Who will ever read this?
Klaus Nrskov | Copenhagen Denmark | 09/13/2003
(4 out of 5 stars)
"Talk about undressing in the dark. In all probabillity noone is ever gone read this review ... cause who the hell is Neon Rose?? Well from a Scandinavian point of view they were as hot as they get in the first half of the seventies. They are swedish but just because you breath the same air as Abba don't mean you have to be a total popster.
Neon Rose was at the time the number one english-singing rock-act in scandinavia, and in retrospect they have injected substantial influence into the scandinavian rock-scene.
Run basically by the Mengarelli brothers (guitar and bass) they played somewhere between Purple and Led Zep with a slight dash of prog at times. Hardly innovative, hardly world class, but very consistent, and as aforementioned ... fairly influential at that.
Actually - to be honest - I've never heard this particular album. As the majority of tracks originates from "Two" and "Reload" (the latter by far their best), I dare recommend it just the same, should you get the chance to lay your hand on it (if you find Reload buy that instead, though). If half-stars were available I might have settled for 3 1/2 on this one since there are a number of mediocre tracks from their first record in particular.
Tracks to focus on are "Dust and rust", "Smell of death" and "A man is not a Man" all stemming from "Reload". These are all pretty hard rock-tracks, definitely more Purple'sque than anything else. Pure basic rock - only with slightly more focus on melody and a masterfull interaction between Mengarelli and co-guitarplayer Gunnar Hallin. The guitar line-up beeing Neon Rose' obvious stronghold.
Pity they didn't find the room for the titletrack from "Reload" since that to my humble mind is their best song ever. Anyway - these songs and a couple of songs from their second album "Bloody Welfare and "Is there an Eden", stand out on this record. There are a couple of songs that I don't know by the way -I guess that must be the previously unreleased ones. These tracks might be brilliant, but then again .. how come they never made it on record in the first place??
Neon Rose was a far better band than many of the seventies and in particular eighties bands, who made it pretty big although you have to deal with the slight swedish accent in the singing and maybe the rest of the world just didn't want to hear? If you ask more recent and present swedish bands such as Candlemass, Clawfinger and even Roxette and danish bands such as Mercyful Fate and Pretty Maids I'm sure they will tell you that Neon Rose was an important early inspiration for them. As a Dane I was fortunate that they did cross the Sound into Copenhagen but I guess they never got much further ... pity!"
Track Listings (14) - Disc #1