Nazareth
Close Enough For Rock'n'Roll

The seventh career album (1976) shows Nazareth still at the peak of their fame, indulgent on this fact already on the cover, consisting of a shot taken from inside their limousine, while fans crowd around pressing their faces against the windows, women even blowing kisses. Times of adulation, excesses, easy sex, altered ego, and so on, basically all the trappings of rockstars, including the ironic title.

The celebration of their achieved status continues in the initial mini rock opera “Telegram”, an affair of almost eight minutes and four different sections, which in the first few minutes describes the band's “hardships”: rehearsals, travel, limousine rides... (thus, the old “So You Wanna Be a R’n’R Star” of Byrdsian memory, covered by an army of people, like Patti Smith and Tom Petty, before or after them). Then the sound check and the concert, complete with audience noises. All presented, however, with the right irony (tongue in cheek, as the Anglos say). The track is a classic of theirs, perfect to open concerts and warm up the audiences, and indeed had this role for a long time.

“Homesick Again” is their umpteenth folk rock which, due to the title as well, smells a lot like their dear homeland of Scotland; it is characterized by a guitar that evolves, so dreamy and full of echo, exactly in the style of Wishbone Ash, those of “Argus”: a successful song. Instead, “Vancouver Shakedown” musically is a filler but should still be noted for the lyrics, which aptly describe their misadventure with a Canadian organizer who managed to cheat them twice, in both instances disappearing with the evening's takings, without paying them: the first time because they didn’t know him, the second time later because they neglected to ask who was organizing the concert and it was... him again!

“Carry Out Feelings” is a negligible reggae: in 1976 it was difficult to escape the rise of Jamaican music, and this is Nazareth's avoidable tribute to the genre. The following “Lift the Lid” demonstrates a different attitude, a schoolbook but regenerating boogie blues, a bit like Deep Purple. Charlton’s guitar dominates with its somewhat anonymous but passionate virtues. The final rock blues “You Are the Violin” is also nice... the guys still play a bit impersonally, but they are fiery and likable, good rockers; one could say allegorically for them no strikers, but real midfielders of drive, like Oriali.

Not indispensable, but worthy, more than worthy.