Angel City (The Angels) - Face to Face

Today the album I was looking forward to cranking up was Nazareth's Greatest Hits. I found a copy in the dollar bin yesterday, along with a few others I was pretty excited about. I had quite a few records queued up in the "clean me" pile, and I decided today was a good day to sit in the cave and get caught up. I got to the Nazareth album and pulled out the vinyl and low and behold I was looking at a rather beat up copy of Nathaniel the Grublet.from 1979. It was on Birdwing records a label that catered to the Christian bookstore market. Part of me was thinking "What the fuh?" But I have quite a collection of CCM (contemporary Christian music for those who care) so a small part of me was hoping that this 1979 release was a goofy  progressive rock concept album.

I'm normally very careful when I bin dive, I always check the vinyl and while I'm more forgiving with the jacket and liner (if it's even there at all) but yesterday I was in a hurry as the store was closing and I was walking to the counter when it caught my eye so I just snagged it and took it sight unseen.

The vinyl looked like someone had used it to try and polish concrete. Undeterred I cleaned it anyway hoping for the best. I made it through "Diddle - Daddle Day" and this was not prog-rock. It was a kids record, but the narrator's voice was so familiar it bugged me until it clicked, "Dean Jones!" dang, Dean Jones. Still, the record was pretty much unplayable, and I just couldn't do it with the constant barrage of clicks and pops. I hate throwing things away. I spent a dollar on this dagnabbit. I may keep the jacket just in case I need it in the future.

At this point you're either looking at your watch, or wondering what the heck is going on. Well let me tell you. Hang on just a little longer.

The album underneath the aforementioned Nazareth album was Angel City's 1980 release Face to Face. This was an album I'd seen before, but frankly had no idea what to expect. It was a cool cover, and kind of hard to forget. The band, who are known as The Angels in their native Australia, had initially released Face to Face in 1978, but it was re-sequenced and now included tracks from the band's earlier releases when it was released on Epic.

There must be something in the water down under. Face to Face is crunchy three (sometimes four) chord rock, that at times bears more than a passing resemblance to their fellow countrymen AC/DC. From what I've read it would appear they were signed to their first contract based on a recommendation from Bon Scott and Malcolm Young. Heck they even had Vanda & Young credited on the album jacket as production consultants. Those two were behind a lot of the early AC/DC releases. However, this isn't like listening to Rhino Bucket, or Airbourne - sure they have crunchy in your face hooks, but they were more diverse in how they navigated between hard rock and new wave, yeah new wave. There's organ on some of these here songs (I wrote that on purpose, I'm channelling my inner Richard Meltzer, he didn't make sense a lot of the time either). I'm actually rather surprised I'd not been exposed to this before now, this stuff is making the little hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

Doc Neeson as a singer has a great snarly swagger, and is propelled by the Brewster brothers, (John and Rick) on guitar. It's a great combination. The rhythm section of Graham (Buzz) Bidstrup on drums and Chris Bailey on bass keep everything in the pocket. The whole album is a great listen.

I'm going to keep an eye out for more of their stuff. I'll be careful to check and made sure the record on the inside matches the jacket. Fool me once, shame on me. Fool me twice and it just proves I'm an idiot.

In case you're curious, no I didn't throw out poor Nathaniel, I put it back in the Nazareth jacket and filed it beside Loud 'N' Proud.