Thunder: All the Right Noises

Label: BMG
Release date: 12. 3. 2021
Production: Luke Morley
Album length: 48.27 min
Genre: Hard Rock
Rating: 9.5/10

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Thunder are a British hard rock outfit, often liberally spiked with bluesy springs, who have been holding their own on the scene since 1989. Apart from a break between 2009 and 2011, the band has been a constant presence with studio albums. Terraplane fell apart in January 1989, or more precisely, turned into Thunder. Right there with them from the very start was a man named Andy Taylor, who means far more in the rock universe than just being part of the golden lineup of Duran Duran. Around that time he was also in superb producer form and looked after the first and second Thunder albums, which remain their most successful to this day. And that very same Andy Taylor released an album with an interesting title in 1987. “Thunder.” A thunderous, lightning-brilliant record.

Fast-forward 32 years. To the present. The heads have gone gray and the hairlines have thinned, yet Thunder are basically running the same lineup as in 1989. The exception is bassist Chris Childs, who joined the crew in 1996. And this band has always had plenty to say. This time is no different. Not counting the compilation of re-recorded career classics titled “Please Remain Seated” (2019), the latest album “All the Right Nosies” is the band’s twelfth studio album overall.

A four-year gap since the predecessor “Rip it Up” and a short romantic fling through the highlights of their career with the new compilation are the two factors that contributed the lion’s share to the brilliance of the new record. Thunder have come back on the new album as a crew that is nowhere near done, and as the album hints, they can still hit on all cylinders of that turbo-diesel machine, setting off a high-octane, flaming merry-go-round of potent, outspoken rock’n’roll.

“All th Right Nosies” carries all the unique character that stands behind the word Thunder. It’s a remarkably sharp achievement, graced by eleven strong, tightly chiseled tracks, and the album as a whole unfolds a hugely colorful and dynamic adventure of a chemically high-potency synthesis of fresh, sparkling and signature “pranks.” There’s no shortage of dynamite. Despite serious mileage and maturity, the machine is nowhere near out of breath. Quite the opposite. With defiant wisdom, the band, if anything, intensifies its rock paradigm, masterfully rooted in and inspired by the elements of the white blues boom of the late sixties. It deepens it. Keeps broadening it, if not outright expanding it.

So here it is again, the full classic Thunder statement. The cheeky, teasing and playful kind, where some truly sharp phrases from the most primal rock’n’roll school swagger around, like right away in the opener Last One Out to Turn Off the Lights, which Don’t Forget To Live Before You Die joins with ease, and you can’t tell which one has the more buoyant and potent riff. The opening wrecker with its infectious chorus about the delusion called Brexit is topped in hard-hitting fashion by the next one, Destruction. It’s an exceptionally dark number and also one of the heaviest tracks Thunder have written in their career. Fitting for a message in which an individual battles inner demons and depression. The album’s title is drawn from one of this song’s verses. The third one, Smoking Gun, brings a sudden swerve into the bosom of southern rock flirtation, while the lush jangle of acoustic guitars shows the band’s soft side. The song is played with intensity and counts among the most gripping, precisely because of its sharply accentuated contrasts. Luke Morley rules in a delicate solo through a wah-wah effect, which, together with the acoustic sound pastels, creates a theatrical peak.  

The cheeky side of the album, the one true British purveyors of black humor are famous for, is delivered by  Going To Sin City, which also carries a passing pinch of glam. These boyish old guys figure they’ll stay chasing the young girls for all eternity. Neither the clowning nor the sharp, cynical teasing escapes the following Young Man, which owes its lead phrase to the T.Rex classic Children of the Revolution, and You’re Gonna Be My Girl. In I’ll Be the One the guys conjure anxiety and melancholy, which St. George’s Day gets close to with its woven-in string arrangements. The latter is once again socially critical and serves up a few bitter jabs at intolerance toward immigrants. The peak of cheekiness comes with the closing She’s A Millionairess, a mid-tempo rock’n’roll classic backed by “honky tonk” piano, which will make you forget once and for all that we’re living life in some imaginary pandemic. It’ll send you straight to a never-ending party! Force of Nature pokes fun at Donald Trump, and owes some inspiration in its “drive” kinetics to good old Led Zeppelin, with the mid-eight passage boasting one of the most vivid and brilliantly scored modulations.

The songs certainly wouldn’t be so colorful and lively, if not downright vivid, without Danny Bowes, who proves once more on the new album that there’s simply no Thunder without him. Alongside Morley’s outstanding solos and fat phrasing built on Les Paul and Flyin’ V eroticism, Bowes is the essential building block who, with his recognizable vocal sheen, gives the songs their unique character stamp. He brilliantly slips into every situation the lyrics call for. Morley is incredibly witty on this album. Nonstop. A heap of embellishments, inserts and ideas that aren’t empty chatter but cunningly woven flashes of inspiration, enriching the clear and strong identity of the eleven new tracks. A heap of finesse, a heap of filigree tricks, so the quality of “All the Right Noises” is easily comparable to the fascinating “Wonder Days” (2015). Morley rules in the solos, where he is subtle, soft, filigree and very rational in how he places notes, each of which says “a ton” on its own. It’s a pleasure to listen to him play.  The band also took care of brilliantly combining Bowes’s melodies with female vocal harmonies. But all this erotic hard-rocker and bluesy extravagance and stubborn potency wouldn’t exist without the intense rhythmic kinetics, depth and all the spacious thickness generated by the Harry James/Chris Childs connection. The album is brilliantly produced. From head to toe. You can’t add anything, can’t take anything away.

Regardless of the fact that the band has a career of more than 30 years behind them and that we’re looking at what is practically their 13th studio album, you can feel that Thunder are nowhere near having said their last word. These mature guys still have so much witty sparkle when they compose such elementally heartfelt and honest rock’n’roll and take it right to the essence of a proper party. The chemistry of the quintet has, despite the social distancing we’re being forced into, stayed completely intact, at least sonically. And the creative sharpness, as said, speaks with such conviction that “All the Right Noises” is one of the best albums of Thunder’s career.

Author: Aleš Podbrežnik

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Tracklist:
1. Last One Out Turn Off The Lights
2. Destruction
3. The Smoking Gun
4. Going To Sin City
5. Don’t Forget To Live Before You Die
6. I’ll Be The One
7. Young Man
8. You’re Gonna Be My Girl
9. St George’s Day
10. Force Of Nature
11. She’s A Millionairess

Lineup:
Daniel Bowes – vocals
Luke Morley – guitar, keyboards, mandolin, harmonica, ‘voice box’, backing vocals
Ben Mathews – guitar, keyboards
Chris Childs – bass guitar
Harry James – drums, percussion

Guest musicians:
Andrew Griffiths – woodwinds
Beth Blade – backing vocals
Carly Greene – backing vocals
Julie “The Duchess” Maguire – backing vocals
Katy Burgess – backing vocals
The Bryden Quartet:
Katy Rowe – strings
Sue Lord – strings
Niamh Ferris – strings
Emma Bryden – strings
Sam Tanner – keyboards, backing vocals