38 Special
Strenght in Numbers

THE REVIEW

The beautiful and eye-catching cover, pure design, announces a rather eighties album by 38 Special, their seventh overall. Meaning that up until then, they had shown themselves to be resistant to any electronic, dance, or heavy metal infiltrations, settling for a minimum of catchiness in the choruses—something that, all things considered, is actually more of a virtue than a flaw.

This time, though (we are in 1986), the noble seat of compelling rock with minimal compromises, which they had occupied since their third album in 1979, is rather shaky. Their rounded, ultra-rounded hard sound (which takes on Southern colors when frontman Donnie Van Zant steps up to the mic and then forgets them when it comes to writing and singing by that other guy, guitarist Don Barnes) this time clearly bends towards a trivialization, a "poppification," a commercialization of their work, often simplistic in its melodies and stripped of the once fertile gift of guitar solos they had previously shown off. And then those snare drums with gated reverb, those stiff rhythms with no more groove… what a disaster the eighties were for this, and not just for them!

The added frontman Don Barnes, at first only a guitarist and backing vocalist, sings lead on as many as seven tracks, including the first three in the tracklist, highlighting his undeniable climb in the band's internal hierarchy. The rest of the tracks are handled by his bandmate Donnie Van Zant, whose vocal timbre recalls, in several aspects, that of his late big brother Ronnie, who died in the 1977 plane crash that decimated Lynyrd Skynyrd. Just to say, he reminds one much more of Ronnie than the third brother, Johnny, the one who actually took his older brother's place in the Skynyrds from the late eighties until today. But Donnie doesn't have that authority, that magnetism, that gang leader aura, that… dangerousness! He’s an honest country blues rocker, cheerful and upbeat. But here he is almost unrecognizable: they make him sing forcedly, screaming, when his true style is much more laid-back and swinging—typical nonsense of those years.

This time, therefore, the tempos are watered down and the vocals soften, sometimes becoming simplistic; the rhythms stiffen, the good old American “drive” disappears—but it’s not all their fault… it’s the “fashion” of the times, the stupid ones are the record executives and producers. Those who didn’t live through the eighties can only imagine, but all sense regarding sound and drum arrangements was lost. Here, Keith Olsen is behind the desk—a man who, with his powerful yet aseptic and cold sounds and arrangements, has ruined so many records.

Of the nine songs, only “Like No Other Night” stands out, thanks to its captivating muted riff, a house specialty, which supports a nice vocal line. Too bad it all dissolves into a lackluster chorus… still, it remains a good track. The rest doesn’t hold up—not from them.

But they will bounce back, at least partially. In fact, two or three much better albums will follow this one, which perhaps represents the nadir of their production. Approaching them starting from these grooves may be a counterproductive choice for anyone who doesn’t know them yet.