Jailbreak

Band: Thin Lizzy
Album: Jailbreak
Best song: The title track and, of course, "The Boys Are Back In Town."
Worst song: "Warriors" isn't great.

I'm going to make this brief, largely to get some content on the site...

It's really easy to mock Jailbreak as pure nonsense. And I won't disagree. The cognitive dissonance of an Irish band singing "Cowboy Song" is just too great to really fathom. Or the fact that the best version of a Thin Lizzy original is by Belle & Sebastian (Their version of "The Boys Are Back In Town" is priceless).

But, the fact is this: Like the first Boston record, Jailbreak is full of hooks and monster guitar riffs and solos. The harmonized melody of "The Boys Are Back In Town" takes Tom Scholtz' best work in Boston to a different place and the riffing in the title track is heavy at the bottom.

"Cowboy Song" is strange, but good. "Romeo and the Lonely Girl" is an attempt to sound smart, while "Fight or Fall" is a softer track -- the kind of thing people held their lighters for during the countless stadium shows. "Angel from the Coast" has a sold Phil Lynott vocal. "Running Back" is a classic 70s breakup song and could easily have been done by Fleetwood Mac.

That's a compliment.

So, yeah. Mock it if you want, but Jailbreak is a fine album.