what Frank is listening to #23 – FIREFALL – Clouds Across the Sun – (Atlantic) – 1981
I was expecting country rock – Firefall has links, via members, to The Flying Burrito Brothers and The Byrds. This though is a later album (their 5th) and though there is some pleasant enough country rock the group have also been experimenting with other genres: stadium rock ("Be In Love"), borderline disco pop ("Staying With It"), Fleetwood Mac rock ("No Class"), faux hard rock ("Quite Like You"), and big emotive rock ballads ("Pick up the Pieces").
Unfortunately the attractiveness of the "country rock" sound as espoused by Gram Parsons and as played by groups like Firefall initially was diluted and then circumvented in a bid to win / keep audiences … the same thing happened to "Poco" and the "Pure Prairie League" … 'tis a pity. Here, they may have jumped on the "let's try to save our career" bandwagon, and did plod on for a couple more albums but this is truly wretched and isn't really about going out with dignity. Though to be honest I haven't heard a lot of their early stuff … maybe they were always wretched?
The best track is "Old Wing Mouth" which is actually a Jimmy Webb song (the great Jimmy Webb ! … who wrote all the magnificent hits for Glen Campbell and is no slouch himself).
it’s all a pretty sad downhill slide…. and they recently released another CD – a Beatles Tribute CD – now there's a novel idea – equally sad:
http://www.firefall.com/beatles_tribute_cd.asp
(Sort of like "Nunbait does Noiseworks" … by that I am not knocking the Beatles just pointing out the preposterousness of the idea …t here are many sensitive Beatles fans out there).
live clip from1978 – but not a track off this album (I couldn't find anything).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4mOUtxJDOV8
(originally posted: 04/05/2009)
