Fire of Love

I don't like it.

Fun album. Slide guitar in a punk record works surprisingly well.

Started off sounding very fun, but nearer the end it had less energy and sounded a little boring.

This really didn't do anything for me. Not good, not bad.

This is like your friend winning a medal for ice hockey, but you don't care about sports. So you are happy for him, but could have died without listening to this Album.

3.5
Bluesy Punk.

fast paced, high energy. Singing is not great as per the norm with this kind of punk.

Some good peppy punk. I enjoyed the more bluesy track Cool Drink of Water Blues as well.

I just don’t even want to write a review for this one. I’m so disappointed, man. Realistically, it’s actually a 1.5 bumped up to a 2, but because the white lead singer dropped the N word twice (hard R both times), I simply have to drop this down to a 1.

If you go to the Wikipedia page for this album, you’ll get words like “groundbreaking,” calling it innovative, and saying that several musicians have cited the album as an influence. To be completely fair to this album, the only reason why this was at a 1.5 bumped up to a 2 is because I do think this instrumental style works – it’s very early garage rock, but with the sort of blues style flair that really got refined and perfected in the early 2000s indie scene. This is a genuinely innovative album in that sense, and I really liked a lot of the instrumentals here. If this album were just the instrumentals, I’d probably be at a 3, bare minimum.

They are all wasted on some of the worst lyricism and vocals I’ve ever fucking heard in my life. I don’t even want to expand on that, but because I’m already giving this a 1, I may as well tear into them a little bit – they’re the fucking musical equivalent of Desert Bus. He can’t fucking shut up. Every time you play Desert Bus, you gotta nudge the bus a little bit to the right in order to keep it from going off the road, and that’s what his vocals are. Once you notice the “guitar riffs for 5 seconds, random ass lyric, guitar riffs for 5 seconds” pattern that permeates *so goddamn much of this album*, it is truly impossible to ignore. Those random ass lyrics are pushing the bus to the right. They’re annoying to listen to, and I genuinely believe they add almost nothing of substance to this album.

The real stress test of whether or not you’ll like this album is entirely dependent on Fire Spirit, which I think is a genuinely encapsulating track of the entire experience. It’s got a fantastic fucking instrumental, and it’s got what I consider to be the worst storytelling and vocal performance of the entire album. It’s got a story, sure, but it’s like listening to the worst D&D player at your table explain his quest in the most unimaginative way ever.

If you can handle that track without really wincing at either the vocals or the storytelling, there’s a chance you’ll genuinely like the album – I’m being harsh on it, but it’s not specifically bad, it’s just disappointingly mediocre compared to the expectations that were put on it – this thing got good reviews in 1981 and even got a 9.1/10 from Pitchfork in 2021, which is insane to me, because I did not fucking like this enough to even sniff a 3 on account of the vocals and lyrics alone.

I really do think that there’s a great soundscape here, and it did pave the way for a lot of 2000s rock standards that I do like, but they have easily eclipsed what this album did. It just didn’t work for me – I think it drags on like hell, I think it’s draining to listen to once you notice the obvious structural patterns throughout the tracks, and I just don’t think the vocals or lyrics stack up to any kind of modern standard. It’s a 1.5, that gets bumped to a 2, that goes back down to a 1 for the slurs. It’s a damn 4/10 in my heart, though.

The good: tight production, real craftmanship when it comes to instruments, nice lyrics, and an overall sense of "why was The Gun Club never featured in Quinten T movie?

The bad: JLP's vocals... they do get under your skin after a while, then again...

The ugly: instant skip if you don't like rock-a-billy!

Really enjoyed this. Post punk and blues, brilliant.

Punk blues - could be from anywhere between 1976 and 2029! Absolute genius, hard to believe it was a debut, other than how focussed it is. Another band I plan to explore more fully when I don't get a new album each day - think my "after the list" list is rapidly closing in on 1001 albums as well!
Word of advice (for those who don't know the band already) - listen first, even if you usually read the wiki; if only so you can have a guess when this was recorded

Badass

Oikein maistuvaa kasaripunkkia. Vähän kovempaa ajoa olis voinut olla, mut kyl tää nelosen ansaitsee,

Fire Of Love is an album clearly made on bad drinks and questionable medicines, and suitable for fans of the raw, hyped-up, uncontrolled feel of the first Pixies albums or the late punk.

And this is not even their best work

This is one of those "how on earth have I never heard of this band before" revelations. This album is so good and apparently hugely influential on subsequent punk and garage rock bands. The music is a great combo of punk, rock, and hard edged delta blues. I found it interesting to learn that lead Jeffrey Pierce was influenced by acts as diverse as Sparks, Genesis, Roxy Music, Blondie (with Debbie Harry singing on The Gun Club's second album), and Bob Marley. Unusual influences yield unique music, I suppose. You'd also think Pierce came from somewhere on the Mississippi Delta, but he's from California.

This their debut album and it sounds great from start to finish. Hard to pick favorite tracks, but I'll go with the two blues covers (Preaching the Blues and Cool Drink of Water), Promise Me (love the unusual beat), She's Like Heroin to Me (great straightforward punk), and Ghost on the Highway (great rocker). Oh, and Fire Spirit, Jack on Fire (harsh lyrics, though), and Goodbye Johnny. The only moment I sort of didn't like was the end of For the Love of Ivy where Pierce got a little weird. Plus the lyrics on that track are concerning - maybe he's mocking a redneck hick with his "I was hunting for n****rs in the dark" line, but I watched a live video and the drummer had a confederate flag wadded up in his bass drum. Um, yeah. Black Train also had similarly concerning lyrics. Hopefully they're just playing a part/being ironic. I'll give them the benefit of the doubt, particularly with the musical debt they owe to delta blues. Overall, this is one seriously awesome album.

Eine Mischung aus “The Doors” und “The Who” mit etwas Blues. Leider ist es ein Wuttirade, die die Band auf sich, ihr Publikum und die Welt ablädt. Das Album ist Sinn und Spassfrei. Wenn das guter Punk ist, was ist dann wenn er schlecht ist ?

Kunne egentlig meget godt lidt det her og jeg kan godt fornemme at de har været inspiration for meget, men jeg kommer nok aldrig til at sætte den her plade på igen

Want to guarantee that your album will be relegated to near obscurity, regardless of its musical merits or cultural relevance? Drop some hard-r'd N words. I do not condone the use of the word and it drives me nuts to hear it here, as the album is otherwise super impressive.

Is it terrible that I guessed the singer was already dead from the moment I heard the first song? It seems like it might be. This is terrific though; it still sounds fresh as hell.