The Catch

For all the NAZARETH's efforts to stand their ground in the '80s, theirs was a losing game: changing their tack meant to lose themselves and become someone different but to run with the poodle metal pack, their oeuvre was too diverse. Still, the band, now a quartet again, tried to tune in to the times: cue 1984's "The Catch". It possesses an angry pearl, the heavily hung "This Month's Messiah", but to get there it takes to override some barriers. First off, there's the alienating synthetic squelch between the bass and drums of 6-minute opener "Party Down" that Dan McCafferty hardly enlivens - if only in the live version on the second disc of this package, where Manny Charlton's six-string jive is more prominent, and "Moondance" which doesn't bloom into a ballad it hides in its funky core. More so, NAZARETH being masters of making others' songs their own, make an ill-judged go at "Ruby Tuesday" rocking it up where a gentler touch is needed, although the guitar crunch and a bluegrass undercurrent adds some spice to the brew, while Goffin and King's "Road To Nowhere" unfurls more tastefully.
Then, "Love Of Freedom" opens it lacquered slid to reveal a proud Scottish tune, for the post part scantily clad instrumentation-wise and all the better for it, and "Sweetheart Tree" is a boogie that the veterans deliver with their erstwhile zap, whereas the charged "Last Exit Brooklyn" rides its American sound with flying colors and in the hands of a young pop group could have been a smash. So the title "You Don't Believe In Us", too serious to dance to it groove, might challenge all fans, but it holds all the best its decade had to offer to the radio masses, up to a prick-and-caress electric lick, and B-side "Do You Think About It" shakes its wares in an alluring way.