Sorcery

"A rock n roll visual fantasy"... it was this line that described the band Sorcery on their promo posters, and fits them to perfection. In the 1970s when music was combined with fantastic stage shows, the band took it to the next level, hiring magicians to add magic and mayhem to their musical live performances. With their mystifying stage antics and solid rock anthems, the band was posed to be the 'next big thing', even headlining with Van Halen as their opening act and getting their 'break' when they appeared in the movie 'Stunt Rock' in 1978, as well as being the main (only?) band on the movie's soundtrack. Unfortunately this soundtrack was only available in Australia and Holland which was quite limiting in the amount of people it reached overall. Their follow up was another movie, the campy horror flick 'Rocktober Blood' in 1984, featuring Sorcery again, as they played three songs at the end. The last hurrah came in the way of a promotional single called "Living on the Run" before the band disappeared from commercial existance. Until now.

Sometime in the dawn of the early 80s Sorcery had been in and out of the studios, replacing their lead man Greg Mcgee who left due to personal problems, with the now somewhat legendary David Glenn Eisley. The result of these varied recording sessions is Sorcery "2". They spent well over a year remastering and shaping up these tracks coming from old cassettes, reels, and vinyl. This results in one of the main problems of this cd... the sound quality is quite bad in some places, but if it were not for the members of the band and the label Old Metal Records, these songs would have been lost to the world forever. Little fault can be found in the efforts in the band members playing on the release. The music is much like late 70s Journey or Triumph, straightforward hard rock, with a slight bluesy twist at times reminiscent of Whitesnake's "Snakebite" record. David Glenn Eisley is just perfect, sharp and emotional, he rolls with the punches and brings out the best in the material. Guitar is stabbing and precise, wild fiery riffs and lead breaks, molding nicely with each song respectively, all courtesy of Richard Taylor. Drummer Perry Morris and bassist Richie King keep it together with their rock solid rhythm section. Unfortunately for the listener, the recordings show their age, not because of the material themselves, but for the 'bad' overall sound. With saddness, I must report that the songs contained within are really excellent at times, and should have been properly archived on some medium with a big label to back them when these assorted tunes were originally concieved.

1. "Born to Rock" - Cliched, but still effective. Those familiar with early 80's Y&T ("Earthshaker", "Black Tiger") will know what to expect, only with a bit more of a polished edge and screaming guitars. Two words in the song describe it perfectly "Raw energy". A fist-raising anthem if I've ever heard one. The band are proud of this one as they should be.
2. "Ain't No Turning Back" - Tasty axeslinging, catchy guitar riffs compliment the equally catchy chorus. Strong late 70s stamp on this one, but a crunchy rocker that I imagine would have transferred over to the live stage acts quite well.
3. "Shake Me Up" - Opens with harmonica (I hate harmonica), thankfully its short and doesn't return in the duration of this compact and burning rocker. Strong chorus saves it in a pinch, along with more guitar ripping it up throughout and a delicious performance by Eisley.
4. "Living on the Run" - Already mentioned song that was pulled straight off the 7" promotional single which is quite rare but thankfully its possible to get ahold of the song that was on it! Great radio friendly tune, with a gripping melody and a 'getting away from the evil' theme. As the 'getting closer' bit is introduced each time, the song takes on a paranoid, slinky feel before breaking back into rocking rhythms.
5. "The Pride and the Glory" - A superb passionate rocker, *very* much like Giuffria, its a shame this has stayed out of the hands of the public so long. Bitingly quick solo and triumphant chorus rounds out a great hard rocking track and the 'magnum opus' of the disc.
6. "Light at the End of the Tunnel" - Feels quite Journey-ish, another great song with chugging riffs and lots of keys. A rambunctious chorus line comes out great against the rhythm guitar driven rest of the song. The production on this particular song is quite sad, and hinders it from being the giant rock track it could have been.
7. "Believe in Tomorrow" - This gentle piano-heavy power ballad, must also be compared with Giuffria, a bit of "Love You Forever" can be seen flickering in the flames of this pretty little tune. It picks up after its lapping reflective period into full scale big ballad mode, but the production saps most of the impact this could have had if only done properly in modern times.
8. "Last to Know" - is a crunchy early 80s rocker, predictably nothing special but pleasant enough to take in.
9. "No Good" - The background of synchronized gang vocals belting out the main lines of "You are no good" while David breaks in on lead to finish "to me baby!", drawing out the "toooo" or "baaaaaby" for extra emphasis, is excellent in a commercial hard rock sense.
10. "Angel in the Moon" - Growling guitars open up another rockin' tune, nothing unique here, with a dash of Deep Purple to spice it up.

"2" seems to be lacking that extra dimension of sound, it feels and plays very much like unpolished demos (which is essentially what it is!), and as long as you don't expect anything better than that, you will be more than pleasantly surprised. Age may be showing through the tattered, hollow overall sound, but it takes nothing away from the solid substance of the material at its mercy. It will come as no surprise that some of the best tracks were written by David Glenn Eisley himself, "Believe in Tomorrow", "Ain't No Turning Back" and the masterpiece of the disc "Pride and the Glory", which explains their similarity to band Giuffria which David went on to sing for. Easily can recommend Sorcery's "2" to fans of David Glenn Eisley, Giuffria, late 70s stadium rock, or those that are familiar with the band from their glory days. A fun album, and with all drawbacks aside, is a classic that stands the test of time despite all the obstacles that were previously in its way. The album cover art is also more than worth mentioning, absolutely breathtaking, one of the prettiest covers I have ever seen. With a limited edition of 500, if you want this one, I suggest you grab it up before its gone forever.

Rating - 7.0
By Alanna Evans
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