UFO – The Visitor

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A third successive album with the same guitarist (American virtuoso Vinnie Moore) makes the current UFO line-up one of the most stable for years, and for their third album together they’ve produced arguably their best body of work alongside the best cuts like Heavenly Body from The Monkey Puzzle and When Daylight Goes To Town from You Are Here. Several of the new songs here have a heavy dose of blues groove (outstanding opener Saving Me, mid-disc highlight Living Proof, Quireboys-esque Villains & Thieves, slide-blues of Rock Ready). There are less dynamic songs, like ballad Forsaken and rock-by-numbers Hell Driver, but overall the album is strong and probably contains more stand-out tracks than either of the other two albums since Moore joined the band. Founding bassist Pete Way does not appear on the album due to a liver disease, and is not playing with the band on the supporting tour (replaced temporarily by Billy Sparks), but the material doesn’t suffer at all for his absence. The blues influences give the album a different feel to the previous two more straight-ahead rock records, and that should mean the new tracks sit more prominently amongst the old rock standards in the live set.

Written by Andy Lye
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