JUNGLE LIFE

A trio for this studio album. Bernd Noske (a founding member) is still holding the sticks and is responsible for the lead vocals as well. Quite an exercise!

It is quite remarkable that "Birth Control" got back to their roots during their last couple of albums (but this situation saw the light already in 1981 with their album "Deal Done At Night"). The disastrous "Titanic" and "Dracula" are well beyond now.

Their powerful rock music is convincing, impeccably performed and should please any fan of the genre (early seventies hard-rock). One song (two parts) stands out here : the opening and closing track: "Valley Of Darkness". It offers everything you can expect from such a band: a heavy sound, great guitar break, solid riff, some enjoyable keyboards as well (to avoid being just heavy or hard).

Another long song also belongs to the interesting parts of this album. "Desert Storm" (what a programme) will remind you the heavy organ sound from Lord and Hensley. And the very energetic beat is phenomenal. One of their best songs ever IMO.

In the tradition of lots of hard-rock bands, "Birth Control" delivers an excellent and emotive rock ballad. I am really positively impressed by the strength of "A Chance To Learn". Vocals are particularly well executed.

The other songs are more straight forward and without surprise. Some heavy metal for "I Send My Mind On Vacation", slow and heavy beat for "Jungle City" (but some pleasant synth as well as guitar do provide some grandeur to it).

Same comment for "Preacher Man" which was already featured on their previous album in a slightly shorter version. But the repetition of this pure heavy metal song was probably not the best idea for this work (the band is also repeating "Automatic World" and its "School's Out" riff).

This album is well balanced and I recommend it to all hard-rock lovers. Three stars without hesitation.