Post by Erik Rupp on Jan 16, 2011 3:41:53 GMT -5
For most people Foghat means, "Slow Ride," and not much else. Some people might add, "Fool For the City," and, "I Just Wanna Make Love to You," to that short list of songs that Foghat is known for - but that's about it.
And that's a shame, because Foghat was a great Rock and Roll band, and Night Shift is a really, really good Rock and Roll album.
Combining Southern Rock, Blues Rock, & Boogie Rock, and playing them with a Hard Rock crunch, Foghat came up with a great signature sound. Night Shift fits right in with Foghat's classic sound, and features some excellent songs. "Drivin' Wheel" is a great uptempo rocker, "Don't Run Me Down" shows a nice tempo change from a midtempo verse to a fast and frantic chorus and is another great song.
"Burnin' The Midnight Oil" is a top notch straight-ahead hard-edged Rock And Roll song, while, "Night Shift" is a fantastic hard boogie song with a great sense of groove (it's almost more Funk than boogie). "Hot Shot Love" is a good Rock song with some nice dynamics (a fairly moody bluesy verse and a hard rocking chorus), and their cover of, "Take Me To The River," is actually a bit reminiscent of their version of "I Just Wanna Make Love To You," (rowdy, uptempo, and just a lot of fun with it's great sense of groove).
The album closes out almost anticlimactically with a proto Power Ballad in, "I'll Be Standing By," but even that works fairly well in the context of the album as a whole (and it is a decent song, strings and all).
Night Shift is just a solid, solid album - there's not even one weak song on the album. If you don't own any Foghat CD's but are interested in picking some of their albums up then this is a must have along with the obvious classic, Fool for the City.
4/5