To Hell With Love

This EP contains 3 variations of the new single “Love’s Gone to Hell”, a wonderful song filled with a powerful chorus, a catchy riff and a voice that seems can never be changed by time passing…

Chris Rea’s eighties and early nineties gear has been expanded and remastered for release this October. The albums – Shamrock Diaries (1985), On the Beach (1986), Dancing With Strangers (1987), The Road to Hell (1989) and Auberge (1991) span Rea’s commercial peak and are to be reissued as deluxe double CD sets. They will also be accessorised with period appropriate ‘additional recordings’ such as remixes, non-album and live tracks, all newly remastered.

This album, with which the singer reached his commercial peak, reflects Chris Rea's love/hate relationship with the car. The title track is famously inspired by Rea's experiences of the M25, but this is not a simple tract on the evils of the automobile–in 1988, he bought himself a racing car. His vision of hell is the traffic jam that stops you from using all that expensive acceleration. In this sense Chris Rea–the epitome of maturity compared to most in his business–shows himself still very much a rock star. The Road To Hell, despite the melancholy piano riff of the song itself and its Leonard Cohen-ish lyrics, is an optimistic album with a warm, embracing sound. This album is graced with some of Rea's finest creations: the spacey "Daytona", the topicality of "You Must Be Evil" and the catchy "That's What They Always Say". "Texas" is another witty commentary on the need for speed, and like many of the tracks on this disc it has the mellow groove that Rea has made his own.

"Highway To Hell", AC/DC's fifth (international) album and their last to feature their late vocalist Bon Scott, is arguably the best of the Bon Scott era and certainly the most commercially successful. It is also my personal favourite of all of the albums they made with Bon and the first of three consecutive works they recorded with legendary producer, Robert John "Mutt" Lange. I think it's fair to say that, sonically, they had never sounded better on record before this point, as Lange gave them a punch that they hadn't quite managed to capture in the studio prior to this record. Having said that, the compositions are very similar to those from all of their previous releases, so it is a case of "more of the same" from the band… not that that is a bad thing, if you like AC/DC.