NAZARETH discography

NAZARETH -
No Mean City

A&M 1979
Salvo 2010

NAZARETH -
Expect No Mercy

A&M 1977
Salvo 2010

NAZARETH -
Close Enough For Rock 'n' Roll /
Play 'n' The Game

A&M 1976
Salvo 2010

1976 was hard for NAZARETH: their manager died in a plane crash and the band got on a two-albums-per-year treadmill again, but what's more important, the only way after the height which was "Hair Of The Dog" was down. All this could be wearing and tearing for the band, yet with the first album of that year, they turned the troubles into success, to let themselves shamble a bit on the second one. Still, laying down both LPs in Canada, where NAZ had a healthy fambase, seemed to have been the only concession to the unrelenting schedule the quartet lived by.

The group's modus operandi is the main concept of "Close Enough For Rock 'n' Roll" which presents a bold structure, not unlike its contemporary "Hotel California", beginning with one of their greatest compositions, with the rest, as fine as it is, paling in the hit's shadow. The four-part "Telegram" comes into focus little by little, with the anxious guitar riff joined by piano tinkling, and seriously, to relay the touring travails, the repeating vocal figures punctured with the bass and drums careful throb, before the echo of "This Flight Tonight" kicks the picture into its groovy fullest. But then, the Scots' humor rears its head with the quote from THE BYRDS' "So You Wanna Be A Rock 'n' Roll Star" the irony of which paves the road for Manny Charlton to employ his guitar orchestra - and for the band to get back to their glorious business with a touch of glam in the number's finale. Yet there's much more to this business, so the sadness hides in the swagger the raunchy knees-up of "Vancouver Shakedown" and blooms in the "Homesick Again" anthemic country harmonies wheeled in on the almost baroque folk instrumental "Vicky". Quite a way to shape your slick desperation!

And if the hardening of Jeff Barry's "You're The Violin" might be a slight misstep in that direction, "Loretta" revolves around the old boogie pole, and elsewhere NAZ introduce even more ways to spill their concoction. The band go for the unexpected radio-friendly reggae in "Carry Out Feelings" and shake their Pete Agnew-propelled funk with "Born Under The Wrong Sign" - it's more Philly glitter than Chicago grit this time but the band's gusto feels good. The same glisten colors the heavy, organ-oiled march of "Lift The Lid" which paves the road for the next album.

"Play 'n' The Game" explores the now-famiilar templates in the jittery jive of "Waiting For The Man" and the sleek, if racy, "Born To Love" but mostly raves it up down the straight 'n' narrow, opening with the metallic "Somebody To Roll", dirty and threatening but rather hollow: the fatigue, absent from "Telegram", sets in, but is executed nicely in the blues of "I Want To Do Everything For You" and the maudlin "I Don't Want To Go On Without You", two of four covers on offer. The best of these is the country-tinged "Down Home Girl" which, with its handclaps and slide guitar runs, dissolves the tiredness in the Dan McCafferty-led merry bravado, whereas the NAZ original "Flying" softens the theme - and rhythm - of the similarly titled Joni Mitchell's classic and effectively becomes its continuation. THE BEACH BOYS' "Wild Honey" sounds too strained for its jolly faux-bluegrass money, though, so the rocking swirl of "L.A. Girls" feels most welcome to draw the curtain, and the bonus B-side "Good Love" is as sharp and posh as it gets for the Dunfermline warriors.

****2/3 / ***1/4

NAZARETH -
Hair Of The Dog

A&M 1975
Salvo 2010

The Cerberus-like beast on the cover might symbolize the bite that lies within but the devil's in the detail, and the heinous creature distracts the eye from other significant element of the artwork, namely heather. This, the most Scottish of all plants, is what the titular dog seems to be guarding and this is what entwines the fantastic, YES-esque corals on the backside - an antidote to the progressive elements of "Rampant", perhaps? But then, there's a small matter of giving the fans what they want, what with them seeing the band as a genuine hard rock piece, which NAZ have never been: hence the "cure like with like" homeopathy principle in the heart of the "hair of the dog" expression, even though the band meant "heir" for the album title to mean "Son Of A Bitch". It's that humorously spiky!

...and heavy, too. The quartet were always ready to admit their influences, so the stop-and-go sway of "Changing Times" is a tongue-in-cheek playing the LED ZEP game with a Scottish tune emerging out of it, while the opener "Hair Of The Dog" heavily mangles the "Ticket To Ride" riff for the next decade, Yet there's a catchy zip in the compositions and the delivery to blow any purist off their feet and pull them into the witches' brew that this record is. Everything about it is exemplary: Darrel Sweet's imaginative percussion which starts the proceedings, the memorable lyrics spliced with Dan McCafferty's all-encompassing warble, Pete Agnew's bottom-end depth, the clever mix observed by Manny Charlton - just notice how his spacey guitar flight goes underneath the strum on the single "Love Hurts", the ensemble's biggest hit. In truly Highlanders' way, the space between the notes is as important as the notes themselves here; thus, the tension builds on and on from the title track's chopped phrases and the vocoder solo, performed live with a bagpipe, to the bewitching, slow vortex of "Please Don't Judas Me" where the base raga drone insensibly transmutes into the clear Celtic sound and soars skywards.

It fills also "Rose In The Heather", an airy instrumental tagged to the marching take on the CRAZY HORSE's "Beggar's Day" that NAZARETH, as usual, make their own. Fathom such a drift with the country-cum-gospel, Uncle Ray-styled reading of Randy Newman's "Guilty" that offsets the overall weight most compelling on the "Miss Misery" killer threat, an adorable Jack The Ripper of a song with the irresistible chorus and a slide slyness which hastens its pace and feeds, later on, into the charmingly bopping blues "Whiskey Drinkin' Woman", and you have the essence of the Dunfermline squad. Now, the erstwhile American excursion, its vestiges evident on single cuts "Railroad Boy" and "Holy Roller", is brought down to the glen alongside the English psych of TOMORROW's "My White Bicycle", turned by NAZ into another chart-biter. With a handful of live BBC recordings to round it all off, this is the reissue to grace even the most demanding collection.

*****+

NAZARETH -
Rampant

A&M 1974
Salvo 2010

Scoring hat-trick is a tricky feat, especally when the concert road doesn't seem to end, so "Rampant" might add some anger to the recycling of its predecessor's title yet fails to reproduce the moulden whole of "Loud 'n' Proud". For NAZARETH the problem lies in the perception, though: the fans have always regarded the band as purveyors of hard rock while the Scots' horizons are much wider than that. That's why their fifth LP tries to lay the heavy blueprint onto the stylistic scale of "Exercises" with quite a mixed result.

It tends to be almost appalling in the finale, the prog rock cocoon pulled over the pairing of THE YARDBIRDS' "Shape Of Things" with the impressive HAWKWIND-like instrumental "Space Safari"; still, in the slightly humorus "Jet Lag" the rifferama pulls the touring drift down to bluesy earth and introduces the vocoder, thus sowing seeds for both "Telegram" and "Hair Of The Dog". More so, the album launches as usual, with a streamline, if sharp, rock 'n' roll of "Silver Dollar Forger" the guitar of which comes cosmic, too, in the second part of the track, but in the first half its strum sets the tone for some rockabilly fare to follow. The album rooted in Americana, "Sunshine" bares the foursome's soft underbelly, and there's a tremulous, echo-drenched loneliness in "Loved And Lost" where the quartet take away their iron mask to look up beyond the atmosphere again. NAZ's record can't exist without some reckless blues re-imagined for a good laugh, though, so in "Glad When You're Gone" the brick-laying verses with their tight vocal harmonies see the countrified release on the cheerful choruses.

The mood rockets even higher when "Shanghai'd In Shanghai" cuts the rug and welcomes Jon Lord's piano boogie, the slider and the "Satisfaction" quote in its sweaty, Southern rock hug, embracing also a rare B-side "Down" - a bonus here, alongside the BBC recordings - whereas in the sluggish "Light My Way" the effects feel jarring. So much for the experimentation, more interesting than pleasant. This way the band delivered their "Revolver", tasty but strange, and accumulated force for the next punch.

****

NAZARETH -
Loud 'n' Proud

A&M 1973
Salvo 2010

With "Razamanaz" slinging the Dunfermline's finest up where they belonged, there really wasn't time, and sense, to slow down. Tour wheels set in perpetual motion, creative juices were in constant flow, too, so the quartet's fourth album crystallized their ideas even more solidly to render "Loud 'n' Proud" not simply a follow-up but a sequel to their previous LP. Again it starts with a smash, "Go Down Fighting", to blow off any barrier there could be, yet this time the chugging riff is oiled with Manny Charlton's slide and sags acoustically in fine style on the verses to let Dan McCafferty deliver his silvery rap for adrenalin to kick in measured doses, as it does in another intent-clearing number, the wah-wah-awashed "Freewheeler" that harks back to the '60s rhythm-and-blues while adding a nice weight to its meandering trajectory and taking it spaceward guitar-wise.

After that, the energy level never lets down, the tension growing even more on less speedy numbers such as the closer, the drone-filled, heavy metal take on Dylan's grim "The Ballad Of Hollis Brown", and one of the NAZ's most glorious covers, Joni Mitchell's "This Flight Tonight" that the Scots make their own by hanging the farewell sadness on Pete Agnew's unrelenting bass that holds the rest - scorching vocals, outlandish six-string web, catchy percussion - together. And then there's some good-time rockers like a bare-bone appropriation of LITTLE FEAT's "Teenage Nervous Breakdown" and the group's own contagious "Turn On Your Receiver", where, thanks to Darrel Sweet's tom tom's thunder, the middle eight elevates the radio-friendly groove to a Zen height, even more breathtaking in a live BBC version among the bonus cuts.

Somewhat deeper feels "Not Faking It" with which the foursome merrily elbow their producer Roger Glover's main act, DEEP PURPLE, and show their infectious humor by heaping themselves in with both the famous and infamous, thus creating a mythology of their own. The only chance to breathe in on the album comes in the shape of "Child In The Sun", the West Coast-kissed ballad that grows in the harmonic scope as it progresses to an anthemic a cappella climax. Once the ripples calm down, there's no doubt left as to why the volume is linked to the majestic in the title.

*****

NAZARETH -
Razamanaz

Mooncrest 1973
Salvo 2009

The seeds of "Razamanaz" were sown in NAZARETH's self-titled debut, and the band perhaps needed to loose the reins a bit on "Exercises" to dash on the unprepared listener with what many consider their finest creation. "Razamanazin' you never expected"? The lightning on the cover is but a slight indication of thunder that lives inside, and there's hardly enough room to breeze once the title track's riff cuts the slack of silence: the sparseness of Manny Charlton's guitar lines and Darrel Sweet's intense beat comes filled with Dan McCafferty's all-encompassing vocal hook and clear statement of intent - "We won't allow you a second to slow down / The moment has come to deliver" - until Pete Agnew's propeller-like bass gets into the rumble for a swirling rock 'n' roll chorus which makes it impossible to sit still. Yet don't get fooled by the "we haven't come to be clever" part, as the quarter and their producer Roger Glover put a lot of thought in the record, and the testament to the group's eventual decidedness would be a new cut of the previous LP's "Woke Up This Morning".

But if it wasn't enough for the bluesy pseudo-fatalism - shaped really tragic in the anthemic "Sold My Soul" with guitar orchestra emulating the string ensemble - more of this is served in another slide guitar-awashed number, a take on Pete Seeger's "Vigilante Man", including the gallow pole march, and the band's own creepy, multi-layered "Alcatraz". As criminal as it gets, the closer, "Broken Down Angel", sees the foursome wear the collective bleeding heart on their sleeve and put a little Scottish wail in-between the tight voice pack. All this is heavy and insistent, with a well-hidden grin that expands into a broad smile for the rhythm section-driven, low end-boasting chop of "Night Woman" and its tie-in hooligan boogie stomp "Bad Bad Boy". Masters of twist in every tale, NAZ allow themselves to go twisting recklessly in "Too Bad, Too Sad", but that's exactly the kind of badness all of us need to contrast the existence the group paint in a B-side song "Hard Living", one of bonus tracks here, four of these the BBC renditions of the album's numbers.

*****

NAZARETH -
Nazareth / Exercises

Pegasus 1971 / 1972
Salvo 2009

Family men with day jobs... Could these four guys from Dunfermline offer their listeners enough energy to bounce off it and fly high? The first cut on the band's self-titled album left no doubts: no introduction as such, in "Witchdoctor Woman" Dan McCafferty's sharp voice slices the heavy beat of Darrel Sweet's drums while Manny Charlton's guitar rages on - here in unison with vocals, there waywardly - bobbing on the funky grit of Pete Agnew's bass. Thus, the course was chartered for the Scottish ensemble to traverse in the following decades, even though for the most part there's not much NAZ trademarks on their debut LP, yet the heavy psychedelic reading of Tim Rose's "Morning Dew" paves - with the top session players BJ Cole and Pete Wingfield's help - the road to another American classic, "This Flight Tonight", released on "Loud 'n' Proud" three years later. From today's perspective, the idealism of "I Had A Dream", led by Canterbury scenester Dave Stewart's harmonium, may seem flabby, and "The King Is Dead" too maudlin a ballad, but the "Red Light Lady" riff is pure NAZARETH, orchestra notwithstanding, and for all its bluesy naivete "Nazareth" sounds imposing even now, showing the possibilities to be explored and exploited.

NAZARETH -
The Anthology

Salvo 2009

Dunfermline being the ancient capital of Scotland, the city was bound to write itself into the modern music landscape of the country - even if thanks to the band named after a different town. But, four decades since their humble beginnings, NAZARETH still aren't consigned to history, and it's not the brewery spirit that keeps the ensemble's spirits high, it's their total dedication to the cause which produced their easily recognizable sound. If Frankie Miller's voice could be mistaken for Rod Stewart's and some hear no difference between Maggie Bell's and Janis Joplin's approach, Dan McCafferty's vocals stand out in the field of their own having influenced the likes of AC/DC who also got infected by NAZ's way with riffs. There's simply no escape from the "Ticket To Ride" mangled hook that the 1975's masterpiece "Hair Of The Dog" hangs on, or the "Razamanaz" welcoming statement of intent - "We've got to get it together: you bring the wine, we'll bring the weather" - which opens this 40th anniversary collection with a crystal-clear remastered bang.

By introducing jazz terminology and hinting on fusion in Manny Charlton's clipped solo and Darrel Sweet's drumming, "Razamanaz" sweeps off the notion of NAZ as a strictly hard rock band, and "1692 (Glen Coe Massacre)" - which puts forth the ensemble's Scottishness much better than the bagpipe-cum-talk-box flaunting in "Hair Of The Dog" - could have made the point clearer, yet there's not a single track from the group's first two albums on "The Anthology", but the reggae of "Cocaine", here in live take, shows the breadth of the Scots' diversity. More so, in this J.J. Cale's classic the acoustic fibre is evident as it is in the joyful "May The Sunshine" and "Broken Down Angel" that pour a good dose of country into the heady brew. As for the heavy assault, it's served in spades - and always with some twist - in the speedy threat of "No Mean City" and the "Expect No Mercy" electric parade that see the original quartet's brave stance in the punk era. But weren't they sharing the same youth emotions before, in 1973's "Teenage Nervous Breakdown" or "Go Down Fighting", all pierced with Pete Agnew's rumbling bass and smoothed with vocal harmonies? More of those fill the gospel-tinged "Heart's Grown Cold" from 1980, yet when it comes to singing the loneliness McCafferty greatly does it on his own - be it in the tremulous "Dream On" and the posh "Where Are You Now", not marred even by the '80s slick production, in 1989's single "Winner Of The Night", or in the band's best '70s ballad, the most famous reworking of "Love Hurts".

Still, it's not the best NAZARETH cover; this title goes to 1973's "This Flight Tonight", the rocking rocket that made its writer Joni Mitchell gasp with delight and brought out each player's contribution to the magic formula for all to see. Obviously, its parent album was not for nothing called "Loud 'n' Proud". But for all the killer choices, there's an occasional murder and, in 1984, "Ruby Tuesday" died a death in the Scots' hands, whereas the inclusion of THE BYRDS' "So You Wanna Be a Rock 'n' Roll Star" into the 1976's tremendously charged "Telegram", which in four parts bemoans the glory of life on the road, was an inspired decision. The same subject is given a sarcastic denial six years later, in 1980's "Holiday", where that patented sound gets modernized and smoothed without losing its edge - quite a paradox! Towards the end of that decade NAZ set their course back to their roots, and though "Animals" is conspicuously absent here, an attack on "Piece Of My Heart" almost makes for it. After that, it rolled mighty, 1998's "When The Lights Come Down" throwing the band to their heavy beginnings and "Goin' Loco" from 2008 steaming-hot. Which means, after four decades, Dunfermline royal madness still blooms on.

*****