Chilliwack - Opus X

Opus X was a pretty big deal here in Canada when this came out in '82. While Chilliwack had been around for over a decade and was Bill Henderson's band oddly it was as a power trio that the band had it's greatest commercial success. Starting with Wanna Be a Star in 1981 that featured that most irritating and oddly really cool "My Girl (Gone, Gone, Gone)" the band had hoped to capitalize and really break into the lucrative US market. The single would crack the Billboard top 40 peaking at number 22. Opus X a year later was suppose to drive the wedge in even further. 

You know what they say about the best laid plans of mice and men. I could tell you more about the rabbits, but I really should try and stay on topic. While the lead single "Whatcha Gonna Do" did really well here at home, it didn't perform as well as hoped in the US market, stalling literally just outside the top 40 at 41.

The album was a big hit here, selling over 100,000 copies, and Bill Henderson and Brian MacLeod would receive the Producer of the Year Juno at the 1983 awards ceremony for their work on the singles "Whatcha Gonna Do" and "Secret Information" which were the first two songs on the album. The songs, all of them - not just the first two, were just that nearly perfect balance between hard rock with Brian's drumming and killer guitar work and Bill's voice. Of course Ab Bryant ably filled in the bottom end, and the songs were fat. It was a deceptively hard rocking album, and I'm sure there were discussions internally about the direction the music was going. It's not like Bill couldn't sing a rock song, he nails the balls to the wall vocals required to carry a song like "Don't It Make You Feel Good" which almost borders on what would evolve into hair metal.

I never had this when it came out (I didn't really know much other than the songs I heard on the radio) and didn't get it until 1984, shortly after Segue came out and just before Bill's underrated Look In Look Out came out. Don't ask how come I remember this, it's just one of those things. Oddly I do remember enjoying this quite a bit when I got it. There weren't any dead spots, and the songs were all so good. 

The second side in particular seemed to just blow off the doors. It's like the pretty singles were on side one, and side two all bets were off. Of course with only nine songs on the album you know one side was going to be down a song, so to make up for it they added more volume. More to the point, one could make the argument that with the yin and yang push and pull between Bill and Brian the album more or less was split into Bill on one side, and Brian on the other. It wasn't necessarily oil and water but the harder elements were falling more into what The Headpins were carving out. Both Opus X and Headpin's debut were huge hits here, and after picking up their Junos, Brian and Ab would leave to Chilliwack in 1983 to focus on their new venture.

The album still holds up remarkably well. Much more than I remember it, and while I'm sure the hardcore fans who'd been along since the beginning may have had a hard time reconciling the harder rocking songs as being from the same band who had released "Rain-O" in the early '70s. Over the year's I have picked up a lot of their albums, not all, and the common thread woven through most of what I have heard, is a lack of consistency. The hit and miss nature of the songs on any given album (I'm not saying they weren't enjoyable) kept them from being a really big deal. Heck, even the album that preceded this one was hit and miss and it's the one that had their biggest hit ... Opus X has the distinction, at least for me, as being all killer no filler. Heck, even the band's blatant attempt to replicate "My Girl" by reworking it presenting it as "She Don't Know" was really good.

Bill Henderson, who was always the nucleus of Chilliwack would regroup, after a fashion, and release Look in Look Out with studio musicians. It would also be the last album of new material the band would release. Headpins would release three albums between '82 and '85 and then they too were done.

Opus X remains a fantastic album.