Snowmen - Snowmen

geovian

ARTIST: Snowmen
ALBUM: Snowmen
LABEL: Ice
YEAR: 1982

COUNTRY OF ORIGIN:
LINEUP: Dale Le Roc - vocals, guitars, drums * Kevin Dever - guitar, vocals * Animal - drums, vocals * Billy Miller - bass, vocals

TRACK LISTING: 01 Crazy * 02 Out Of Luck - Out Of Love * 03 I Need Love * 04 Midnight Lady * 05 Rock N Roll Communication * 06 Trouble * 07 Piece Of The Action

Background

A one-off album from these Erie, Pennsylvania-based rockers who invoked a sense of the strange and wacky. Visually, caught somewhere between Kiss, Twisted Sister and Angel (yes, the schlock white..), perhaps these guys should've been called White Wig due to their stage presence.

I've only read about Snowmen in the very first edition of AOR Classics magazine, and they talk about low-budget comparisons to Buxx, and the occasional dive into Led Zeppelin territory.

The low-budget thing can be excused due to this being a seven-track indie, and by all accounts, the band were huge in their hometown on Erie. I'm not sure what this actually means. Huge in Erie is one thing, huge in Los Angeles means something totally different.

The band also caught a mention in Derek Oliver's Encyclopedia of Hard Rock And Heavy Metal.

The Songs

There's an insistent hard-driving drum pattern courtesy of 'Animal', the band's drummer. This one has a Canadian feel to it and is quite likeable once you give it a decent listen. 'Out Of Luck, Out Of Love' is strung along by some half-tempo guitar strums and a very tasty solo with good use of feedback.

'I Need Love' picks up the pace, into a power-pop/rock zone with pre-requisite shout-out chants. Snowmen deliver 'Midnight Lady' in the same vein as 70's era April Wine and other bands of that ilk, whereas 'Rock & Roll Communication' is a tighter affair, punchy, with some interesting vocals on the chorus. No real solos on this one, just crunching riffs instead.

'Trouble' sounds excellent, another poppy hard rock entry, while the last track 'Piece Of The Action', keeps to a slow-to-medium pace (similar to some International Cricketers I know), and again, I sat through this thinking it could've been a Canadian band from the same era.

In Summary

After giving this a listen, I didn't hear any references to Led Zeppelin, so not sure what record Fraser Meldrum was listening to when he reviewed this. If you've seen the video of their song 'Crazy', then you may find it quite disturbing to see four blokes dressed up with white face paint and tacky white wigs.

They look like characters from a bad B-grade horror movie. All jokes aside, the Snowmen were a short-lived blip on the 80's hard rock landscape, though I'm sure if there any LP copies available on eBay, they might be worth a small fortune. One other thing: kudos to the guy who designed the front cover. It's very striking, in a wintery sort of way.

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seand

Great lp
A good collection of pop rock tunes

JohnWatson

There are some good live videos on You Tube and a promo. They do 'Radar Love' live too.

NickC

I like this album a lot even though I only caught up with it some years after the original release - If you are interested it was re-released on CD , with a few extra tracks on the FnA label under the title of "Snowmen - The Rock Experience". Then on ProgAOR label with a slightly different track order called "Rock n Roll Communication - 1982-83 " I have my snow white vinyl copy too...bizarre though.