It’s the Michael Schenker-era UFO that garners all the plaudits. Fair enough. From 1974’s Phenomenon up to its valedictory triumph – Strangers in the Night – Schenker-driven UFO is one of British rock’s most celebrated bands. And rightly so.
But there’s so much more. A renaissance given birth by former shredder’s shredder Vinnie Moore resulted in a string of high-class albums from 2004 onwards. Even before that there have been highs the equal of anything achieved on Schenker’s watch. Take the bafflingly underrated 1992 offering, High Stakes and Dangerous Men (just prior to Schenker rejoining for a second shift with 1995’s Walk On Water).
It’s an album packed with great songs. As with a lot of late-period UFO, there is a tenderness and wry acceptance to much of the material. Mogg, sounding even better than during the band’s commercial peak, is partnered beautifully by Laurence Archer on guitar and the embarrassingly-talented but criminally-underemployed Stevie Lange is drafted in to lift the arrangements to divine heights.
You’d be hard pushed to name one song better than another, all killer no filler being the operative maxim here, but Love Deadly Love is a strong contender. It’s easily one of the best songs ever written by the band. Lyrically, Mogg’s cinematic tale of love, infidelity and revenge is a masterpiece of musical short-story telling and from the opening piano shimmers to the addictive drive of Archer’s guitar; all the way through to one of the band’s finest choruses, there is nothing in the Schenker-era that’s any better. As good, certainly but better? I don’t think so.
Harry Paterson 