Enuff Z’Nuff is a band that remains a paradox to me — which is
\none reason why I’ve been spending a lot of time listening to their
\ndiscography in the order of release. (Memo to the band’s publicist:
\nThat’s why you haven’t seen the reviews of the re-issues… but
\nthey are coming!) And yet the more I listen to
\nStrength<\/i>, the band’s 1991 sophomore effort, the more I get
\nconfused.<\/p>\n
On one hand, you have Chip Z’Nuff and crew putting forth a solid
\neffort that abandons the few silly concepts that they tried out on
\ntheir debut release. But this disc also seems to feature the band
\ntaking a turn towards more serious music fare — and the results
\ncan get a little spotty at times.<\/p>\n
There’s enough material on this disc to let you know that the
\ngroup hasn’t forgotten how to turn up the amps to 11 and rock out
\nuntil the plaster falls off of your ceiling. Tracks like “Heaven Or
\nHell,” “The World Is A Gutter,” and the slightly slower “Holly Wood
\nYa” show how far the band has come since
\nEnuff Z’Nuff<\/i> hit the stands.<\/p>\n
But more often than not, Enuff Z’Nuff seems to stray into music
\nthat is less flash and more substance on
\nStrength<\/i>. Tracks like “Mother’s Eyes,” “Blue Island,” “In
\nCrowd” and “Baby Loves You” work well in this fashion, proving that
\nthere was much more to this group than the hair styles of the
\nday.<\/p>\n
Ah — but there are occasional craters. “Strength” gets weighed
\ndown a little too much in the arrangements, including a violin solo
\nfrom Johnny Frigo (father of guitarist Derek Frigo). Likewise,
\n“Time To Let You Go” seems like too slow of a way to end an album
\nthat had so much power and promise.<\/p>\n
What’s interesting is that
\nStrength<\/i>, in overall approach alone, is a stronger album
\nthan
\nEnuff Z’Nuff<\/i> was, but it’s pooh-poohed by many people
\nbecause it doesn’t have an instantly recognizable song like “Fly
\nHigh Michelle.” Well, tough.
\nStrength<\/i> is the kind of album that you really have to spend
\na lot of time with in order to appreciate how far Z’Nuff had come
\nin just one album, even though the journey was still very much a
\nwork in progress. I know that each time I’ve listened to this disc
\n(and it’s been about 10 times in the last month), I find new things
\nto like about it.<\/p>\n
\nStrength<\/i> is a suitable title for this album, as Enuff Z’Nuff
\nbegan to really find where theirs lay music-wise. It’s not a
\nperfect album, but it’s a natural next step for the group.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25431,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[6133],"rating":[5617],"class_list":["post-36636","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-enuff-znuff","rating-rating-b-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36636","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36636"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36636\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25431"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36636"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=36636"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=36636"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}