Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Artist: Nazareth
Label: Ear Music Records
Release: 2014
Length: 44:30
Rating: 3/5
Scottish rock veterans Nazareth are back three years after their studio album »Big Dogz« with a new studio record called »Rock ‘N’ Roll Telephone«. It’s the last album featuring vocals from one of the two original founding members of Nazareth, singer Dan McCafferty, who stepped down on August 28, 2013. This is his final, farewell Nazareth album. It’s well known that the man has suffered for years from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), which keeps getting worse as time goes on. Over the past two years McCafferty has had quite a few serious problems on stage because of it. The first real warning came at one of the band’s cut-short shows in Canada in 2012, but back then they found a stomach ulcer and so nobody paid attention to his struggling respiratory system. Awkward stage moments, with McCafferty seriously gasping for air while working through Nazareth material and shows getting cut short, kept piling up through 2013. All the way up to the band’s slot at the Swiss festival Summerfest, where the man collapsed unconscious mid-set and was rushed by helicopter to the nearest hospital.
After recovering, McCafferty took some time to think about where his career goes from here. Doctors strictly advised him against a whole list of strenuous activities, including singing at live shows. His lungs had become badly damaged, and their vital capacity for taking in oxygen had dropped critically low. So on August 28, 2013, he decided to retire officially. Since February 22, 2014, Linton Osborne has been filling his spot in the band. Even so, the band wanted to record the new material, which was already taking shape back when McCafferty was still in the lineup, with the legendary singer on vocals.
»Rock ‘N’ Roll Telephone« is, of course, an album you quickly realize only Nazareth could put together. Still, you have to take it with a grain of salt. What’s the catch? Dan McCafferty’s worn-down vocal performance. Even the opening Boom Bang Bang, despite the enviable boogie rock drive of its guitar riff and rhythm section combo, shows a singer deliberately holding back whatever vocal power he’s got left. On top of that, McCafferty’s voice hasn’t had that freshness and vigor of the golden seventies (and eighties) for quite a few years now. But »Big Dogz« carried that observation off with total confidence. This time, though, the erosion of his vocal power has dropped below the critical line, and “Rock ‘N’ Roll Telephonel” sadly can’t hide it anymore.
Nazareth are a very experienced band, and they cleverly dress up McCafferty’s vocals at certain points in the songs with vocal harmonies where his voice is safely »hidden«. You can hear that in the chorus of one of the album’s better tracks, the acoustic ballad Winter Sunlight. Then there are spots where the band arranged the phrases so McCafferty doesn’t have to reach for the high notes (the opener Boom Bang Bang), but whenever he does, his flaws are instantly exposed. In the upper register, where his voice always radiated that unmistakably erect stance of a frenetic, piercing scream, the vocals on the new album sound “riddled with holes” and thinned out, and he can’t keep the melody lines he’s building coherent, so his strength starts to wobble within the verses he sings. You’ll have to make peace with that, somehow get past it, and accept it if »Rock ‘N’ Roll Telephone« is going to grow on you. Nazareth fans will take it in, no doubt about that, even if with a sharp ache in the heart, knowing this album could have developed and delivered much more rock ‘n’ roll voltage with a healthy McCafferty on vocals.
The production is live, raw, dynamically contrasted, and packs an enviable octane charge, which is the only right way to do it in rock ‘n’ roll. You get that juicy contrast between pulsing, chunky rhythms and the “crumbling-crunchy”, smeared guitar riff sound, which gives the band that famous boogie blues rock ‘n’ roll charm and ties them, even in their later years, to the brightest days of the seventies, when they rode the wave of enormous commercial success. There’s also a bunch of moments that don’t show any particular wit, more a pale lack of originality and real inspiration, like the quickly stitched-together choruses of One Set Of Bones and Punch A Hole In The Sky (which runs on a similar rhythm to the one Nazz use today when playing Razamanaz), then the loop-driven Long Long Time, and right after it the less original blues ballad Right Time. The standouts on the album are the title track, the aforementioned ballad Winter Sunlight, then Back To Before and the opening Boom Bang Bang, and the tail end of the album also carries a satisfying surplus of octane-fueled rock abandon through the guitar phrases of Speak Easy, Not Today and God of the Mountain. On the new album Nazareth have also heavily blurred that famous sense of lucidity (their contemporaries Deep Purple, for example, have been brimming with it throughout their whole career) that graced most past Nazareth albums, at the expense of some distinctly dark riff forms. The predecessor »Big Dogz« had already clearly signaled that.
This is an album that, true to tradition, doesn’t hide its arrangements at all and delivers a satchel of high-octane rock ‘n’ roll showmanship in typical Nazareth fashion, but it’s still miles away from the band’s glory days. Both because of McCafferty’s worn-down vocal performance and because of a lack of ideas. Maybe releasing this album was a step too far. For Nazareth right now it even feels slightly forced. Pete Agnew feels these are the last gasps of rock ‘n’ roll on the planet, and at the same time it’s a really fine way to say goodbye to the truly irreplaceable and one-of-a-kind Dan McCafferty. Truth be told, though, he delivers the worst vocals of his career. Even so, »Rock ‘N’ Roll Telephone« is overall an album that still brings concrete rock ‘n’ roll swagger, exemplary liveliness, and a dynamic production. The trademark traits of Nazareth rock ‘n’ roll, and that counts for something! Still, I’d especially urge newcomers to rock ‘n’ roll to think hard before investing in it. Nazareth’s discography offers so much, much more. So start discovering its greatness by hopping on a time machine and sailing back a good 40 years.
Lineup
Dan McCafferty – vocals
Jimmy Murrison – guitar
Pete Agnew – bass guitar, backing vocals
Lee Agnew – drums
Production
Nazareth
Tracklist
01. Boom Bang Bang
02. One Set of Bones
03. Back 2B4
04. Winter Sunlight
05. Rock ‘n’ Roll Telephone
06. Punch A Hole In The Sky
07. Long Long Time
08. The Right Time
09. Not Today
10. Speakeasy
11. God Of The Mountain
