Review of Free - Fire
and Water
|
(This may not be actual album art)
|
Free emerged from the British blues boom with a tight muscular style that framed Paul Rodger's throaty vocals perfectly. Guitarist Paul Kossoff provided the ideal foil with incisive, measured solos exemplified by his contribution to the hit single "All Right Now." This successful single transformed the group from club to festival status. Free's unhurried, careful intensity is captured brilliantly on the album title track and "Oh I Wept," two songs charged with emotion. Where many contemporaries tended toward excess, Free implied a resonant power, particularly through seventeen-year-old phenom Andy Fraser's liquid bass work, which weaves between the melody line rather than emphasizing them. Drummer Simon Kirke (later to join Rodger's in Bad Company) keeps everything on track with precise but powerful percussion work that shows him to be one of rock-n-roll's great drummers.
This powerful aggression would only last two more years before dissolving into drug problems (particularly Kossoff's), but the impression they left on popular music was immense. Fire and Water is a high spot in heavy rock, rather than merely assert masculine qualities; this album also shows a rare vulnerability.
Released date: 1987
A&M Records
Germany
Tracks:
Fire And Water
Oh I Wept
Remember
Heavy Load
Mr. Big
Don't Say You Love Me
All Right Now
Back
|