This was Strife’s second and last album (see my review of ‘Rush’ for the first), and while in my opinion it’s not quite as classic as the debut, it certainly still stands up as a highly-charged, high quality album of intelligent heavy rock.
In the four years between this point and the 1974 recording of their first album, the band had to put up with their record label – Chrysalis – unwilling to really support Strife or release another album, leaving them to wait out their contract until they could sign to another label. In the meantime, they continued stunning as a live band (see review for ‘Rockin’ The Boat’), and in 1977 self-released an EP/maxi-single, the rare ‘School’ (b/w ‘Go…’ and ‘Feel So Good’) (the track ‘School’ is available for free download through http://​www​.midnightmusic​.co​.uk/​S​t​r​i​f​e.htm), which was then picked up and re-released by EMI following its initial success with a Strife-starved public. Gull took over the reigns from here, releasing the final testament in the Book of Strife, at least until this year’s issuing of the awesome live ’76 ‘Rockin’ The Boat’ CD, as fitting an epitaph as could be wished for by eager fans of this undeservedly obscure cult rock band. But this review is about ‘Back To Thunder’, and so back we go into the mists of time…

By the way, just before the album was recorded, drummer Paul Ellson left and was replaced by his drum roadie, Dave Williams, who did a more than ample job in his wake.
‘Shockproof’ [3:30] get straight down to business with a sharp, choppy razor riff stomping its way into your living room like a prize fighter buzzing to the rafters on crank. Oddly, guitarist/vocalist John Reid’s singing sounds more like Man’s Deke Leonard than on earlier recordings… maybe he had a throat job! (There’s a sly in-joke there for those who’ve read Deke’s classic Man-bio pt. 1 ‘Winos, Rhinos & Lunatics’) Perhaps I’ve got it wrong and bassist Gordon Rowley is singing on the tracks that sound like this – I’ve seen photos of him singing on stage so I guess the two must have shared vocal duties. Anyway, musically, this sounds like Deke jamming with Three Man Army, and you can’t argue with that for a tasty mix.
‘Let Me Down’ [5:15] builds up from mellow beginnings to a chunky slow rock slop boogie-like thing, which funnily enough on the Man topic – having just written the Clive John review the other day – this seems to be not too far removed from the general feel of the more mainstreamy first track on his album, for which see that review or listen to the record. So, a bit mixed in that regard, but still with some great guitar crunching.
‘Feel So Good’ [2:49] is an upbeat anthem to the good things in life, namely playing the guitar, driving your car, looking up ladies’ skirts, even putting on a new shirt gives these guys kicks. It’s got a similar vibe to the first track, which isn’t a bad thing, fast and hard and choppy, lots of chucka-chucka thrashy riffing to get those heads down and banging, swinging into an intergalactic rumble at the end, which becomes one of those unfortunate fades where you wish they’d kept it running for a while longer to revel in the jamming. I can only hope cynically that someone fucked up just after this point and it all came tumbling to an awkward halt, just so we didn’t really miss out on a great jam.
‘Sky’ [6:12] starts out like a kinda mainstream hard rock ballad, for me one of the low-points of the album, but fortunately the whole track isn’t all like that. At around a minute and a half things get all operatically cosmic, and I’m thinking very much of Queen ‘Flash!’ territory here, there’s no avoiding the comparison. After a return to the commercial balladry from before, things turn to a Deke Leonard-styled hard boogie rock for a bit of a reprieve, though quickly giving way to some slow plodding pseudo-Floyd mainstream proggery that builds in tempo and energy with swelling synth, before unfortunately fading before really reaching a climax.
‘You Are What You Are’ [4:10] sets us in a Western movie in a sensitive, introspective, almost spacey mood just before the two guys blow each other away in the lonely main street at dusk, before kicking without warning into a savage fast rocker (I guess the gunfight’s started without me), again all choppy and nasty but with a good fun vibe rather than macho cock-doomery. The bass breaks out into a solo midway through, but the pace of this bouncy steed stomp doesn’t let up the whole time. Very nice!
‘Red Sun’ [3:35] swishes into existence with some cosmic effects that swoon into a soupy wash beneath as a riotous electric bass solo from ace bassist afro-ape Gordon Rowley, dripping with effects, unfolds very much to the fore, with the occasional interdimensional drum swell or gong crash tumbling across the mix. The tone of the bass soon mellows and spreads out into spacey delight before it all disappears up Uranus. I’m yet to hear any bad music that has ‘Red Sun’ in the title! (In case you’re wondering, the only others I can think of were by Janus and Kyuss.)
‘Fool Injected Overlap’ [6:36] lays down another mainstreamy rock ballad for a little while, not really my thing, before thankfully being blown to smithereens with a mean-ass assault of guitar/bass/drums pushing right to the front and levelling the joint with granite power chords. A couple of minutes later it shifts down gear into a jumpy hard groove that gives way again to a head-scratching sequence of complicated riffs before all recedes and wah-bass lays down a tightrope into space that the others teeter along in perfect trust. Not that we’re actually going into space here, it’s just a bit of diversionary atmosphere, as anthemic heavy rock chords are built up over the spare structure and it all comes crashing back to Earth with more ferocity than before, and hell, we could be listening to Stray’s ‘Suicide’ here, proving that a really good thing never gets old. But again, it fades out before we can revel in any kind of natural furious climax that surely must have followed.
‘Weary Traveller’ [3:50] is a kind of rock ballad, but not of the variety briefly encountered earlier. This is pretty cool stuff, with the quasi-mystical/mythological prog vibe of some of the tracks on the first album. Synths well up near the end to swirl around and add further melancholic grandeur to the whole shebang, taking the album out on a note that’s more of a folorn nod to the good old previous decade of music, rather than anything forward-looking, and perhaps these guys knew that Strife the band didn’t have a future beyond the 70’s, their collective ideals unsuited to meeting the desires and demands of the changing music industry.

Indeed, things were not exactly all well within the group, not due to personality clashes, but due to bassist Gordon Rowley having a heart attack shortly after the album came out, and although he made noble efforts to keep going, he wasn’t able to at the time and the group split up. After moving to the US and taking on studio engineering work, he got the itch for playing again, and following an audition for a position with Rainbow, he decided to form his own band, Nightwing, who toured a lot and released a few albums. Rowley also made an album with old friend Del Bromham of Stray and Steve Bartley of Nightwing, as Razorback, but it never got released. Apparently there’s video footage of some of their live shows, though (live they also played Strife and Stray songs), and there’s also a CD single containing 3 of the tracks recorded for the album, which I haven’t heard.
Strife re-formed for some gigs for fans in the late 80’s, but it’s unlikely to happen again as Rowley is now apparently not very well to put it mildly. Heres a big hearty cheers to Messrs. Rowley, Reid, Ellson and Williams for their fine service to rock music! You can now get both albums and a previously unreleased live concert (see ‘Rockin’ The Boat’ review) on CD on Timeline Records, from www​.modeltask​.com, in the confidence that you’re supporting the band members, as frontman and good man John Reid is behind it.