After putting themselves on the
hard rock
map with
Razamanaz
,
Nazareth
took their new, forceful style even further the next year on
Loud & Proud
. With
Roger Glover
once again at the controls, the group added even higher levels of distortion and energy to create one of the hardest rocking items in their catalog:
"Go Down Fighting"
starts the album with a sonic boom thanks to its blend of furious riffing with a breathless tempo, and the group's cover of
"Teenage Nervous Breakdown"
transforms this
Little Feat
into a runaway locomotive of
riffing. However, the album's definitive moment of heaviness is their extended reworking of
Bob Dylan
's
"The Ballad of Hollis Brown,"
which drenches the tune in ungodly levels of feedback to create an ominous, horror movie-style feel.
also produced another hit single for the group with a cover of
Joni Mitchell
"This Flight Tonight,"
which transforms the wistful original into a throbbing
rock
song. The end result of this ultra-heavy approach is that the album lacks the accessibility and high level of experimentation that characterized
. That said, the album does retain a few stylistic curve balls to keep listeners on their toes:
"Turn on Your Receiver"
is a mid-tempo slice of
country rock
(complete with an exaggerated Southern accent in the vocal) and
"Child in the Sun,"
a stately
ballad
dominated by acoustic guitars. In the end,
lacks the crossover appeal of
but remains a bracing collection of rockers that will entertain
fans and anyone else with a yen for 1970s hard rock. ~ Donald A. Guarisco