I first came across Foreigner with their 1977 single “Cold As Ice” and soon tracked down their excellent debut plus the two albums which followed, but I certainly never expected the power and brilliance of ‘4’ and was fortunate to see them on the ensuing UK tour. The album was packed full of classics including “Juke Box Hero”, “Waiting for a Girl Like You”, “Urgent” and “Night Life”, with Lou Gramm front and centre as the voice, and co-writing six of the ten songs on the album with Mick Jones (who wrote the other four solo). Many years later I was in the States for a conference and had the opportunity to see Foreigner again, but this time I found I recognised some of the musicians such as Kelly Hansen and Jeff Pilson, but didn’t associate any of them with Foreigner and with no Mick Jones or Lou Gramm it felt like a cover band onstage (although they did a great job).
There is no doubt that since the operation Gramm had in the 90’s to remove a benign brain tumour that his voice is not what it once was (he is rightly acclaimed one of the finest AOR singers of all time), but what we have here is a collection of unreleased songs that were recorded in the 1980’s during the production of Lou’s previous solo albums. When he started listening to the tracks again, he decided they needed to be completed and made available, and I do not know what has been undertaken to make them ready for the album, but this has that Eighties feel when Gramm was on top of the world. The songs were written by Lou alongside former Black Sheep bandmate Bruce Turgon, while there are guests such as Tony Franklin on bass for “Long Gone” and Vivian Campbell on guitar for the opening track “Young Love”, alongside long-time collaborators such as Lou’s brother Ben Gramm on drums.
This is music from a time gone by, when AOR was the name of the game, long before autotuning had raised its ugly head. It is not perfect, but one would never expect it to be given these songs were originally recorded and discarded some 40 years ago, but there are a quality and shine which comes through in this music which is a time machine to the past. It never sounds as if we are in the madness of 2026, but back in a time when everything somehow seemed to make more sense, back when there seemed to be less grey and much more black and white. This blast from the past is something all AOR fans need to have in their life.
Rating: 8/10
Links:
https://www.lougrammofficial.com/
https://www.hearnoevilrecordings.com/