Outlaws
Soldiers Of Fortune

The album starts and immediately we are enveloped by sequences of electronic percussion and chiming pianos generated by a digital keyboard: definitely a Yamaha DX7, since it's 1986 and everyone back then was keen to play that state-of-the-art synth. But the question is: what does electronics have to do with the Outlaws, the glorious southern rock band full of fiery electric guitars and blazing amplifiers? Little to nothing... the only thing marking the group's brand on this first song is the unmistakable voice of guitarist and founder Hughie Thomasson, always heartfelt and a bit hoarse.

Blessed eighties... everyone was paying a toll to a series of obsessions that were born and died forever in that decade. For instance, the first "oh oh, oh oh..." in Bon Jovi style comes in the fourth track "The Outlaw", which is also largely immersed in the mainstream rock of those years. This rather dreadful abomination is then sung by Henry Paul, a returning character, absent since the fourth album (considering this is the eighth). His baritone and usually country-tinged voice evolves convincingly in a pop manner leaving us astonished, but Henry redeems himself in the next track, one of his typical country rock outings titled "Cold Harbor", adorned with the necessary acoustic guitars and typical rural harmonies.

The strategy, for the Outlaws and many other musical entities that fell out of fashion in those years, was essentially this: put together six or seven tracks in their usual style, but then complete the album's lineup with three or four numbers à la page, forcefully assisted by external composers and musicians due to their lack of familiarity with the trending sounds, styles, and lyrics...

'Na cacata, as they would say in Naples, in fact, the album sells a minchia (nothing), the old fans are horrified, and no new ones are visible. The Outlaws thus, at the end of this work, are left without resources and a record contract. This would start an almost decade-long absence from the market, waiting for the storm to pass.

This album is among their least successful... even the chubby but gritty guitarist Freddie Salem, who always slipped in a sensational number for each album, is gone. Instead, the main composer among the ten songs in the album turns out to be a... guest keyboardist, one Randy Bishop. The cover is quite ugly too, an improbable western landscape slapped together thoughtlessly. Outlaws at their minimum, rightly forced to pause for a bit and think. Two full stars.