Autograph
Get off Your Ass

Get off your ass says the band Autograph and for a while yet I say no as I have to sit down to write something about this album by band that according to the sales pitch has made an everlasting imprint on rock music and reclaims that legacy with this album. So you all know them from their lasting impression so no introductions are necessary for the band that made a hit single in the eighties and three albums then had two more album released, one after they disbanded and another one with a different line-up. That time only the vocalist was an original band member, this time there are more originals but the original vocalist is not part of the band. And they even add their hit single as a live version, perhaps to increase searchability and hence sales of this new album. But are they really worth spending any hard earned cash on, or are they just another gang of old farts who wants to capitalise on past glories with a record label that follows suit? That my friend is a very good question.

The music in itself can be described as anything of a standout character, typical glam, sleaze, melodic hardrock or whatever similar moniker you prefer to use for something that sounds akin to the similar bands above this text. Catchy choruses the typical somewhat hoarse glammy voice and the typical selection of songs that does not show much variation over the ten tracks being on offer on this album. The production is also a bit so-so, nothing impressive there and it kind of feels like a poor throwback to the eighties, to the band’s past glories perhaps. I know that I am not very impressed by what I am hearing and the album is rather forgetful when the songs blend together into one mass of dull eighties throwbacks with no imagination.

At best this is a gang of old geezers looking to reclaim their long lost youth and perhaps impress an equally elderly audience of tired old men who fear the modern world. At worst it is a cynical attempt to make money from music fans who doesn’t know any better and who will be insanely disappointed with their latest purchase, or at least never to play it after the first go. Well, sure it isn’t bad in the regard that you can listen to it and there is some catchiness and such things but it is an album that one instantly forgets, as soon as the songs end they leave you consciousness. So what should they have done to make this reunion into anything but a pointless release among many other pointless releases? Perhaps they should have thought a little outside the box, and written some songs that doesn’t feel like rewritten versions of other songs and a bit more variety wouldn’t have harmed the album either.

I think a grandiose yawn is the best way to describe this album, the biggest challenge it has to offer me as the listener is the challenge of staying awake for the full 43 minutes it plays. Had this album been released 30 years ago it would probably have been great, now it just feels like a pale copy of something that has long since passed its prime. Tired music from a quartet of tired old men, tired old men I don’t want autographs from.

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