Last update – 5 January 1997.

I'll be brief. Thanks to Hani, I've now got a copy of Lucifer's Friend's 1994 album "Sumo Grip". What can I say? This one "reeks" of the 80s!! :) Over the top drums and production, "spiced up" with the obligatory, neo-Malmsteen-esque guitar solos and the sound that instantly reminds of mid 80s Gary Moore, Europe and yes, "Raging Silence". But these guys still have a great sense of melody, almost breath-taking!

This album lacks the jazz sophistication of Banquet and, compared to 1976 "Mind Exploding", sounds dated, too. Let me explain – thanks to classic rock radio, and the on-going resurgence of the 70s rock sound, some of that mid 70s Heep and LF stuff sounds... timeless, instead of dated. Whereas the "Raging Silence" stuff sounds dated in comparison, a paradox, I know.

Moving right along, someone back in the 70s/early 80s once said that LF are "poor man's Uriah Heep". I didn't agree thus far, because albums like Banquet, Mind Exploding and Where the Groupies... definitely had their own face. "Sumo Grip" does sound quite a bit like Raging Silence, which kinda got me wondering.

We, here in America, had parted with that sound right about the time grunge and alternative pretty much flooded everything and swept all the good music away from the scene (well, if we have to be technical about it, we never really had that power Euro-metal sound over here to begin with), but it seems these guys, in 1994, were trying to be trendy, only running hopelessly behind the trend! Wow – what a paradox. If you blindfold me and play me this album, I'll say without hesitation that it was recorded in 1987-88, and if not for John Lawton's distinct vocal, I'd have had to guess something like a John Norum solo album... or new Europe.

But, again, the melodies do make a difference – the songwriting is almost as good as Ken's in UH hey day. The production smothers it all. Had they tried to be a little bolder and defy the constraints of time, and gotten back to their mid 70s formula of sound and production, this album would've been a classic.

Let's face it, LF is essentially a 70s band, so why are they trying to pretend to be something they're not? Ditto Heep on Equator, Raging Silence and Diff. World.

Only my opinion,

Alex Gitlin.

(c) 1997