MOTHER'S ARMY — Planet Earth (review)

MOTHER'S ARMY — Planet Earth album cover

Album · 1997 · Hard Rock

2.5/5 · 2014-05-20
voila_la_scorie

To add to my Deep Purple Family collection a few years ago, I tracked down and ordered a couple of Mother's Army CDs because Joe Lynn Turner (DP mk.V) was the vocalist. When I looked at the band line-up, however, I thought that this should be one heck of an album: Bob Daisley-bass, Jeff Watson-guitar, Carmine Appice-drums.

Wikipedia lists Mother's Army as a progressive rock band, though if you ask me they are only sniffing around the perimeters of prog. The songs follow a medium tempo, sometimes with heavy, ponderous guitars, other times with clean electric guitars and some keyboards. JLT takes the lead vocals whenever his rough rock voice is required, but often the band take a gentler approach and go for vocal harmonies. There might be some evidence of a prog touch in the way I find there is only some evidence of prog on albums by Threshold, except Threshold usually have a song or two up to 10 minutes long per album and Mother's Army do not. There are some songs with a change in the rhythm and tempo, taking them slightly beyond the standard rock format. But they are a long way from being really a prog band.

For that matter, even though there is a lot of heavy guitar here, they are also a ways off from being a metal band, too. Perhaps in 1984, my friends and I might have been excited about finding a good melodic metal band, but in these modern times Mother's Army aren't heavy enough. So you have an album that's not quite metal enough and not quite prog enough. So, how about the music?

I had to listen to it five or six times before I could really start to pick out songs I like. My first impression is that this album is like the debut album of a band recording on a budget. The particular skills of each member don't really shine through except maybe Daisley's bass, which is thanks to the clear recording of the bass track. Joe Lynn Turner sings with moderated energy and many tracks are vocal harmonies rather than a solo vocal, as I said. I would have expected more energetic drumming from Carmine Appice or more remarkable guitar work from Jeff Watson but overall I think any of the members could have been substituted with some no-name up-and-comer and the album wouldn't have sounded much different. I haven't heard the debut, but perhaps they were going more for style and atmosphere than a talent show. That actually might be the good point: the album focuses more on song writing and music rather than being a showcase for each member.

If the band was going for a certain mood, though, I'm afraid I find it a little bit of a sleeper. The lyrics about environmental doom and the hippy-ish lyrics about wealth being unnecessary sound unoriginal now. In fact, on some songs if you replace Mother Earth with God or Jesus you would have an album by a Christian rock band.

If you are into something heavy but not really aggressive and light but not pretty and don't mind hearing about how modern life is killing the planet, then give it a listen. I'd say start with "Circle of Hands" and "One Common Law" to get a feel for the album.