Tuesday 18 September 2018

Ace Frehley (1978) New York Groove - LOST 70s GEMS

To finish off today I take a quick lightning tour of Ace Frehley's incredible solo album, a truly original effort that blew out the gates or more fittingly for the Spaceman rocketed off with some fantastic late 70s hard rock let's take a look; first Rip It Out is powered by Ace's snarling growl and has a guitar synth backing during the solo while Snowblind is built around a raunchy, funky streamlined Black Sabbath riff. Ozone and Whats on your mind are heavy acoustic backed rockers worthy of classic Zeppelin or Sabbath in their creative playing, while Wiped Out is a sci-fi metallic rocker with rolling tom toms and penetrative Santana-esque slide guitar, I'm in Need of Love is a spatial echo laden grunge rocker with greatly executed Bowie vocals by Ace. But my pick is still the best selling single New York Groove a cover of tune originally released by Glam Rock band Hello who added harmonica to an already downbeat song.

The track kicks off with boots stomping and laps patting in close formation, setting the tempo to that of a March. The talk box guitar enters with the gurgling rhythm guitar line before some added slides and riffing thicken the mix. Ace nails the vocals of the Russ Ballard penned tune with his dazed and confused delivery faint in the mix seeping in and out. Then the chest pounding chorus is unleashed with gospel fervour from the backing singers. This was truly an anthem and that opening truly solidifies this as a classic and worthy of being the highest charting single from the solo albums, when you take into account the near consensus that Ace's solo album was the best, only second to Gene's in terms of sales though he did an awful.of publicity appearances and promotions compared to the rest, it makes one thing clear; put of this lunatic conceived but brilliantly unique idea to release four solo albums on the same day 40 years ago.. Ace won.


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