Spearfish - Back, For The Future

*=Staff's pick

CD 1:
Control
Stayin' Alive*
In The Ghetto*
Midnight Moses
Mercury Blues
Fools Gold
Gone Shootin'
What You're Doing*
Maybe I'm Amazed
The Shining
The Stealer
Fortunate Son
Celebration Day
Justice in Ontario*

CD 2:
Living Proof
Running Late
Two To Tango
Making Memories
Win Or Lose
What Do You Got?
Cadillac
I Natt Jag Drömde
That Mexican
Fortunate Son
Point Of No Return

Genre	Hard Rock	Thomas Thulin	Vocals
Tracks	14/11	Peter Lundin	Guitar
Runningtime	59/50 Min.	-	Guitar
Label	Sweden Rock Records	Thomas Thulin	Bass
Release	31 Oct. 2003	Johan Sterner	Drums
Country	Sweden	-	Keyboards
Similar artists	Rush, AC/DC, Thin Lizzy

A hard rock album filled with cover-songs, do we really have use for one more of those albums filled with covers of songs that we heard before so many times? I don't think that we do but then this is not the ordinary cover-album, Spearfish gives you a little more than what you might expect of the usual cover-album.

Back, For The Future is packed with prominent guests and the fact that they also has managed to avoid those songs that is normally turned into cover-tunes makes this album quite pleasurable. And when all the proceedings from this album is going to be donated to The Childrens Cancer Foundation I found that it was very easy to spend my hard-earned money on an album that I probably wouldn't have cared to find out more about otherwise, and in that case I would also have missed some of these cool cover versions.

Spearfish is a Swedish trio that plays their music in the style of tight as hell and musically I would refer to bands as Thin Lizzy, AC/DC, ZZ Top but perhaps mostly to Rush. The similarities in the voice of Thomas Thulin and Geddy Lee from Rush is the most apparent comparison but there are more to find musically as well.

Spearfish has succeeded to actually make some really good and cool versions of the original songs, the one that I like the most is Stayin' Alive, the old disco song from Bee Gees that they have turned in to a hard rocking track, and is it the riff from Saxon's Denim And Leather I hear at the beginning of the song? The hard and bluesy version of In The Ghetto with Nicky Moore on vocals is one of the cooler tracks on the album and is without a doubt the best version of an Elvis song I've heard, the King was never this good. But the best song is definitely What You're Doing by Rush, it is here that you can hear that these two bands isn't that far from each other, great listening.
And of course, as an old Maiden fan you just got to love the last track on the album, Justice In Ontario with Paul DiAnno behind the microphone, it is the hardest one on the album and a track that I haven't heard before written by Steve Earle. DiAnno's voice is just perfect for this one giving it a rougher edge.

Back, For The Future is released as a limited 2-disc version and the second disc is a recording of their performance at Sweden Rock Festival 2003. A pretty good concert that turned out to sound much better on the album that what I remember it did at the time.

Finally you can say that Spearfish's cover album is well done, well produced and has many interesting guests on it that does great performances and on top of that you also get an informative booklet with the album. This album makes great party and beer-drinking music but nevertheless it is just coversongs, and apart from the four earlier mentioned the album is really just better than average and normally I wouldn't give it a higher grade than that either. But since this album is made with such a heart-warming cause where all the proceeding will go to The Childrens Cancer Foundation I will give the album a grade a little higher than what it perhaps deserves musically.

Production	Vocals	Compositions
8	7	7

Summary
7 chalices of 10 - Thomas