LOCKED IN

They should have been locked up

Ever come across a "Talk box"*? Unfortunately Wishbone Ash did, and used it on this album. The device is used to take the sound of an instrument, in this case guitar, and put it into the mouth of the vocalist via a tube. Peter Frampton used on to great effect on his "Frampton comes alive" album. Unfortunately, the sound it creates has a novelty value which lasts for about five minutes. After that, it rapidly becomes tedious and dull.

"Locked in" was already in trouble before the Talk Box came along. Wishbone Ash had all but run out of inspiration, and were making music which was at best average. "Argus" guitarist Ted Turner had moved on, being replaced by Laurie Weisfield. Weisfield certainly came with a decent pedigree, having been the main driving force behind HOME's wonderful prog classic "The alchemist". To be fair, the responsibility for this turkey should not be placed at his door, the band collectively fall here. Indeed, producer Tom Dowd should probably shoulder much of the blame. He didn't write the awful lyrics of course, or come up with the poorly composed songs, but his swamp rock/jazz background meant that he led the band in a direction which was completely unsuitable.

Things start off reasonably well, with " Rest In Peace", a decent attempt at a typical Wishbone Ash song. Yes that dang Talk Box is there, but there is a good lengthy guitar play-out too. Unfortunately, that's really it. "No water in the well" is an all too accurate description of the next song, which features some astonishingly bad singing, and funky keyboards. "Moonshine" has a predictable country rock style, while "She was my best friend" has you crying for all the wrong reasons. If side one had not been bad enough, the band manage to plunge even lower on side two. "Half past lovin'" must surely be the worst Wishbone Ash song ever, being a directionless, tuneless funky blues number.

By now I'm sure you get the picture, this was Wishbone Ash's nadir. There really is nothing positive I can say about this album, even the cover is lifeless and uninspiring. This album really does deserve to be locked in.

* Many thanks to fellow member Joolz for correcting my original assertion that the device was a "vocoder". It seems there is often confusion between the two.

Second album with the guitarist/vocalist Laurie Wisefield and certainly not any better an album than the lacklustre There's The Rub, (which most likely a hint at their re-focusing their priorities on the American arena/stadium rock industry), Locked In is no real improvement. As a matter of fact the album is yet another downward step with them choosing as a producer Mr. AOR himself, Tom Dowd. And the fact that they have keyboard session player Wood on most of the album will not save it from disaster. The album has your average short concise tracks formatted for radio airplay (and therefore its fair share of fillers per album) presenting a boogie RnR sometimes with a country twist>> yuckkkkkk!!!!!!!!!

The last thing I want to do is be exceedingly mean or disrespectful of a band whose early works I deeply respect and enjoy still three decades later, but this period of WA's career can only be seen as a major loss of focus and inventivity for the proghead. There is hardly any space for the members to expand on their considerable musical skill as the tight song- structure (don't get me wrong this is excellently made AOR) is simply not allowing it >> gone are Martin turner's excellent bass playing drowned out in heavy square uninventive riffing from their twin-barrel turbo-charged attacking front. I dare say that most of us proghead's viewpoint is not shared by the many WA enthusiasts who will see this album as yet another classic. But they are looking from another viewpoint than us progheads. Interesting artwork though!

Where are your beautiful melodies and songs? They're locked in. Locked in the past.

Well, this will be a hard task. I am a huge fan of this group from their earlier era. However, changing a guitarist and even country (they settled in the USA) brought some delcine to this extraordinary group. There's the rub was very good album but this is...disaster. Laurie Wisefield is fine guitarist and not so fine singer (kind of Bob Dylan, maybe...). His influences are obvious. I've heard some songs from his previous band Home and it has a style very much similar to country. Here it is the same. Only the first track (with banjo - only nice adding to the whole album) is worth it. And the last one, Say goodbye, is some mediocre WA song. The rest are som short maybe-rock songs with weak melodies.

It's a pity. I like this group and this album is by far their worst from the first half of the 70's. Two stars, but it's close to one.

I have been quite generous with my ratings for each of the "Wishbone Ash" album so far, but I have to admit that the "music" featured here is quite poor.

What happened to these great (hard) rock feel that could be experienced in their prior releases? Totally forgotten I'm afraid. Even though if their "progressive" side was never obvious to me (actually, we all know that their relation with prog rock was very, very, very thin), the band developed such great rock moments full of emotional guitar music that they could be linked (but remotely) with prog.

The problem with this album is that these great moments are alien and the listener just has to bear basic rock music with little to no inventiveness. The funky "Half Pasy Lovin" is of no great help to improve the quality of this album either.

One of the only bearable songs is "Trust In You". But this is only due to the similarity with CSN & Y. Slow, powerful, nice guitars and good vocal harmonies. Thanks to the decent closing track ("Say Goodbye") which is made of the same mould, I will rate this album with two stars (but three out of ten would be more accurate).

No big deal, to say the least.

Review #7 Wishbone Ash's 1975 album Locked In.

It is beyond my comprehension how a group could record one of *the* most awe inspiring albums of all time (There's The Rub) then in their next release produce something as dreadful as "Locked In".

There are two saving graces to this album: 1. the opening track "Rest in Peace" has a solo by Laurie Wisefield that is so unique that I still get goosebumps when I hear it and the harmony lead riffs are exquisite on this track...one of WA's great tracks and very progressive as a piece of music. 2. The last song "Say Goodbye" not prog at all but simply a fantastic rock ballad with great vocals, melody and musicianship.

All songs in between these 2 are mind boggling awful....everyone of them!

Let's list them: "No Water in the Well"...who was the bright spark who permitted Laurie Wisefield to sing on record? His vocals are akin to Bob Dylan singing and being strangled at the same time. Extremely high pitched, nasal, grating and whining. OOOh dear.

"Moonshine" Laurie back again...who'd have thought? Stinking.

"She Was My Best Friend" had some potential but is so dreary and morbid and even Martin Turner's normally good vocals make you want to press the skip button immediately he gets into his most blubbering, weepy performance on record.

"It Started in Heaven"...yes, you've guess it, Laurie back again on vocals....it must have been written in his contract to take most of the lead vocals on this album. Terrible, terrible (did I say terrible?), yes, terrible song.

"Hast Past Loving" nearly makes it but obviously doesn't...Martin vocalizing.

"Trust In You" please Laurie...will you just shut up, shut up I say! But he didn't.

So there you have it, an album using the legendary Tom Dowd as a producer manages to create possibly the worst rock albums ever recorded.

Maybe my sentiments are a touch strong....as there are 2 great songs on "Locked In".

Let's say that "Locked In" is *nearly* one of the worst albums ever recorded.

But please download "Rest In Peace" and "Say Goodbye" from iTunes you hopefully will enjoy them both. They are brilliant.

This is not really a good album for the following reasons: the production is too light, and the vocals are dead-awful. Never ever have I heard a respectable rockgroup deliver such awful vocals.

The guitarlicks and solos are okayish.

The short tracks are all fillers. In fact there are only three songs worth listening to, and they are quite alright. The opener Rest in Peace really rocks out, and I don't have a problem with the talkbox. The other two really nice tracks are Trust in You (sounds like a New England song) and the ballad Say Goodbye, wich is some sort of Persephone, part 2, but for me it works. Also the vocals on said tracks are not all that bad.

Just give skip the rest of the tracks and, give these 18 minutes of pure Wishbone Ash-joy a chance. Especially in the age of digital listening, it's worth checking out these 3 songs.

"Locked In" is the least inspiring of Wishbone Ash's 1970's efforts. In my opinion, all of their other albums from that decade ranged from very good to fantastic. Here though, they did hit a real low unfortunately. I still give it two stars because although there are some dreadful moments (Laurie Wisefield's vocals are often quite annoying on this album!), "Rest In Peace" is pretty cool and almost up there with some of the better WA numbers. I can live with "Half Past Lovin'" but if you're not much into the country-rock/boogie style they incorporated it might not be your thing. "Say Goodbye" is also one of the decent songs but overall this is really for die hard fans only.

In 1976 I was reading a musical newspaper and it had an interview with Martin Turner and that´s where he said that their previous LP Locked In was not a characteristic Wishbone Ash album. Well, that´s an understatement! Locked In can be easily seen as the typical idea to try to make it big in America. The sound is totally Americanized. And it simply didn´t work. Even Martin Turner´s vocals are not very used here. I guess someone thought guitarist Laurie Wisefield had a "better" voice for those songs. If so, he was wrong. Another bad move. And to think that this turd came out after a serie of great albums by this great band...

To be really fair, this record is not totally crap. The opener Rest In Peace is a very good, typical WA number, even if the talkbox guitar line on it dated it a little. Unfortunately the second song onwards it all becomes the mediocre american hard/southern rock of the period, totally unsuited for WA´s sensibilities. All the english and celtic elements that made their music so peculiar are gone, replaced by funky keyboards and fake soul backing vocals.

A real letdown. However, by the end of the LP things get a little better with the two closing tunes: Trust In You and Say Goodbye are good rockers with fine harmonies, good twin guitars and overall a more familiar and melodic sound. Nothing exceptional, but good anyway. A pity that before those we have to listen to something as bad as Half Past Lovin (with that damn talkbox solo again!!!). And those Wisefield vocals are way too many! The guy is no singer. It´s unbelievable!

Definitely an album for hardcore fans and collectors. The good moments on it are few and far between. A sad attempt to cash in by trying to be something they were not. But, alas, that was so common!! Even today other bands do that a lot. I really hope their next albums are closer to home. I´m glad it didn´t sell.

Rating: 2 stars, because it has at least a couple of tracks really worth knowing, but make no mistake: it´s WA´s worst album thus far.

In the mid seventies I was ,err,in my mid teens and already had three wishbone ash lps in my collection,Four,Live Dates and Theres The Rub.Somehow about this time I acquired a cassette of Locked In.I still have this today sitting on a shelf in my shed like a morbid curiosity.To be fair the band were going through some tough times.Management and record label problems,gear getting stolen,up staged by Kiss at a major gig etc,but did the record buying public know this at the time?Tom Dowd was the label appointed producer and some of the blame must be directed at him.Its weak,lifeless and has that laid back AOR feel to it. I could say the same about Claptons 'Layla and OALS'.Yes ,I have opened a can of worms there,but I have never like Dowds rock productions and that includes Cream.Locked In has eight tracks with only opener 'Rest in Peace' having only some resemblance to past glories.Laurie Wise field sings lead vocals on half the tracks.Let's just say he should stick to the guitar which he does very well.But main vocalist Martin Turner is struggling particularly on the insipid ballad 'She was my Best Friend 'where he is distinctly off key.But most of all the songwriting is terrible.From a band that was on the verge of brilliance with 'Argus',Locked In is major let down.Things got better with the next album,'New England 'but they lost some ground.But strange as this may seem I reach for Locked In and give it a spin at least once month whereas Argus is lucky to get once every six months.I must be a masochist!

A very bad period for the group produced a surprisingly bad album. The gap between this one and Where's The Rub is huge.

It won't be much fun, but let's do a track-by-track review:

Rest In Peace: A nice "bluegrass" style guitar riff, pretty joyful and groovy. The solos are quality as always. I don't understand why they had to use the Talk-Box though, it would be much better with normal vocals.

No Water In The Well: Who thought that it would be a great idea to let Laurie Wisefield sing? Well, it's not. The song is nothing special on it's own, Wisefield makes it worst with his singing... Let's go to the next one.

Moonshine: An OK basic riff, which kinda stand's on it's own. The rest of the song does not follow, and the vocals are not exactly great, too, although sang by the whole band this time.

She Was My Best Friend: A rather common ballad, with some good singing by Martin Turner. By this point, another basic problem of this album becomes obvious: the mixing is very bad, as the vocals are not well blended with the music (the producer is Tom Dowd). If his voice sounded more embodied to the music, the song would sound much better.

It Started In Heaven: An up-tempo song exactly at the sound of Bob Dylan, but yet again nothing special. The lyrics seem overly simplistic too.

Half' Past Lovin': Talk-Box again, at a funk-rock song that could be a Stevie Wonder composition, but not from his very best. I'd say it's my favorite song of the album, along with Rest In Peace.

Trust In You: Such a basic composition music-wise, that it reminds me of pre-recorded rhythms that you can play on your keyboards to built on them. Maybe the most flat and irrelevant song of the album. And it lasts 5:10... For what?

Say Goodbye: An interesting song music-wise, but what lyrics are those? "We can take a ride across town / Come on baby get your clothes on / All night long we 'll be so high / That's the way we 'll say goodbye". Really? Come on guys...

RATING: Impressively bad for the Wishbone Ash standards. You don't wanna turn the CD player off before it ends, but you don't wanna listen to it again either. It's a 1,5 star (bad production too...) but I don't hate it THAT much to give it 1 star, so 2.