the bass:
"I'm a little black boy and I don't know my proper place I'm a little black boy, get my head in it's space I'm a little black boy, I just play my bass I'm a little black boy, it's no disgrace"
Randolph's Tango is the penultimate track and one that doesn't really do it for me, sounds like some rubbish you'd hear down a crappy pub with some bloke on a guitar with a keyboard giving him the backing track: terrible. Sounds latiny and there is mention of senoritas and things, ahhhhhhhhhhh I HATE this track!!!!
Thankfully the album concludes much more strongly with Broken Dreams a slow, bluesy number about a man who's dreams have been broken and he deems it time to move on....if he has the strength. The downbeat nature of the lyrics fits nicely with the mood of the music, great guitar work from Bell again, shame that he ended up quitting Thin Lizzy after this album, he couldn't hack the pressures/excesses of the life style and looking where it took Lynott maybe it was a wise move, but who am I to judge, in the words of Neil Young, "it's better to burn out than it is to rust"....hmmm getting a bit too philosophical/off the point methinks!
---------------- Conclusion ---------------- This is one of those albums that I don't listen to very often and yet when I do I always admonish myself for having not heard it for so long. It really is a very solid bluesy rock album with only a couple of weak links, although one - Randolph's Tango - is a major flaw, but hey, you have a skip button and getting just under 58 minutes of music is pretty good for an album.
As an intro. the Thin Lizzy I think this is a pretty good way to go plus it features some of their better known hits so you might not be buying a completely unknown album. I'd give it 8/10 I think.
------------ Price etc. ------------ Using good old Amazon it comes in at £6.97 before you even go to the marketplace. I don't think you can go too far wrong getting just under an hour of classy bluesy rock as evidence of Thin Lizzy becoming a heavier and hardier band, go get it!
Well I hope that was of some use, enjoy!
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