UFO’s High Stakes and Dangerous Men album from 1993 gets a welcome re-issue packaged with the Lights Out in Tokyo live album.
This was UFO’s first album since the somewhat miss-step of Misdemeanour in 1985. Phil Mogg got the band back together again tempting back Pete Way and recruiting the excellent Laurence Archer on guitar and Clive Edwards on drums.
High Stakes was a return to form indeed from UFO and the only one recorded with this line-up before that bloke Schenker came back again for Walk on Water in 1995.
It’s a tight album. Archer performs admirably shredding away nicely showing he has the chops to justify his place. As he does more so on the live album. Edwards has a more technical approach to the raw power of Andy Parker.
Overall I’d say High Stakes is generally more melodic than previous UFO albums though it does still carry plenty of that typical swagger, top class guitar work and Phil Mogg’s unmistakable voice is on top form.
Borderline thumps along like UFO openers tend to do. And it gives Archer an early opportunity to show what he can do – and he does. A superb, restrained and refined solo showing he’s fitting in well with his new band mates.
Burnin’ Fire and Back Door Man are nicely brooding bluesy numbers. Running Up the Highway has chunky heaviness with more Archer six-string histrionics.
And of course nobody does the hard/melodic/ballads like UFO with here She’s the One and Don’t Want to Lose You in particular featuring the classy hooks and melodies.
A shame High Stakes and Dangerous Men is the only UFO album featuring Laurence Archer. Would have been interesting to see how the band would have developed with him in the line-up.
On to the Lights Out in Tokyo live album. Around eighty minutes of this line-up blasting out a mixture of five cuts from High Stakes, eight classics and one cover.
The songs from High Stakes stand up very well live. The classics include (well, you can probably guess…..) Too Hot to Handle, Cherry, Love to Love, Lights Out, Doctor Doctor, Shoot Shoot, Rock Bottom etc.
Archer puts his own stamp on things and evidences he’s more than up to the job. Rock Bottom was always Schenker’s showpiece and here Archer cuts lose to show what a fine player he is. Classy stuff.
An excellent re-issue of an often overlooked UFO album with Lights Out in Tokyo being the cherry (no pun intended….) on top.
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