Let's step back and address the elephant in the room, their 1981 hit "Harden My Heart" a song that went gold, and single-handedly carried the album to platinum status by the middle of '82. The album had legs and "Harden My Heart" was an excellent song, and is still an excellent song. The saxophone solo was right up there with Raphael Ravenscroft's work on "Baker Street" - yeah, it was that good. So we know for certain the album had one killer track and I'm going to just park that one in a safe space and listen to the rest of the album ... you know, the songs I don't remember.
QuarterFlash was a '70s band that was still fashionable in the early '80s. While they were able to successfully blend the new with the old on a few of tracks (the first two songs of side one, and "Right Kind of Love" that started side two), most of the songs were essentially enjoyable filler full of schlocky '70s styled arrangements. The other jarring element here was having guitarist Jack Charles take lead vocals on "Critical Times" which honestly wasn't a horrible song, just out of place.
As if to double down on their '70s roots, the band includes a seven minute opus called "Williams Avenue" that's an odd funky jazz song that features a number of extended musical sections that felt like it belonged on a different album. It's also incredibly good ... I didn't want to like it, I wanted to slick songs but this was special. Heck even the violin solo was right where it needed to be. You won't find this on a Pat Benatar album.
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