Rock Reviews

Who Are You

Review

The last hurrah. If you like The Who, it's often what time period you enjoy whether it's there early days (the days of "I can't explain" and "My Generation") or even Pre-Who's next or the pre-Who are You days. But there seems to be little love for any of the Who's work after Who's Next, though every Who fan and some others like Quadrophenia, but Who By Numbers is seen as average and Who Are you "mediocre" or bad and the last 2 pitiful. I'm not going to comment on the last two except halfway through Faces Dances I can tell that "Who Are You" was the last good album by The Who and as many believe, should of been there last one.

I'll start off by saying for those concerned not wanting to hear this album, do not fear. Compared to other Who albums there really isn't any big "downs", a few fantastic ones, some really good and solid ones and maybe one song that isn't good.

To begin with we have "New Song" which starts it off pretty nicely with a catchy tune, a little 80's vibe to it. Next up is a song with more of an 80's vibe, "It's Hard" which is a great one with nothing groundbreaking but considering the awful drumming I was expecting from Moon, some good drumming on this one. The one song I just can't like is the very weird Entwistle "905" a very sci-fi odd sounding track.

One of the favorites is "Sister Disco" apparently a great song live, in studio it's solid though isn't as good as the very well sung "Music Must Change". Those seem only like filler though when I loaded up the next song and was shocked immediately to hear the explosive freaky awesome bass sound with some crashing drums that begins "Trick of the Light", the 2nd best of the album and probably the most underrated Who song I've heard before. It's just an absolute must to hear, it's The Who near metal in it's sound and also only outmatched by the title track in it's ferocity.

That is really the only negative is at times it doesn't seem like its The Who at full power. In Who Are You and Trick of the Light you are hearing there classic sound, Who's Next quality (although drumming still down a level compared to Quadrophenia) with crashing drumming, wicked bass and great guitar work. Whereas the only persistent strength throughout is an aged Roger Daltrey with his voice aged, but in a good way.

It's not that the others aren't good, the synthesizer drowns out or keeps out a lot of guitar or bass and the drumming is due to the health and stability of Keith Moon, "Music Must Change" having no drumming because of Keith Moon's dampened abilities.

The Album still finishes well with a decent "Guitar and Pen", "Love is Coming Down" - though gets a bit annoying and then the title track, one of there all-time bests, "Who Are You". If you have the bonus edition you get some alternate versions (nothing exciting), but also a solid song in "No Road Romance" and albeit weird, a very good "Empty Glass" with a high quality despite not being finished.

All in all "Who Are You" is a very good album if you go in with a bit of dampened opinions. This is not as good as Who's next or Quadrophenia, Keith Moon's drumming is still good but not at the level of either of those albums, but with that said especially if you are a Who fan, worth checking out.

8.4

Songs