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It's kind of sad, really. We're back to 1983 (first weekend of the month, folks!) and Zebra only released one album in 1983. However, I'm sure someone is quite happy with this.

This week's pick is the debut from.....Europe? A band I generally despise? A band that lots of folks despise as well? Go ahead and laugh, but hear me out on this.

This ain't the Europe that completely went to the crappola bin in the mid 80's. Sure, they sold tons of albums, but admit it. They had the market almost completely covered on total 100% wimpiness and suckicity. "Almost completely covered" because there were bands like Poison that had the market totally covered with crap. 

With this release, notice the lack of keyboards. Also notice how raw it sounds. Let me steal a quote from Martin Popoff's "The Collector's Guide To Heavy Metal, Volume 2: The Eighties":

"....'Europe' is a grand metallic sweep through timeless classical music-based heavy metals, chilling as it challenges the world with hurting, soulful vocals, dueling Teutonic axes, richly traditional recording values and regal war-time percussive grooves propelling highly intelligent medieval riffs. No big haircuts, no frilly ivories, just leather and metal....."

Obviously not "The Final Countdown". While listening to this album, just think of TFC and how this album came out a mere three years previously.

Hey, I'm liking these quotes, so one more from the same book, this one regarding the followup to TFC, "Out Of This World":

"Plunge deeper, boys, gush way down into a world of perfume, stuffed animals and hair appointments, for this is your chosen environs, you sell out dopes."

To be perfectly honest, I have heard tracks from their latest album and Rjhog posted their 2006 album, "Secret Society" a few weeks ago and I liked them both. Was Europe really only sucky for a few years?

 

Europe

1. In the Future to Come
2. Farewell
3. Seven Doors Hotel
4. The King Will Return
5. Boyazont
6. Children of This Time
7. Words of Wisdom
8. Paradize Bay
9. Memories

Availability: Is it worth $13?

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Finally!  Something other than Zebra... 

Or it it?

I'm looking forward to this.  I'm actually listening to track one right now, but I don't have time to listen to all of it now.  It is quite raw.  There is some serious guitar soloing on this first track.  Tempest definitely sounds different, but not bad.  This has a NWOBHM feel to me.

Interesting listening experience.  Some cool riffage to be found, but you have to listen closely to find it.  You can definitely tell the band was still feeling things out, from a songwriting perspective they obviously still had some growing to do.  The musicianship is there, some great rhythm work - bass lines are often the part of the song that works best, really liked The King Will Return and Paradize Bay for example.  The drummer is darn good throughout, and the geetar leads are smoking (Boyazont for example).  But when its all put together it feels a bit not-ready-for-primetime - Children of This Time wasn't very good and is good example of this comment.

 

I'm like you though, once the band figured out how to reach the masses they were too cheesy and the rock and roll that they tried to play on here, is long gone.   But to answer your question, it does seem like Europe was only sucky in the middle of their career and they've gone back to their roots on their latest release...

 

 

I've picked up a few latter Europe albums within the last few weeks, Rjhog's post a couple weeks ago got me interested. I'm most interested in "Start From The Dark". from the samples I've heard, it's HEAVY with a lack of keyboards and lots o' geetar. 

Have you picked it up?

It's been ordered.

In The Future To Come - Crappy production (not abnormal for a debut from that era), but a good, hard rocking start.  The vocals don't even sound like Tempest.  His voice definitely improved over the years.

Farewell - Another decent song.  I like the riffing during the chorus.  The vocals are okay, but not great.  The lack of keyboards is very noticeable.  The guitar solo is a shred-fest.  

Seven Doors Hotel - Dang, Norum totally shreds on this, and the verses are okay, but the chorus is a total mess.  Did I mention NWOBHM feel earlier, I still get that.

The King Will Return - This isn't a bad song, but it's missing something.  Not quite sure what it is.  It's definitely not the lead guitar.  I do hear some keyboards, but they are used just to fill out the song a bit, so they definitely are not obtrusive.

Boyazont - Seriously, nobody else gets the NWOBHM vibe?

Children Of This Time - This has that galloping riff.  I'll have to agree with Scott, this isn't particularly good.

Words Of Wisdom - Now, this sounds like Joey Tempest.  But it's not a very good song.  The chorus is in fact terrible.  

Paradize Bay - The riff is good here.  And again, Scott's on the money concerning the bass work.  This song is better than the last 3 or 4 tunes.  Norum is definitely a shredder.

Memories - I sure am glad this isn't a cover tune...Some double bass kicking, but an overall lackluster song.

So what did we learn?  Europe busted out of the door with some nice musicianship, a vocalist that just needed a little development and a hard rocking, NWOBHM sound.  They obviously eventually chose another path and sound, which made them a bunch of money but left them little respect in the hard rock world.  Good thing for us, they sound great today.  

Nice post Jon, I enjoyed listening to this.

Europe are actually very talented. What is funny is their one megahit album (The Final Countdown) is probably their worst effort.

Yeah, it seems so. I have picked up three of their last 4 albums recently, from what I've heard I am very impressed. Rjhog posted "Secret Society" a few weeks ago and I liked that one as well, but the current asking price is too much.

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