The title "The history of
Tuff" is a bit misleading and should be corrected to "The history of Stevie Rachelle from
Tuff" since this release contains 6 songs recorded for Stevie Rachelle solo releases.
Taken from Stevie Rachelle's solo album "Since Sixty-six"
Not Telling the Truth and
Don't Complain stand as fresh songs focusing on melodic choruses and great vocals. My personal favorite on the album
Not Telling the Truth is driven by groovy guitars.
Stevie Rachelle has also recorded
American Man - a song written by
Gene Simmons and the guys from Black 'N' Blue. Steve also did this one on Shameless' album "Queen 4 a Day". The 2 versions are very similar and the song fits Steve's full vocals.
Gilby Clarke plays the drenched guitar riff and delivers a cool guitar solo.
A few songs don't belong on an album saluting
Tuff. Especially the piano driven
So Many Seasons, which sounds like something played Sunday morning on the Christian TV channels. Whatsoever it has nothing in common with
Tuff's music despite Jorge DeSaint and Todd Chase is credited as co-writers. However, Rachelle bears full responsibility for writing the crappy song
Who the Hell Am I
As the title indicates "The history of
Tuff" one does expect an album following
Tuff from the early years until today. Partly RLS records succeeded in documenting that.
Tuff only released 2 studio albums, so the included stuff from before
Tuff's record deal and after their last studio album "Religious Fix" justifies the album.
Another Man's Gun sounds very 80's with big gang choir (even though it's listed as from 94) and
People they change plus the sparkling
A Place where Love can Go also bear a vintage
Tuff mark. Dated back in 1989
Sinner Street shows an early and primitive version of
Tuff, which is fun to listen to on an album saluting the bands history/career.
The album highlights, besides the 2 Stevie Rachelle solo tracks
Not Telling the Truth and
Don't Complain, is
Good Guys Wear Black from
Tuff's debut album. The raw guitars and Stevie's expressive vocals are far from the image I had of
Tuff back in the 80's as a pussy band after watching
I hate Kissing You Goodbye on MTV.
The only new song is
Tuff performing a salute to 80's hair metal on the amazing
American Hair Band. For more information about that song read my
review of
Tuff's great live CD "Live in the U.K"
All in all a good CD with some great songs, but also a few misses. One can only hope that someday
Tuff get their act together and record some new material
Written by
Michael Tuesday, March 15, 2005
Show all reviews by MichaelRatingsMichael: 6/10Members: No members have rated this album yet.
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