British hard rockers THUNDER are releasing expanded remastered reissues of their first 3 albums on both deluxe colored vinyl and digipak CD. Each contains rare, bonus, and unreleased live versions of tracks from these albums.
”Laughing On Judgement Day” was originally released in 1992 and like its predecessor ‘Backstreet Symphony’ was a huge critical and commercial success, peaking in the UK album chart at number 2 and achieving gold sales status. Four UK top 40 singles were also released from it; Low Life In High Places, Everybody Wants Her, A Better Man and Like A Satellite.
The band toured the globe as the album picked up momentum everywhere and is still a firm fan favourite until this day. This new expanded edition contains unreleased bonus live versions of songs from the album. An Exclusive Limited Edition Art Card included within product packaging.
Simply put, “Laughing On Judgement Day” is fantastic, for sure one of the best (Melodic) Hard Rock albums from the Nineties. With this little masterpiece for the genre, Thunder might follow in the footsteps of Def Leppard or Whitesnake and actually conquer America with their powerful recipe of refined melodic hard rock.
But, when faced with the ever more hostile musical environment of the early ‘90s (read: Seattle), all they managed was a smattering of critical support and a number of hit singles in their homeland.
Still, despite producing but one big hit in the infectious, horn-punctuated “Everybody Wants Her,” Thunder’s sophomore album was anything but a slump, and may in fact have been the strongest all-around effort of the group’s career.
Among the highlights, “The Moment of Truth” and “Today the World Stopped Turning” packed massive, irresistible choruses, while “Low Life in High Places” and “Empty City” provided stunning showcases for the formidably soulful voice of singer Danny Bowes (a latter day David Coverdale, in the best sense).
All tracks on this album have something interesting and catchy like the partly funky “The Moment of Truth” and “Does It Feel Like Love?”. Then, if you look for that awesome, polished AOR sound from the early 90s, check the terrific “Fire To Ice”, meticulously arranged and executed.
You gotta admire Thunder: their songwriting is just impeccable. Their melodies are just so well-put-together, everything is right where it should be and does what it’s supposed to do. It’s like they wrote the book on Commercial Hard Rock Songwriting here, still plenty of soul.
A Must
You’ve seen it first at all
01 – Does It Feel Like Love?
02 – Everybody Wants Her
03 – Low Life In High Places
04 – Laughing On Judgment Day
05 – Empty City
06 – Today the World Stopped Turning
07 – Long Way From Home
08 – Fire To Ice
09 – Feeding The Flame
10 – A Better Man
11 – The Moment Of Truth
12 – Flawed To Perfection
13 – Like A Satellite
14 – Baby I’ll Be Gone
BONUS TRACKS:
15 – A Better Man (Live at Shepherd’s Bush Empire London, 2005) *
16 – Like a Satellite (Live at Shepherd’s Bush Empire London, 2007) **
* previously unreleased
** Previously available on the Half A Dozen Of The Other EP in 2008. Long deleted, never available on vinyl.
Danny Bowes – vocals
Luke Morley – guitars, backing vocals, harmonica, piano
Ben Matthews – guitar, organ, piano
Mark “Snake” Luckhurst – bass, acoustic bass
Gary “Harry” James – drums, percussion, backing vocals