The Atlanta Rhythm Section, like many Southern Rock bands in the 80's, hardly sound like anything you've heard them play before. Southern Rock was so very last Tuesday, and AOR seemed to be the salvation. Yeah right! On "Truth In A Structured Form" they sound like 38 Special or Molly Hatchet did in the 80's. Rather dumb and a terribly dated 80's sound. Still, the record is quite enjoyable once you get past that setback. Though it's nowhere near as fine as any 70's release. I guess they call it survival. Luckily they returned to form on later releases. But this album gives some insight at the struggles of Southern Rock on the dark pages of Rock & Roll history. It has been long since been out of print, and really, I don't see it getting a re-release any day soon. The music sounds very synthetic. It would take another 10 years, on the 1999 release "Eufala", that ARS started making sense again. But try this. It might bring back some plastic dreams of yesteryear. Back on Neon Street...
9 comments:
Thanks for posting this one. Has been one I have been looking for.
PS: I get a message which reads "The file you are trying to access is temporarily unavailable."
Thanks again!
Before "Eufaula", in 1997 "Partly Plugged" was a gem with incredibles acoustic versions of ARS standards.
You're right about that unplugged album. It's great. It's just that those are only old songs, from the period they made good albums anyway. And Southern Rock unplugged always sounds good.
But with "Eufaula" they wrote good songs again and sounded like they should. That's making sense to me.
Yes, I like Eufaula very much too. Some really greats ballads... as always with the ARS.
I gave this album two tries and then sent it to recycle bin... I agree that Eufaula was a partial return to form.
This album lacks Barry Bailey's signature sound - apart from perhaps one note t the end of "One Way Town"! Ronnie Hammond is in good voice - but not much else....
"This album lacks Barry Bailey's signature sound"
...that's the reason why they don't sound that great anymore - once he went, the house of cards fell apart...
It has to be said: as with many other truly great bands, (it may sound trite but it's true), "the old stuff is the best".
Still, better to have auditioned and deleted, than not to have auditioned at all.
Thanks. Great blog, btw. Pardon me while I mine for gold for a while ;-)
Cheers,
Light.
(~*~)
Thanks for the chance to listen. The 80's have a lot to answer for. :-(
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