NAZARETH — Tattooed On My Brain (review)

NAZARETH — Tattooed On My Brain album cover Album · 2018 · Hard Rock Buy this album from MMA partners
3/5 ·
Kev Rowland
When I was young we used to have a record store in town, and in a glass frame on the wall they would put their record of the week. I can clearly remember seeing ‘Razamanaz’ there for the first time and wondering who could deliver a cover with that much power, and then I heard the title cut and it all became clear. With Dan McCafferty gargling broken glass and whisky, Darrell Sweet bashing the skins, Pete Agnew on bass and Manny Charlton riffing, the proud sons of Dunfermline could do no ill in my mind or ears. Criminally overlooked, their live album ‘Snaz’ (when the line-up had expanded to include second guitarist Billy Rankin and keyboard player John Locke) is still one of the very greatest in-concert albums ever released. Manny left in 1990, with Billy stepping into the shoes before Jimmy Murrison came onboard in 1994, and Darrell died far too young (51) from a heart attack, being replaced by none other than Pete’s son Lee. From 2002 – 2013 the quartet of McCafferty, Agnew, Agnew and Morrison continued to tour and record, but then the bombshell that McCafferty had to retire due to ill health. Given that Dan joined Pete in Shadettes (the name changed to Nazareth in 1969) back in 1965, it was quite a shock, so what next?

After a false start with singer Linton Osborne, the band are now back with Carl Sentence (Persian Risk) centre stage, and a new album for their new label. It’s a solid album, plenty of bottom end, plenty of hard riffs, but is it Nazareth? Well, those who have been buying their recent releases have put it into the charts in Austria and Switzerland, but there has been little or no success in the UK, US or Canada (which used to be a main market) for more than 35 years, and there is little here to suggest it was going to be a breakthrough. It is a nice album, yet there is little here in terms of hooks or anthems for fans to get their teeth into. However, Nazareth are not a band who survive on record sales, it is all about putting bums on seats, and while I am sure they will play a few songs from this on their 50th Anniversary tour, people will want to hear “Holiday”, “Dressed To Kill”, “Hair of the Dog”, “Razmanaz”, “This Flight Tonight”, “Telegram” and of course “Love Hurts”. Sentence isn’t McCafferty, so they will sound different to what people expect, but given that there isn’t anyone who can sound like Dan it is good that the band have moved away to someone who can certainly sing, but isn’t quite as gruff and raw.

Solid, fun, but not a touch on what they were doing in the Seventies.
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