Nazareth - The Catch (1984)

The eighties began well for Scottish rockers Nazareth, but soon turned unkind. Their first release of the new decade, Malice in Wonderland, still represents the last time they exerted any significant commercial impact in the American music market, but MTV’s dawning power and accelerating tides of changing fashions swept away their influence with each succeeding year. Fortunes in freefall accompanied the release of 1984’s The Catch and this album represents one of the band’s best attempts at staunching their bleeding. There are some unlikely successes on the album, some notable misfires, and an overall sense of a band groping for direction in an increasingly alien musical landscape.

The album opener, “Party Down”, is far removed from the band’s original sound. The dense keyboard/synthesizer mix doesn’t neglect melody and there’s an acoustic rhythm guitar giving the song a solid musical underpinning. Even if the initial effect of hearing him in this setting is incongruous, front man Dan McCafferty proves himself quite capable of flourishing in this then-modern context and his emotive phrasing gives a distinctly human feel to an otherwise largely electronic track. One of the songs earmarked as a single, “Ruby Tuesday” finds the band attempting to repeat the success they earned for their legendary covers of “Love Hurts” and Joni Mitchell’s “This Flight Tonight” with their own unique take on a Rolling Stones classic, but the choice doesn’t play to their strengths. It’s a solid arrangement and performance; guitarist Manny Charlton and drummer Darrell Sweet, in particular, distinguish themselves. McCafferty, however, sounds a little bit out of place with the lyric and doesn’t strike the note of delicacy demanded by this Jagger/Richards composition.

“Last Exit Brooklyn”, a perhaps unintended play on the title of Hubert Selby’s novel Last Exit to Brooklyn, is another illustration of a band attempting to approach their traditional strengths from a different angle than before. The restless bass line and bustling overall sound of the rhythm section is the song’s primary building block, but Charlton’s guitar weaves in and out of the mix with a variety of tasty fills. “This Month’s Messiah” is the album’s best rock track and remains a recurrent staple of the band’s set list to this day. It’s one of the album’s best lyrics from a band whose talents in that area remain frequently underestimated and McCafferty belts out with every ounce of the drama demanded by the song.

“Sweetheart Tree” is an underrated gem and bluesy throwback on a release largely controlled by commercial considerations. The entire band excels here for obvious reasons and the song’s ambitions don’t aim high, but it’s loose and inspired. It’s a late reminder how the premier rock bands of the 1970’s lost their way in a rapidly changing eighties world. Evolution is not a bad thing; all bands must if they want to survive. The Catch proves how imposing arbitrary evolution never changes a band’s fortunes.

Grade: C+