#204
by Andrew Anthony
Foghat
Tight Shoes
Genre: New Wave…wait, what? Foghat? Aren’t they those Slow Ride guys? Fool For The City?? Aren’t they AM radio dinosaurs?
Allen’s Rating: 3 out of 5
Anthony’s Rating: 4 out of 5
Anthony’s Highlights:
Loose Ends
Too Late the Hero
Dead End Street
by Anthony Anderson
OK, so remember in This Is Spinal Tap, when Marty DiBergi is reading old record reviews to the band members, and he gets to their album Shark Sandwich? And he reads a two-word review: Shit Sandwich? When Allen said I could review The Game by Queen, he said I also had to review this album. When I saw it was Foghat, I thought, I can outdo that Spinal Tap review by cutting it down to one word: FogShat. Done. Those guys are stale, washed up 70s relics. This’ll be painful but easy. Well, was I surprised. Foghat saw the way pop music was headed and recorded an honest-to-goodness New Wave album! And, holy jeez, it’s actually pretty damn decent! Now, when the first track, Stranger In My Home Town, begins, it’s with a grimy wah-pedaled guitar chord, joined by a funk beat on the drums. Bleah, I thought. A 70s blooz rawk band that got the disco bug 2 years too late. But, wait! Within 10 seconds, the vocals begin and this song quickly morphs into a tune that wouldn’t have been out of place on a J. Geils Band or Rick Springfield album in 1980! Hey, this is kinda catchy! The singer, Dave Peverett, has the reverb cranked up to 11 (Aha! Another Spinal Tap reference!) to nail that classic New Wave sound. The remaining tracks really nail down that early 80s sound really well. The songs ARE a little longer than the average radio/MTV 3.5 minute hit, and the last two songs, Be My Woman and No Hard Feelings, drag a bit at around 6 minutes each. But the rest of the songs are lively, catchy, and fun. For us guitar geeks, Foghat throws in some wah and some flange and some slide and some other trademark guitar niftiness here and there. I guess change can be difficult. Apparently, this change was a bit too much for founding guitarist Rod Price, who left the band that November because he didn’t like the way the band was headed, sound-wise. So, maybe he would refer to them as FogShat. I wouldn’t. This was good stuff!
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