Classic Rock Bottom

Who? Bonham

When? 1992

Album title? Mad Hatter

Allmusic.com review? Yes.

It would be near impossible to listen to this album without at least a passing knowledge of Led Zeppelin, the band that Jason Bonham's father played drums for throughout the '70s. Now that Bonham has his own band, he tries to capitalize on the sound that his father's perfected. This works both for and against him. In certain cases, such as the epic "Change of a Season," he proves that he has learned a lot about song structure and strong hooks from his pedigree. Bonham can sustain a long, atmospheric rock with a sense of dynamics, but on other tracks, like the hard rocking "Backdoor," he proves that he has not mastered the art of making a memorable barn burner. Still, it is hard to deny that tracks like "Ride on a Dream," "Hold On," and "The Good With the Bad" are fairly successful attempts at recapturing Zeppelin's glory. It is too bad that they are surrounded by some very average filler tracks that are more Poison-influenced than they would probably care to admit. Fans of good hard rock who do not expect something vastly original will be happy; others, especially fans of Zeppelin, may not want to spend their money on this.

Mad Hatter

1. Bing
2. Mad Hatter
3. Change Of A Season
4. Hold On
5. The Storm
6. Ride On A Dream
7. Good With The Bad
8. Backdoor
9. Secrets
10. Los Locos
11. Chimera

Availability: Around $14 new with a different album cover than the one pictured above, remastered as well which is the version used here. 

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This "Podsnack is ending" message is popping up more often now...  Sure feels like a doomsday scenario somewhere in the biblical proportions range.

I love the production of the drums! They sound great.  The singer on the other hand, not so much.  The opener, title track and first ballad are good and the guitar work is strong as well, but not overly memorable songs.  Seems like a trend ...

Hold On has that OU812 geetar sound that dooms that record.  Kind of worked against this track as well.  The Storm has a real early-Tesla vibe, this is the most interesting track so far maybe that's why.  The closing moments really remind me of Plants "Principle of Moments" production and geetar sounds, I like that album a good but and that Los Locos instrumental is actually pretty cool.

The ending was worth wading through the first 2/3rds...  Thanks for not reading and responding to this.  Enjoyed it! 

Long time ago, I picked up this CD (different cover) from a second hand store together with "The Disregard Of Timekeeping" (love that title) and at the same time, BMG had "When You See The Sun" on sale, so I thought, I should go for broke.

After I had all 3 CDs in my possession, it was time I gave 'em a spin. I started to listen to "TDOT" and I liked it. For reasons still unknown to me, next I went for "WYSTS", and what a piece of timeless shit that was. I was utterly, disappointed and couldn't figure out what happened between "TDOT" and "WYSTS". It took me some time to realize, but finally it hit me. Of course, "Mad Hatter" was wedged in the time period connecting the two albums. Expecting a blend between the 2 projects I just heard, I put "Mad Hatter" on my later pile, and never found time to listen to it.

I guess, it's time to rip off the band aid. Well, I'm glad to hear the CD is much more "TDOT" than "WYSTS", or maybe even better, since the vocalist really grow this time around. The time was kind to "Mad Hatter" and I can even hear few near hit songs on it, as well.

Time and time again, I still ask myself, how did that piece of crap known as "When You See The Sun" came to be?

I don't feel like this started off great.  I mean, it wasn't bad, it just wasn't at all memorable over the first two songs.  But when that first ballad popped up, it got interesting.  So much so that the only track over the remainder of the album that didn't sound particularly interesting to me was Backdoor.  Everything else was quite good.  i even enjoyed the instrumental. 

I got a bunch of flashes of Tesla while listening to this.  I mean seriously, at times I thought it could easily be Tesla, in both sound and style.  

I'm not sure how many albums this band put out, but it would be nice to run across a couple of them while I'm out at the flea market one day.

Oh, of course, you get the Zeppelin feel as well.  Nice album.

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