Bachman Turner Overdrive: Head On

(Mercury Records)

A record album with lots of money lavished on the cover (converts into a 24" × 24" poster) tends to make the reviewer suspicious of whether the musical contents can stand on their own.

Yes. I feel my suspicions were well founded. Apart from the "odd flash of brilliance" I cannot help but feel here that I have well and truly heard it all somewhere before and before and before that. In 'Head On', true to name B.T.O'D keep up their style of 'solid driving rock' yet this still does not seem up the naked savagery of even the Stones of my tender youth.

The album basically consists of (subjectively speaking) little more than bread and butter repetitious Pop rock tracks with the characteristic heavy pounding percussion; good for disco musak perhaps, but making it difficult to disentangle the lyrics for the serious rock freak.

Another attack I would mount is that tho' most of the tracks have spectacular intros they tend to drag once the novelty wears off (very quickly).

However, back to our 'odd flashes of brilliance'. One track out of character was Lookin out for No. 1, It easily moved along with a light, regular samba jazz beat, a kind of cabaret style or talking blues (you know what I mean, easy listening).

Epilogue: Ho hum! I wouldn't go quite as far as to condemn it as just a good pub band. B.T.O'D doubtless take their music seriously and work hard at it... But (here's the crunch), a fairer comment might be a well packaged product for the teenage market if you like that sort of sound.

— Horatio Warthog