Artist: Ballard, Russ
Label: EMI Records
Released: 1984
Rating: 4/5
Russ Ballard is a former member of Argent, where he played guitar and sang, and he split from the band back in the early seventies. He picked up a reputation as a great writer of melodic songs, which tended to get famous when other people performed them. Among other things, he wrote the cult classics “God Gave Rock and Roll To You” (still with Argent), which became a hit when Kiss covered it, and “Since You Been Gone”, which Rainbow immortalized on the album Down to Earth (and that wasn’t the only Ballard song they covered, either).
Russ Ballard is the title of both his first and his sixth album, and the one under review here is the latter. On this self-titled record, Ballard leans heavily on the American melodic rock tradition and neglects the art rock roots we could still hear on some of his earlier solo releases. So you notice quite a few sonic similarities to Foreigner and Toto, too. Sadly, that influence shows up in the lyrics as well, which are far too often tinted with love themes. I’ve got nothing against a good romantic ballad, but in the eighties lots of AOR bands made the theme way too trivial and approached it far too superficially. Ballard fell into that trap too. It’s simply easier to write lyrics about some fleeting fling and blow it up into sublime love than to actually put real work into the words.
For all the weak spots of this record and of eighties melodic rock in general, Ballard remains a great songwriter. He’s still a master of his craft, and you can tell at every turn. All the songs rest on a solid melodic foundation, excellent guitar work and, of course, a stellar rhythm line, led by Simon Phillips. Greg Sander adds his bit too, rounding out Ballard’s keyboard lines. On the next album (The Fire Still Burns – Rockline review HERE) Ballard finally went back to his art rock roots, which only comes through in a few moments, but here the music sounds almost too Americanized, though it’s still rich enough to draw you in.
Even though the album is clearly a product of its time (the eighties, that is), Ballard’s songwriting is pretty convincing here, even if the lyrics get a bit syrupy. If you’re a fan of Toto, Foreigner and American melodic rock in general, you’ll fall for this album in no time, and maybe the name Russ Ballard won’t be so unfairly overlooked anymore when people bring up the big names of the seventies and eighties.
Lineup
Russ Ballard – guitar, harmonica, keyboards, vocals
Mo Foster – bass
Simon Phillips – drums
Greg Sander – keyboards
Production
John Stanley, Russ Ballard
Tracklist
1. Once A Rebel
2. The Omen
3. Hey Bernadette
4. Searching
5. Time
6. Your Time Is Gonna Come
7. Dream on
8. The Fire Still Burns
