Phenomena
"Phenomena"
- "Kiss of Fire" (4:58)
- "Still the Night" (3:27)
- "Dance with the Devil" (4:44)
- "Phoenix Rising" (4:45)
- "Believe" (5:53)
- "Who's Watching You" (3:41)
- "Hell on Wings" (3:54)
- "Twilight Zone" (4:13)
- "Phenomena" (2:05)
- "Assassins of the Night" (5:04)
- "Running with the Pack" (3:06)
This obscure album was one of my favorite crappy vinyl records EVER, and for a LONG time I
never thought I'd own it on CD! I tried ordering it from CDNow, but after 2 months of waiting
they told me they couldn't get it. Another online distributor said he'd look for it, but he
suddenly went out of business shortly thereafter... I even went as far as to write directly to
the record label itself! (Never got a response.) FINALLY, I managed to get it through
Impulse. HOORAY!!!
Now, you may be asking yourself, "I've never heard of this album, what the hell is it?"
Well, I'd be surprised if you had. But you've probably heard of who plays on it, or at least
what bands they are from. Basically, it's a studio project comprised of various members of
popular 70's rock bands: Glenn Hughes (Deep Purple,
Black Sabbath) does the vocals, and he's the only member who performs
on every song; the other musicians include guitarist Mel Galley
(Whitesnake), drummer Cozy Powell (Rainbow,
Emerson Lake & Powell, etc.), bassist Neil Murray
(Whitesnake, Black Sabbath), keyboardist Don Airey (Rainbow, Jethro Tull)
and a bunch of other guys I'm not familiar with. The sound is keyboard-based progressive rock,
with lyrics based on science fiction and/or fantasy themes (the crappy vinyl came with a booklet that
has really cool pictures for each song, reminiscent of Demon's "The Plague" in a way--the CD
has the pictures too, but alas, they were printed way too small.) Ironically, I originally
bought the crappy vinyl brand new, without knowing ANYTHING about it or who played on it--I
guess it looked like something I might like, and I was right!
One of the most interesting songs on here is "Believe", which is a total pro-Christian song!
Not to suggest that it's a Christian band or anything--with titles like "Kiss of Fire",
"Dance with the Devil" and "Hell on Wings", you better not think that! But I thought it was
way cool how they gave God his equal time here, since so few mainstream bands ever sing about
God.
The last two songs are bonus tracks, and don't really fit in with the theme of the album.
The liner notes don't give any information, but I suspect they were taken from the
"Phenomena II" sessions (the title of the band's less-than-stellar followup, which I totally
hated) -- "Running with the Pack" sounds like Glenn Hughes' voice, but "Assassins" certainly
does not (although, that one is the better song, in fact.)
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