BLOODGOOD was one of the most underrated American Hard Rock acts of the ’80s, perhaps due their Christian origins. But they were a real quality band in the genre.
After two pretty heavy albums, they changed the musical approach to the dominating glossy-sounding Hard Rock around 1988.
“Rock In A Hard Place” is one of my favorite albums in this style from the 2nd half of the eighties.
It’s commercial yet defiant, melodic, with catchy songs and that ‘big’ production; razor compressed guitars courtesy of the great David Zaffiro, shouting vocals, bombastic drums and even some keyboards into the mix.
Talking about the mix, there’s was a big problem with the original release of “Rock In A Hard Place”: the bass lines were almost completely missing.
It turns out the recording studio had a ton of false low-end and they wasn’t aware of when album was mixed, which is why there was such a lack of low end. And no one seemed to catch it when it was mastered, either. Quite strange, as this sounds as a big budget production.
Luckily, “Rock In A Hard Place” is now finally being re-released, remastered and with its crisp sound in full glory.
Remember back in the day when bands could get away with nine good quality songs on an album?
These days this is absolutely unacceptable for any greedy company, and you’re forced to have twelve or more, and many of those are fillers.
Well, this is not the case with “Rock In A Hard Place”. Just killer-no-fillers 9 tracks plenty of ’80s magic.
Very Recommended.
1 – Shakin’ It
2 – Never Be the Same
3 – The Presence
4 – What Have I Done
5 – Heaven on Earth
6 – Do or Die
7 – She’s Gone
8 – The World (Keeps Movin’ Around)
9 – Seven
Les Carlsen – lead vocals
David Zaffiro – guitars, backing vocals
Michael Bloodgood – bass, backing vocals
Mark Welling – drums