Dance Scapes

Jade Warrior never scored a hit single and it seems bizarre to think that anyone ever dreamed it could. Buried away on side two of its third album, however, "The Demon Trucker" not only has unexpected smash written all over it, but the words were large enough that the band's U.K. label Vertigo clearly felt the same way…

Jade Warrior never scored a hit single and it seems bizarre to think that anyone ever dreamed it could. Buried away on side two of its third album, however, "The Demon Trucker" not only has unexpected smash written all over it, but the words were large enough that the band's U.K. label Vertigo clearly felt the same way. One must sincerely regret there never came a day when a nation's pop kids were ordered to "throw their hands up to the ceiling, get out on the floor and stamp your feet with feeling." Or maybe they were, but only when Slade told them to. Coming from a band better-known for weird flute solos and complicated time signatures, the demand was possibly less compulsive. It's still a great song, though, one of the finest rock & rolling dance numbers of the age and, if the remainder of Last Autumn's Dream doesn't quite match those same pounding, resounding peaks…