Point Blank "Second Season" 1977

This is an addendum to the review of the Point Blank self titled first album. Second Season is just another heapin' helping of hearty down home heavy bluesified southern rock , still very much in the ZZ Top vein. An edgier, brighter mix for this one, but otherwise the winning formula remains the same.
Uncle Ned, Tatooed Lady, and Nasty Notions are the hardest rockers(solidly in the territory of the heaviest ZZ Top) of the bunch and they probably should have opened the album with them. These 3 are packed with solid riffage from front to back. Uncle Ned breaks into a wicked double time section with a mean proto-metal guitar breakdown leading to wicked trading of Les Paul theatrics by Rusty Burns and Kim Davis. Tatooed Lady rolls along like beer drinkin' hell raiser looking for love, again with solos from both guitar slingers. Nasty Notions is a funky struttin' song with more twin lead action.
Rock and Roll Hideaway is a little on the happier boogie side of things, but still manages to rock. Not as heavy on the killer riffage though. Part Time Lover and Back in the Alley are both really cool, groovy minor blues tunes. More in the straight ahead blues category, but very cool with sweet soloing on both.
The 2 songs I usually skip are Stars and Scars and Beautiful Loser, which are both basically country songs. Not necessary parts of the album as far as I'm concerned. The album closer is Waiting for a Change, which is a melancholy minor key southern rock ballad.
Lose the couple of not-so-cool songs, and combine this with the first Point Blank album and you've got 70+ minutes of top notch southern rock that is heavier and contains more long-haired loud rockin' than most Skynyrd or Molly Hatchet and definitely lays waste to the likes of the Outlaws or .38 Special.
Granted by '76 and '77 some hard rock norms had been established, but aside from the first few ZZ Top records, southern rock, musically, often didn't live up to the biker and skull image that it had/has. Point Blank managed to deliver on that promise of darker, heavier, southern fried 70's metal. It's really surprising that they weren't a lot bigger.

Riff Density 7
Riff Caliber 10
Post Blues Factor 8
Groove Factor 9
Dig It 10

Point Blank Self Titled 1976

Point Blank was 5 hard rockin', cowboy hat wearin' Texas boys that weren't afraid to crank it up. Their self-titled debut was released in 1976 and was produced by Bill Ham, the man who brought us ZZ Top 6 years earlier.* Rusty Burns, one of the Point Blank guitar players, was supposedly Billy Gibbons' guitar tech. Obviously they were well steeped in the ZZ Top vibe, and it shows in the music. This album sounds like a cross between the early ZZ Top albums and the more rocking side of Lynyrd Skynyrd.

"Free Man"


The record opens with "Free Man," a slow, dirty, sharp nine chord tune about the boys in blue. Wicked slide guitar in the beginning before it bursts into a slammin' double time twin guitar assault. These guys are pissed about the cops hassling them because of their long hair. With barely a breath, we're into "Moving," a driving ZZ Top/"Down Brownie" groove with cool harmony vocals and a killer modulation chorus and guitar break. Smokin' guitar solo. Like ZZ Top's "Down Brownie," the only flaw is that it is far too short.

"Wandering" starts out as a galloping twin guitar lead metalish trip that suddenly puts on the brakes and becomes a melancholy southern rock ballad, then jumps back to a gallop for dualing guitars. Next up is "Bad Bees", a straight ahead shuffle, a la "Chevrolet." "That's the Law" is sort of a Trapeze/Humble Pie trip given the southern rock treatment. It's got a great insrumental section with smokin' guitar action in the middle. "Lone Star Fool" brings us back from Skynyrd territory to the slow, tough, strutting blues riffage that we started out with.

"Distance" is a good old southern rock ballad that builds from the sad quiet beginning to the tear-jerker guitar solo and angst ridden last chorus. I just wish they had gotten a little heavier in the end, but it's still cool. The album closes with what seems like the radio single, but stick with it and you'll be rewarded with some good riffage and guitar battling.

This is a good album in it's entirety with some seriously rocking stuff. Great guitar sounds throughout, good Molly Hatchett-esque vocals from John O'Daniels, and some burnin' guitar riffs. It starts off very ZZ Top-ish(can't go wrong there- at least not until the 80's anyway), but ultimately ends up being a solid, well done, heavier and harder-than-most, Southern Rock record.



*Just a little side note about Bill Ham. I was told a story about the recording of ZZ Top's first record by the engineer. Apperently Bill Ham was adamantly opposed to the idea of overdubbing additional guitar parts and wanted the whole record to be recorded live. Billy Gibbons had other ideas. So after the basic tracks of the first song were laid down, Bill Ham was sent to get barbecue for everyone. The restaurant he was sent to was a good distance away, ensuring that he would be gone for about an hour, during which time Billy Gibbons laid down a slide guitar track and a couple of other parts on the song. When Bill got back with the barbecue, they played it for him without telling him what they had done, and he was blown away, thus giving Billy Gibbons the freedom to make some of the best records of all time.

Riff Density 9
Riff Caliber 10
Post Blues Factor 9
Groove Factor 9
Dig It 10