Search - Dad :: Riskin It All

A REAL MODERN CLASSIC

L. B. Ivarsson | Rock City | 02/14/2003

(5 out of 5 stars)

"D.A.D. were formerly known as Disneyland After Dark but weren't allowed to use the name Disney, but that's another story."Riskin' it all" from 1991 is not only the best album by D.A.D. It's also one of the finest rock albums ever, combining traditional rock with hard rock and maybe even a bit of heavy metal. This is Creedence Clearwater Revival meeting AC/DC!! On "Riskin' it all", the band continues the musical direction from the previous "No fuel left for the pilgrims" (1989), but this time they manage to go all the way. Maybe you've heard "Sleeping my day away" or "Jihad"? If you have, you know what to expect!The songs are very well written and are performed with 100% energy with a large portion of melody. D.A.D. also give the lyrics more attention than we sometimes are used to when it comes to rock bands in general, and the words are often quite funny, like in "D- law". The albums highlights are the strong rockers "Bad craziness", Making fun of money" and the mentioned "D-law", the very melodic and pop influenced "Grow or pay" and of course the very catchy acoustic semi ballad "Laugh `n' a half". Although this is a rock album D.A.D. shows us their ability to create variation in the music, and the slow rather blues inspired "Down that dusty third world road" gives you an instant feeling of four o' clock in the morning after everyone's left the party and you sit exhausted in the couch and the table is overloaded with cigarettes and beer cans.D.A.D's career can be divided into three different stages: 1) The early years ("Call of the wild" & "Draws a circle") when the band played something that can be described as cowboy rock (?!); 2) The great years featuring "No fuel left for the pilgrims" and "Risking it all"; and 3) The metallic years, starting with "Good clean family entertainment". But in 2002 the band has finally found their way back and "Soft dogs" is the musically closest to this masterpiece - "Riskin' it all"."

Damn good

Jazzcat | Genoa, Italy Italy | 06/09/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"A classic rock'n'roll album, pure AC/DC energy with some more irony, fun and originality! A perfect rock'n'roll album. One of those albums so right that you wouldn't change a note even if you could. It goes along perfectly well when you listen to it. The guitars wall of sound is full and satisfying. The voice is extremely correct for the genre. Lyrics clever and funny. You can't ask more to a rock'n'roll album. A classic. If it was an AC/DC album it would be one of the best in their discography. I own it since it came out and I come back to it from time to time. Each time I think this is one damn good thing to listen!"

A fumble or not? You decide

Paul Lawrence | Australia | 05/12/2006

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Bad Craziness, Grow or Pay, Laugh 'n' a 1/2 and I Won't Cut My Hair are four of the best tracks this band ever delivered unto it's adoring public. And they sum up the eccentricities of this band beautifully.



Bad Craziness is the lead cut and rocks along where their previous barn stormer of an album - No Fuel Left for the Pilgrims - left off. I Won't Cut My Hair, I mean seriously this brand of rock doesn't get much better than this tune.



But it's the gentle musings and introspection that give this band such a huge leg up over so many of their alleged competitors. Like Grow or Pay or Laugh 'n' a 1/2 that really give this band such a huge pallette compared to so many of their contemporaries. And this is a direction they've continued to go in on subsequent releases.



However it's not all good news. The production feels duller in some indefinable way. Also some of the songs, while retaining the wackiness of their previous efforts, just don't seem to stack up. Putting this albums cover next to that of it's predecessor and doing track by track comparisons leaves you realising that it's not quite as good as the first. And the fact that the public responded to this release with apathy also meant the end of DAD's big time record deal days.



Overall, an album that is really quite a good release from a very interesting band. Perhaps it just needed a couple more rockers in their distinctive, AC/DC tinged style to really ram this album home all the way to five stars."