DARE`S DEBUT WOULD HAVE MADE PHIL LYNOTT WET HIS PANTS
For all you 80`s music fans out there, man have I got a treat for you tonight. I`ve been saving this one up for a while now, I`m a bit reluctant to let my guard down and admit that I still like a bit of frizzly hair band music from my younger days.
But I thought I`ve covered blues, jazz and country pretty well lately, so I thought, stuff it! lets go back to the 80`s when even an uncool guy like me had as many chicks as he wanted. Slight exaggeration I admit!
Anyhow, the guest of honour tonight is a band which originated in Oldham, England, and they are called `Dare`.
A truly great 80`s band and so underated. Dare is still going today, but the musical emphasis is now on Celtic influences, and not the hard rock and melodic rock influences of yesteryear, or more specifically, the vibe you got upon listening to their first two albums `Out of the Silence` and `Blood from Stone`.
I am going to preview the debut `Out of the Silence`. I am not knocking Celtic folk music, it has its place in particular situations but apart from background music, I just don't have much time for it.
I`d sooner listen to bluegrass anyday, and I`m not the greatest fan of that either. I still cant understand 80% of what The Furey`s sing, I think they call it Celtic music, please tell me if I`m wrong.
Getting off track now aren`t we? Alright, getting back to Dare and `Out of the Silence`. What I can tell you is that it is an AOR gem from the 80`s. Keyboardist and lead vocalist Darren Wharton was a member of Thin Lizzy in the early 80`s before Thin Lizzy bandleader Phil Lynott died a premature death in January 1986.
The Thin Lizzy influence on Dare`s debut is very telling indeed, Wharton took the atmosphere of Lizzy records and polished it impeccably to fit the setting of his new band.
`Out of the Silence` is sophisticated but at the same time it didn`t lose any of its fundamental soul by being heavily produced.
Wharton was joined by guitarist Vinny Burns ( who`s no longer a member), bass guitarist Shelley (no last name, he must have thought he was in U2), James Ross on drums and Brian Cox on keyboards as well.
It's little wonder that `Out of the Silence` is a very swirling air guitar meets keyboard duel for the most part, having two keyboard players together is a very unique arrangement, not something you`d find on most of the AOR albums from America from the same era.
Most of the classic AOR albums featured two lead guitarists so much of the time, but not too keyboardists.
The album opens with a Def Leppard like rollicking ballad which is a party anthem
just as much. It`s called `Abandon`.
The second song `Into the Fire` makes Mr. Mister sound like a garage band, truly it is beautifully atmospheric by ten.
The third gem off Dare No. 1 is `Nothing is Stronger Than Love`, like the first song
it has Def Leppard production written all over it, but it also has Thin Lizzy substance written over it as well. The next song `Runaway` is probably the closest the album comes to.having a filler, as with all the songs, Wharton`s marginally
muffled and indecipherable vocals are the only component which lets the song down slightly, but when you have such a buzz of an instrumental atmosphere even James Reyne could sing `Fall of Rome` and you wouldn`t care that you could not understand the words.
muffled and indecipherable vocals are the only component which lets the song down slightly, but when you have such a buzz of an instrumental atmosphere even James Reyne could sing `Fall of Rome` and you wouldn`t care that you could not understand the words.
Sorry James, after twenty three years, I still cant understand any of the words to that song, besides that line about `give a dog a bone` and`mustang over my head`.
The two best songs on the album, `Under The Sun` and `The Raindance` took atmospheric progressive 80`s rock to new heights, just totally breathtaking stuff.
They might not have been doing cartwheels on stage, but by heck, the members of Dare, and especially bandleader Wharton, knew how to extract every bit of emotion out of their instruments in the studio.
`King of Spades` and `Heartbreaker` up the tempo just a bit, the latter especially has a more american AOR pop feel to it.
`Return the Heart` and `Dont Let Go` make a great finale to what is truly one of the great slick rock albums from the AOR golden era.
Def Leppard have probably sold 500 times more albums and the cash to go with it, but to me, there was only one band from the late 80`s which Phil Lynott would have been proud of - it`s DARE!
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