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From testing headphones to reviewing albums, our experts aim to create reviews you can trust. Maybe the reason music like this doesn't find a bigger audience these days is because it's not as obvious as much of today's rock. When it quietens down it really quietens down and doesn't just pretend to by slowing the tempo. That allows the different textures of Whiskey Drinking Woman and Please Don't Judas Me to really stand out from the chest-beating warp and weft woven elsewhere.
“Heir of the Dog”
You've gotta love these 'end of the line' success stories, and that's exactly what this album was/is. The power-ballad treatment of another cover song, Boudleaux Bryant’s Love Hurts (left off the European edition until becoming an ‘extra track’ in Eagle Records’ 2001 catalogue revamp) propelled the album’s worldwide sales to two million. You can trust Louder Our experienced team has worked for some of the biggest brands in music.
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The album rocks along just fine, though I probably don’t like it as much as I did 30 years ago. The riffs are okay, the songs are okay, but nothing really jumps out at me as a “must play.” I guess I’ve just found loads of other albums, especially from the 70s, that I like better, which is probably the biggest reason it has stayed in its case for so long. Completely relentless in its attack, the opening track gives us a floor stomping drum intro with that embedded cow bell for extra punch, and it's off to the races from there. After the title track comes Miss Misery, another masterful rocker with some of the rawest vocals of Dan's career. The band had intended it to have a far fruitier moniker, based on its infamously belligerent refrain of, ‘Now you’re messin’ with a son of a bitch’, but couldn’t get it past the censors. It has also been covered by Paul Di'Anno, The Michael Schenker Group and Warrant.
Salvo Records Remaster
The guitar centred outro just makes me wanna get out on the highway. Stand out tracks are Hair Of The Dog, Changing Times, and Beggars Day. Guilty does nothing for me and Judas doesn't justify its length but the other tracks are more than filler. I had the impression that they were a bar-room boogie band that occasionally did ballads. Even the band are unsure what Dave Roe was trying to achieve with the sleeve art of a bat-like creature with vicious teeth.
The pure, unrelenting, unambiguous title track commences with the cow-bell laden drum beat of Darrell Sweet, soon accompanied by the crisp guitar riff of Charlton. McCafferty’s rough but melodic vocals provide the indelible hook along with the middle talk-box lead, all making for a song filled with infectious rock elements, which helped Nazareth become a staple of classic rock radio for decades to come. “Miss Misery” follows as a more serious hard rock counterpart to the almost celebratory opening track. This track reaches into the very heart of the album, which is mainly negative in lyrical tone but in no way meek in delivery. As a bonus, Charlton’s slide guitar lead gives it all a blues legitimacy that brings the song to a higher level, especially with his odd but satisfying guitar chime section to end the track. The one that most everyone knows from the guys.“Hair of the Dog” is the title track of Nazareth’s album Hair of the Dog.
“He was recommended to us by Storm Thorgerson [of Hipgnosis] but he wouldn’t let us see it ’til it was finished,” bassist Pete Agnew Agnew says. All songs written by Manny Charlton, Dan McCafferty, Pete Agnew, Darrell Sweet, except where noted. The album cover art was designed by David Fairbrother-Roe.
The middle eastern melodies and mood are interesting, but 10 minutes is a bit too much. Rose in the Heather just resolves Beggars Day so perfectly that both songs should just be one long song. And then Changing Times comes back in right after the ballad and gets the party going again.
The group then supported Deep Purple on tour and caught the ear of bassist and producer Roger Glover, who would go on to produce Nazareth’s next three albums, Razamanaz and Loud n’ Proud in 1973, and Rampant in 1974, each of which built on the group’s growing success. The best way to follow-up the drippy power ballad is with an even more powerful, the riff-driven rocker, “Changin’ Times”. The song proper is like Led Zeppelin on steroids, with different variations on the main riff alternating between the fire-one, high-register a capella vocals. However, what makes this side one closer a classic is the building, closing jam which adds several overdubbed guitars to the unrelenting, throbbing beat, making this a true highlight of the album.
More By Nazareth
“Beggars Day” is a fine blend of hard rock, which falls somewhere on the spectrum between Aerosmith and AC/DC. Charlton supplies great electric guitar blends, riffs between the vocal lines and a good sense of melody and rock intensity throughout, with the guitar lead continuing the use of multiple bluesy guitars, giving it a thick atmosphere of pure rock ambiance. "Hair of the Dog" is a song by Scottish rock band Nazareth, released on their 1975 studio album, Hair of the Dog.[2] The song, alongside "Love Hurts", remains their most successful and popular. As a standalone song, it only charted in Germany, where it peaked at #44. The song and album Hair of the Dog was originally derived from the hook “Son of a Bitch” as “Heir of the Dog”, but changed as a compromise with the record label, using a popular phrase describing a folk hangover cure. The first song recorded for the sessions was a cover of the Everly Brothers’ “Love Hurts”, intended as a single-only release.
The world has changed since 1975 and today that outward looking attitude and lightness of touch would sadly leave the band loosing out in a world where brand not band wins. Something that strikes me listening now isn't just what they play but what they don't play. The only pratfall to the album is possibly the duration of Please Don't Judas Me.
Nazareth To Release What Could Be Final Album With Dan McCafferty, 'Rock 'n' Roll Telephone' - Ultimate Classic Rock
Nazareth To Release What Could Be Final Album With Dan McCafferty, 'Rock 'n' Roll Telephone'.
Posted: Thu, 08 May 2014 07:00:00 GMT [source]
But that was not to be so, because when 70s headbangers like myself heard the opening salvo of the opening tune, a war cry went forth, causing millions more to hear the merits of this fantastic album... As recorded in the pages of Classic Rock magazine, this was intended to be the last record in the Nazareth boys' record contract. The band had never caught fire, as the record company had hoped they would.
I don't remember the original having this level of power and clarity ( I might have been a fan of it did). The live tracks on that version (alongside the banter) are well worth a listen as well. This album bursts that misconception as they deliver a mixture of high energy rock, blues and ok 'that' ballad.
The band was booked into what they described as a ultra low budget studio, and they were expected to bang out what would be their last record, on the cheap. Every week, Album of the Week Club listens to and discusses the album in question, votes on how good it is, and publishes our findings, with the aim of giving people reliable reviews and the wider rock community the chance to contribute. I can think of a few perfectly acceptable bands today who could come on by leaps and bounds if they had the courage to adopt Nazareth's approach.
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