Big lineup on this one, featuring the Toronto based brothers Steve and Rick Worrall. If you’re into melodic rock a few doors down from Michael O’Brien, Rick Springfield and Stan Meissner then you might think about inviting the Worrall’s around for coffee.
Written by: gdmonline
ARTIST: Worrall
ALBUM: Worrall
LABEL: Spy Records
SERIAL: SPY CD 1007
YEAR: 1991
CD REISSUE: Discogs Reissue List
COUNTRY OF ORIGIN: Canada
LINEUP: Steve Worrall – vocals, guitars * Rick Worrall – vocals, guitars * Sean Lane, Angelo Earle – guitars * ‘Big Mac’ – drums * Chris Brockway – bass * Don Garbutt – keyboards * Felton Pilate – keyboards, background vocals * Jimi Jamison – background vocals * Jim Spake – saxophone
TRACK LISTING: 01 Best Is Still To Come * 02 Shadow Of A Lie * 03 You Know * 04 Summertime Radio * 05 Catch Me * 06 Take A Look Around * 07 Heat Of The Night * 08 I Can’t Stop * 09 Hard Times * 10 Suspicious Heart * 11 Ordinary Heart
WEBLINKS: Site Link
Background
Big lineup on this one, featuring the Toronto based brothers Steve and Rick Worrall. If you’re into melodic rock a few doors down from Michael O’Brien, Rick Springfield and Stan Meissner then you might think about inviting the Worrall’s around for coffee.
It’s smooth AOR, well produced, and contains enough gruff and grunt to interest the harder rocking punters out there. These guys are on the same label as The Kite (being an A&M offshoot label), but don’t venture down the proggie path as their labelmates do, preferring instead to keep to a commercial bent.
The Songs
Not sure who’s doing most of the singing throughout, but whoever, it’s awesome stuff, as are the neat keyboard parts, smooth pulsing bass lines, and the killer guitar licks of course. Just take a listen to ‘Shadow Of A Lie’ as an example. Stan Meissner fans take note: listen to ‘You Know’ and ‘Heat Of The Night’ and you’d think it was the great one himself.
Bright and breezy could best describe ‘Summertime Radio’, aptly named me thinks. ‘Catch Me’ is a heartfelt power ballad with a bit of a kick in it guitarwise, while ‘Take A Look Around’ has a slight new country twang to it. Still highly melodic though. The melodic surge continues on the very racy ‘I Can’t Stop’, punctuated by the track ‘Hard Times’, sounding very close to fellow Canadians The Works.
The Worrall boys cover the late Van Stephenson‘s ‘Suspicious Heart’, and do a very commendable version too. ‘Ordinary Heart’ is a blues/jazz workout, where everyone chimes in and gives their two bobs worth musically. The session for that particular song must have been fun..
In Summary
Perhaps one of the most underrated AOR albums I can think of. Well worthy of a place in your collection, and it should have been right up there in the popularity stakes as Harem Scarem‘s debut the same year.
Worrall on Video
Click to go to YTM album page.
