Introducing the Tygers Of Pan Tang may be unnecessary. The band has been around since 1978 with many ups and downs and personnel changes. The three most recent LPs and EPs have been reviewed at Zware Metalen, every time with very positive reviews: Majors & Minors, A New Heartbeat and Bloodlines. Now, with an unchanged line-up, the originally NWOBHM oriented band comes up with a career-spanning live album comprising no less than nineteen tracks, lasting almost an hour and a half. On the double LP that is; CD lovers will have to make do with three songs less.
Career-spanning: that means songs from the early days up to today. Opener Euthanasia, for instance, can be found on debut album Wild Cat. Their groovy cover Love Potion No 9 (the original dates from 1959) draws from 1982’s The Cage. The blazing Gangland (top performance by the singer there) is not forgotten either. But of course you also get some recent songs like Edge Of The World, Back For Good and A New Heartbeat.
How does the band perform live? To summarise in one word: awesome! The band sounds as tight, authentic, enthusiastic and energetic as can be, the riffs (check Only The Brave and Insanity) and solos are flying all around the room with the melodies remaining intact at the same time (listen to Love Don’t Stay for instance), the interaction with the audience is clearly audible. Jack Meille’s vocals sound pure as hell and are quite prominent at the front of the mix. Even during more complicated passages, such as the middle section of The Edge Of The World, everyone performs brilliantly. Classy, though of course you don’t know to what extent the recordings were polished in the studio! There is little room for “Spielerei”; Tygers is not a band that reverts to fireworks or dazzling visual effects. “Let the music do the talking”, Paul Stanley of Kiss used to say, and the Tygers certainly take that to heart here.
Admirable is how the Tygers Of Pan Tang seem to get better with age. For some reason, great success never came to them. Albums like this Live Blood can’t be faulted, there is really nothing wrong with this. Even the artwork – as on Bloodlines – is more than attractive. And that with 45 years under their belt as a band: hats off to them. With some perspective: only guitarist Robb Weir is still an original member. As a fan of solid yet melodic hard rock/metal, do yourself a favor, buy Live Blood and put it on your annual lists!
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