How fast things change in
rock & roll
. In the span of just a few years during the early '90s,
Thunder
went from favored saviors of British
hard rock
thanks to their triumphant 1990 debut,
Backstreet Symphony
, to strife-ridden not-quite-stars when 1992's strong follow-up,
Laughing on Judgement Day
, almost saw guitarist
Luke Morley
joining a then still relevant
Whitesnake
, to borderline untouchables thanks to the advent of
grunge
and a bitter, disillusioned third album in 1995's
Behind Closed Doors
. So, come 1996 and their fourth album,
The Thrill of It All
, two details were evident: first, that
was never going to become the next
or
Def Leppard
(not that they'd want to, by that stage) and, second, that the only way for their fortunes was up, even if their latest material showed only marginal improvement over their latest effort. Nevertheless, ensconced among the mindless drivel (
"Don't Wait Up,"
"Hotter Than the Sun"
) and the insipidly frivolous (
"Welcome to the Party,"
"Cosmetic Punk"
) governing these sessions, one will find occasionally memorable efforts such as first single
"Pilot of My Dreams,"
with its Eastern-flavored solo,
"Love Worth Dying For,"
with its
"Ten Years Gone"
-styled opening guitar figure, and
"Something About You,"
with its forlorn
Boston-isms
. Classic
rock
galore, in other words, and, although its immaculate production and meticulous songcraft helped make it a huge smash in Japan,
sounds unbearably safe by today's standards, a relic of a far more commercial era in
history and, therefore, really not very thrilling at all. ~ Eduardo Rivadavia