UZI
Madhouse

Definitely slotting in at the tail – and heavier – end of the hair metal revolution, UZI are altogether a darker proposition than EONIAN RECORDS labelmates SHAKE CITY or SGT ROXX, but no less catchy and addictive.

As heavy as – say – Skid Row’s “Slave To The Grind”, boasting sugar coated choruses and confident and assured performances all round, UZI were obviously honed to a razor sharp point when they recorded these tracks in Chicago and Los Angeles between 1986 and 1992.

Straight out of the blocks comes the title track, recorded in 1991, and it’s a dark slab of hard rock which should have sold half a million copies back in the olden days.

Some of the songs suffer from a slightly thin or muddy sound, having been recorded as demos, but th quality of the songs and the playing cannot be faulted. Was there so much great music around back in the early 90’s that there legitimately was no room for bands like Uzi, Shake City, Pistol Dawn and others? It seems ridiculous in the here and now, though I guess the industry is an extremely different beast than it was back then!

Other highlights include the boisterous ‘Mutha’s Rockin’, ‘Away From My Heart’s lighters-aloft balladry, ‘Raise Hell’ is a little bit like RATT with a head full of darkness and ‘Do it for the Money’ is a horn laden slice of gold.

Respect must again go to Eonian Records for another resurrected slab of rock dynamite.

Shane Rockpit

Thanks to Eonian Records for our review copy of UZI “Madhouse”