The band’s debut album has been remastered for its 50th anniversary and comes in an assortment of deluxe packages from Deko. Bonus tracks or a live set would have been most welcome but sadly we only get the original album. That being said it is a nice punchier remaster with the bottom end nicely boosted.
Angel is not the best place to start for the unacquainted – that would be almost any of their following albums, but especially White Hot or Sinful. There are some prog touches to the debut, especially in the work of keyboards maestro Greg Guiffria, who even makes use of a mellotron (hooray)! Hear him at his best on fan favourite The Tower, which is one of the best and biggest on here. The synth battle intro still amazes and the song itself is a stylish prog fest. The band’s prog side is maybe at its strongest on the more bucolic subdued Long Time which has some terrific mellotron strings. The vibe is very Babe I’m Gonna Leave You by Zep or Suite Madame Blue by Styx. The still wonderfully named Punky Meadows rips off a killer solo in it too.
Rock And Rollers is the first of the more meat and potatoes rockers, with enough raunch and dirt about it to show this band could kick ass. Broken Dreams twists and rocks hard too with Meadows’ guitar working so well against Guiffria’s keyboards. Credit also here to the two more unsung members of the band – bass-player Mickey Jones and drummer Barry Brandt. They don’t put a foot wrong and Brandt in particular is at his best when driving the band along on Broken Dreams.
The reflectively thoughtful Mariner is a pause for breath. It’s a lovely piece but I do like it best when Angel rock out. it does pick up pace and some teeth halfway through. Sunday Morning is more like it – at first. It has a great intro riff from Meadows, but they back away from it for the song which is a poppy vehicle for Giuffria’s synths. On And On is another one where frustratingly Meadows should have been allowed to run riot even more. For me he is often too low in the mix. This has a killer riff that being said and his solos are terrific. I guess there was always the debate between Meadows and Guiffria about who should solo.
The short instrumental Angel (theme) closes the album. A peculiar decision because it just isn’t an album closer at all. It’s OK but doesn’t add much. This album has plenty of strong songs which always stood out despite the frustratingly flat production (courtesy of Derek Lawrence, who was never ever the right man for this). That has been improved with this remaster. It’s easily the best the album has ever sounded. The perpetual question is why didn’t Angel hit the same sort of level as label mates Kiss? They had a great image and great songs; it just didn’t happen for them on the level which was expected. But they left a fine run of studio albums and a classic live double album in Live Without A Net.
