Lake - Hot Day - 1981 gdmonline.info

All in all this is a somewhat uneven album from Lake. However, the best tracks are REAL standouts! Figure out the rest yourself!

Written by: Geir Aamo

ARTIST: Lake
ALBUM: Hot Day
LABEL: CBS
SERIAL: CBS 85 030
YEAR: 1981
CD REISSUE: Discogs Reissue List
COUNTRY OF ORIGIN: Germany

LINEUP: James Hopkins-Harrison – vocals * Erlend Krauser – guitars, vocals * Achim Oppermann – guitars, vocals * Frank Hieber – keyboards, vocals * Josef Kappl – bass, vocals * Dieter Ahrendt – drums, vocals

TRACK LISTING: 01 Sandford And Sound * 02 Escape * 03 Everyone * 04 Silicone Sally * 05 Goodbye Alexander * 06 The Sound Of America * 07 Cities On Fire * 08 Band At The top * 09 We Can Try

WEBLINKS: Site Link

Table of Contents

Lake Background

For their 5th release, ‘Hot Day’ (1981), Lake got Jo Kappl (bass) and Erlend Krauser (guitar) in to complete the line-up.

The changes had already been altered severely from the original line-up by the time ‘Ouch’ was released in 1980.

The Songs

Krauser, for one, makes his mark immediately. His distinct lead guitar theme is heard on the uptempo pop rock opener, ‘Sanford and Son’. It’s a catchy tune.

But it does pale somewhat the moment ‘Escape’, the second track, kicks in. Lake pull all the plugs for a prime time AOR/melodic hard rock tune on this one. Stabbing keys, razor sharp guitar punctuations and huge vocals, all with a deep sense of melody and a downright BRILLIANT guitar solo courtesy of Mr. Krauser! Probably my fave Lake song ever, save for a few moments from the debut.

All the more of a plunge with track 3, though, as ‘Everyone’ goes nowhere in an unfocused and very poppy fashion. Whereas the guitar/goodtime piano driven ‘Silicone Sally’ luckily gets the album back on track in catchy fashion.

‘Goodbye Alexander’, on the other hand, sees Lake almost in pomp rock territory. It has both excellent melody lines and an ambitious arrangement. It makes for the intelligent use of guitar/synth interplay, classy stuff!

The pace then slows down for ‘The Sound of America’ and ‘Cities’, which are both mid-paced pop rock tunes. I prefer the latter, which is wonderfully summer-like in its atmosphere.

For ‘Band at the Top’, Krauser is solidly back in focus. The song itself, albeit uptempo and driving, strikes me as a little too much ‘AOR by numbers’.

On the final track, ‘We Can Try’, Lake return to a slow, majestic type of song and arrangement. This is how they closed their final three albums. ‘We Can Try’ is okay, but I must admit it fails to go beyond that as far as my musical tastes go.

In Summary

All in all this is a somewhat uneven album from Lake. But I would argue that the standout tracks are REAL standouts! Figure out the rest of the equation yourself!