Foreigner
Agent Provocateur

THE REVIEW

The AOR (Adult Oriented Rock) of Foreigner includes excursions from pure Zeppelin-style hard rock, rugged and far from adult, dominated by the prevailing guitar riff, to hypermelodic ballads full of keyboards and void of guitars, intensely romantic and indeed very "adult." This is because the leader, producer, and composer of the group, Mick Jones, is a guitarist with the inclination and ability to come up with simple but good ideas, even when dealing with the ivories. He was formed in the sixties in the English British Blues, alongside the likes of Beck, Clapton, Page, Green, etc.; his technique and personality on guitar are quite ordinary, well below the aforementioned figures, but his talent as a composer is first-rate: the riffs he devises on the six-string and the harmonic sequences crafted for the keyboards make the difference and have created a handful of iconic songs, allowing the group a long successful season from the late seventies and throughout the eighties.

The singer Lou Gramm (American, of Italian descent) adapts very well to the trend imposed by his partner, although he much prefers to scream at the top of his lungs and push his vocal range to the limit above the aggressive guitar staccatos of his partner rather than express himself with more restrained and warm tones over a sea of synthesized sounds. The fact is that his wonderful vocal quality and the dramatic and intense style with which he employs it stand out more in the ballads, and, in any case, in more melodic situations. This fifth career album, released in 1984, contains the most sensational of these in terms of popular response, the "I Want To Know What Love Is" so accessible to a type of audience far removed from rock that it was even comfortably covered by Julio Iglesias. Such commercial exploits have enriched Foreigner, constituting at the same time an effective boomerang from the perspective of rock enthusiasts, many of whom identify this group as saccharine and flattering. It indeed is, but in restricted episodes, so to speak; listening to any of their entire albums, including this one, sets things straight: there is much more to Foreigner.

The rugged hard rock without a trace of keyboards is titled "Tooth And Nail" at the opening, "Reaction To Action", "Stranger In My Own House", and "She's Too Tough" at the close: none of them is worthy of particular commendation, this is not the right Foreigner album to encounter iconic riffs. The warm and successful heart of the record, aside from the already discussed successful ballad, this time lies entirely in a series of successful mid tempos simultaneously tough and melodic, bursting with keyboards, with tension building during the quiet yet tense verses, which then explode in irresistible choruses of perfect AOR. The titles: "That Was Yesterday" led by a chiming and solemn synthesizer theme, "A Love In Vain" structurally very similar to the previous one, but even more beautiful and my personal favorite of the album, and then the heartfelt "Two Different Worlds", the spirited "Growing Up A Hard Way", and the slower and softer "Down On Love".

Foreigner is still active and regularly tours the stages of the United States, but without Gramm, who instead formed his own band with a couple of his brothers after leaving the group definitively in 2003. This album, with a great cover featuring ingeniously minimalist graphics, remains one of their best and is willingly relistened to periodically.