What a surprise! Really a great great album
author: gabriele maestosi
I've so long waited for the new Firefall album (I'm a great fan of the band) but this jock Bartley cd is really a surprise. Messenger, the last album of the band, was a good work but this one is better. Jock is a master of the guitar, we know, but now he shows great qualities in voice and songwriting too. Not a bad song and great quality in sound, booklet and players. He is the real owner of the Firefall sound as this cd shows. I'm curious what could think the "lost I don't know where" Rick Roberts about this great great album.
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Absolutely Smokin! Something I can listen to....start to finish.
author: Colorado Girl in VEGAS
BLINDSIDE is my newest CD in the car's 6-CD changer.
It's pretty rare for me to find a CD of new music that I can actually listen to the entire CD. It's very refreshing
to find a CD with such great songs and by JOCK BARTLEY! What a nice surprise.
Even if someone didn't know FireFall by name, they all knew and heard their songs. FireFall was a very familiar friend. There was something very magical about Cinderella and I get that same kind of feeling when I listen to Blindside.
The Blindside CD is a showcase of some awesome guitar work, smooth melodies, and songs that really resonate. Jock Bartley has really outdone himself on this CD. Definitely add BLINDSIDE to your collection.
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Jock rocks!
author: Chris from Germany
why he didn't release this CD under the name "Firefall"? Cus this is way better than anything he recorded with Firefall in the last 25 years! Great songs, great melodies, to cut it short: just what we long to hear! Thanks Jock and keep up the good work!
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Well, I'll be hooked!
author: David Eade
Who'd have thought it? When Firefall split at the beginning of the '80s, it would have been fair to have expected the band's singer-songwriters, Rick Roberts (who wrote the hits) and Larry Burnett, to have gone on to prolific solo careers. But in the last 25 years we've had nothing from Roberts and one recent 6-song acoustic album from Burnett. Instead, guitarist Jock Bartley, who had already stepped forward as a strong songwriter on Clouds Accross the Sun, the orginal band's final album, became Firefall's default leader, releasing two patchy albums in the early '80s, then forming a new Firefall and composing the bulk of the material for the outstanding Messenger album in the mid-90s. Twelve years later, with Firefall still gigging under Bartley's leadership, he releases his first solo album - and it's a corker! Jock's composing skills have been honed to a T, and his husky voice shows character and warmth. It's disappointing, then, that he lets Bob Harris take lead vocals on three of the 13 tracks, as Harris has a typically smooth, rock school veneer that detracts from the charm of Jock's songs. Some might baulk at the naivety of Bartley's lyrics, but they have a refreshing innocence in these days of cynicism and crudity. Little needs to be said about the guitar playing. Those who know Firefall know that the solos will be medodic and fluid. I hoped for an instrumental on this album, so the closer, Just Let Go, did not disappoint, with its Santana-like rhythm and sustained soloing. It would be difficult to pick out favourite tracks. Suffice to say that you'll be hooked from the opening title track onwards. Go on, take a chance. If you like melodic, guitar-based songs, you'll love this album.
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