Ufo Dvd

Hard rock pioneers UFO are one of the UK's most prolific and influential rock bands - their musical influence can be seen across a host of modern metal groups and during the course of over four decades they have built up an extremely loyal and dedicated fan base. Spanning 5CDs, a DVD and a massive 52 remastered tracks, UFO 'At The BBC' collects together all of the legendary group's BBC appearances from their first session with Bob Harris in 1974 through to their epic live set at Knebworth in June 1985…

Easily an upgrade over "The Visitor" (2009), UFO have returned to their hard rock roots on "Seven Deadly", yet still retaining that bluesy edge they seem to have incorporated over the last few years. Vinnie Moore is sizzling throughout, Phil Mogg sounds better than ever, Andy Parker is still pounding his kit, and Paul Raymond adds his keyboard colors and occasional rhythm guitar. What more could any UFO fan want?

This release by hard rock favorites UFO is actually a two-disc set. The first disc consists of new material while disc two is a live album. The new studio material finds many of the old UFO sounds and trademarks, but is perhaps a bit rawer, both in terms of production and performance. In many ways, the new tracks feel a lot like they might have been leftovers from the previous CD, the brilliant Walk on Water. This one should certainly please longtime fans of the band, but probably is not a good introduction to the group. The lineup this time out is veteran drummer Aynsley Dunbar, guitar hero Michael Schenker, and vocalist Phil Mogg.

The first two albums by UFO featured an odd mix of crisp, focussed songs alternating with meandering electric guitar-led soundscapes. Flying starts off with perhaps their best of the former category, "Silver Bird." This story of a primitive islander seeing an airplane for the first time begins with a pleasant little acoustic guitar melody and builds into a soaring full-band musical expression of the wonder of flight. The next cut, all 19 minutes of it, conjures up the vaster expanses of space. To complain that "Star Storm" rambles is to miss the point; sometimes Michael Bolton's guitar is used as a pure sound effect rather than to convey any kind of rhythm or melody, and if you're patient, then listening can be an enjoyable, even absorbing, experience…

Like Saturday Night Live, UFO have had plenty of creative ups and downs over the years but have often demonstrated that one should never give up on them. The veteran hard rockers have recorded some superb albums along the way, and they have recorded some weak, lackluster albums, too. But even when they let their followers down on occasion, UFO have had a way of bouncing back and giving those followers new reasons to be optimistic. The Visitor, it turns out, is a respectable 40th anniversary present from UFO, who were formed in 1969 and remained active 40 years later in 2009. This 2009 release finds two members of the original 1969 lineup (lead singer Phil Mogg and drummer Andy Parker) joined by keyboardist/guitarist Paul Raymond (a 1976 arrival) and guitarist Vinnie Moore, who didn't come on board until the 2000s…

Michael Schenker and Phil Mogg really started to find their groove as a songwriting team with their second album together (and fourth UFO release overall), Force It. In fact, the last remaining folk and space rock tendencies that had stolen much of Phenomenon's thunder are summarily abandoned here, as the group launches itself wholeheartedly toward the hard rock direction that would make them stars. The first step is taken by Schenker, of course, who confidently establishes the aggressive, biting guitar tone that would define all the releases of the band's glory years. "Let It Roll" and "Shoot Shoot" kick off the album in rousing fashion, and while holding them under a microscope might reveal them as rather disposable slabs of hard rock, they would remain concert favorites for the band nonetheless…

UFO has endured a myriad of lineup changes and stylistic shifts over its long career, but the band has always served as a haven for quality musicianship, and Conspiracy of Stars does little to tarnish that reputation. Featuring ten new tracks and a lineup that includes UFO core members Phil Mogg, Paul Raymond, and Andy Parker, along with guitar virtuoso Vinnie Moore and bass player Rob De Luca, the former a member since 2003 and the latter since 2012, the Steamhammer/SVP-issued Conspiracy of Stars is the veteran English hard rock unit's 21st studio long-player.

Guitarist Michael Schenker's impact upon UFO's career cannot be overestimated. Before the German teenager's arrival (he was only 19 when he jumped ship from the Scorpions), the British rockers' early albums of half-baked space rock had been completely ignored everywhere but Japan. But with Schenker on board, the group's sound received a well-needed attitude injection, veering toward the Anglo-hard rock style that would make them famous. That is not to say that their first collaboration, Phenomenon, was an instant home run. Quite the contrary, as the band seemed a tad wary of giving Schenker's more aggressive style complete freedom to roam, reining in the budding guitar hero just enough to stunt the impact of promising rockers like "Oh My and "Too Young to Know." Likewise, "Time on My Hands" and "Crystal Light" are bogged down in excessive acoustic guitars, while "Space Child" shows glimpses of their failed space rock past…

With charismatic vocalist Phil Mogg at the helm, this album documents a classic rock band at its best.
Five of the six songs being rehashes of songs from their first two albums that were, as many live albums are, prone to extended arrangements. Here the bandmembers favored their bluesy boogie side rather than their art rock aspirations, with the exception, in some respects at least, of their long "Prince Kajuku/The Coming of Prince Kajuku" suite (which, in its studio version, had taken up much of the space on their second album, Flying). The only one of the half-dozen tunes not to have appeared in a studio arrangement on the first two UFO albums was a long, slow, and heavy slog through Paul Butterfield's "Loving Cup."