All Categories
Amazon.com The unexpected success of Live at Budokan (originally available in America only as a Japanese import) in 1978 very nearly overshadowed the band's most accomplished studio album, Heaven Tonight, released just months earlier. In Color's occasionally candy-ass studio gloss isn't entirely lost, just supplanted by healthy doses of the band's awesome raw power. Kicking off with the crypto-anthemic "Surrender," Heaven maintains a level of quality in songwriting, performance, and production rare in a rock album; some lesser band would covet this as its greatest-hits collection. There's another peerless Trick cover choice (the Move's "California Man") and a batch of originals that cover everything from suicidal tendencies ("Auf Wiedersehen") and drug abuse (the eerily moving title track) to blank nostalgia ("Takin' Me Back"), FM bliss ("On the Radio"), and jaded big spenders ("High Roller"). This "Expanded Edition" is sonically superb and includes new liner notes, photos, and a pair of live-in-the-studio outtakes. --Jerry McCulley