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!

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.

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.