Customer Reviews

Revenge

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is by far my favorite TSOL album -- from any period. From start to finish, there isn't a weak track on it. Though this album still has some punk elements to it, this release is mostly a straight rock outing.

The album certainly evokes a gritty feel and a very real sense of the darker side of big city life. The thing that always brings me back to this album is I can identify with the emotion and longing portrayed here. As with all the best albums, I am living the songs as they play. While I may not have been in the exact same situations, something in every song translates into a relatable experience.

The immediate standout is "Colors (Take Me Away)" , a gripping account of love and betrayal. "Nothin For You" relates the strange desperation of a junkie and the need to feed his fix. Other standouts include "Still the Same" and the title track, "Revenge".

The lyrical content is some of the best on a rock album. The vocals are strong and clear and the musical composition is perfect for relaying the emotion that is contained within.

For better or worse, after this album the band became more involved in the LA Rock scene from that era (circa 1987+ think Poison, Great White, etc). The musical and lyrical style change between this and its follow up, "Hit and Run" are very apparent. In the end, TSOL would become one of those bands where none of the original members remained (and also few of their original fans.)

That being said, _THIS_ album is an absolute classic. For me it is nearly flawless, even after all of these years. Enjoy.

Of interest older fans may be the whereabouts of Joe Wood. He is currently an artist in Long Beach. He also occasionally plays with his band Joe Wood and the Lonely Ones. Their CD "The Lonely Ones" is a very good blues-rock number, with some catchy tracks. Check out his website: http://www.joewoodmusicandart.com/

As a teenager in the 80s, I hated everything TSOL had done after Change Today?. I considered Change Today? to be the last really good TSOL album, even though it was a departure from what had come before. Everything that came after Change Today? I dismissed as "hair metal" and wouldn't listen to.

Well, tastes change and while I still consider Change Today? to be the best album from the Joe Wood period of TSOL, I think I was being a little harsh on this follow-up album, Revenge. Listening to it now, I don't understand how I could not have liked it when I was younger.

Revenge basically takes off where Change Today? left, and the brooding to bittersweet musical and lyrical themes are a continuation of it.

If you can imagine a hybrid of melancholic, bass-heavy late 70s/early 80s post-punk (e.g. PiL, Joy Division, Siouxsie and the Banshees, The Cure, U2), the more accessible rock (as opposed to hardcore punk) sound of TSOL's Beneath the Shadows LP, The Doors (minus the organ, of course), and a hint of country, you'd have an approximation of the style on Change Today? and Revenge. A fairly unique sound.

Wood's vocals were clearly inspired by Jim Morrison, but unlike those of lame Morrison impersonators like The Cult's Ian Astbury or The Tea Party's Jeff Martin, there's nothing contrived, derivative, insincere, or pretentious about them. TSOL, unlike, say, The Cult, were a real band that wrote their own songs how they wanted to write them, not the ersatz creation of some production company or of the marketing department of a major label.

My only real complaint is that like many records from the mid to late 80s, it's overproduced (putting digital reverb on the drums of a rock album like this one sounds really cheesy). That hadn't been the case with Change Today?, which was a full, clean and yet raw sounding album, reminiscent of the production on The Doors' L.A. Woman.

People who throw the words "sell out" around in relation to the Joe Wood period of TSOL really ought to listen to the projects the original singer Jack Grisham was doing at around the same time (namely, Cathedral of Tears and Tender Fury). While TSOL may have been trying to sound like Poison or Motley Crue with their Hit & Run album, Grisham was doing Duran Duran and Red Hot Chili Peppers knock-offs. The bottom line is that by the mid-80s, hardcore punk had run its course. It was no longer fresh and exciting, and the members of TSOL were getting older, moving on, or maybe just going with the flow and following the trends of the time. One can't reasonably expect that they would keep screaming "Abolish Government" forever, or that they could keep doing the same thing over and over and it would never get boring. People have to grow up sometime.

The explosion of punk and related styles in the late 70s/early 80s was a special moment in music history, one that I don't think is going to be recaptured no matter how hard people try.

In retrospect, I prefer the Joe Wood period of TSOL to any of the generic, paint-by-numbers punk stuff the reunited TSOL have been doing in the past decade or to Grisham's band from the 90s, The Joykiller. I just think that TSOL should have changed their name to something else when they did the Hit & Run album out of respect for their fans (though I understand that maybe they weren't able to due to contractual obligations to their label or something like that).

As Kerouac said, "comparisons are odius". Taken for itself, this is just a great album. While transitioning to a more rock style, they still retain their punk roots here before moving on to a more rock/metal style on the follow-up "Hit and Run" which is also a very good album in its own right. "Revenge' is consistently great from start to finish. "Colors" is the highlight for me, but the level doesn't drop much from there. A classic - highly recommended.

My favorite TSOL album. Love the old, and despise most of the new...this is their peak creatively in my own opinion. Every single damn song here is great. This album made me mellow out and really listen to what they were doing...songwriting, lyrics, music. I can list highlights of the older albums, but this is one that needs no such thing. The entire album is perfect. More than any other album, this one defines this time of my life and will always be a favorite.

This is my favorite TSOL album. Seems as though this album is not widely received by fans of their past albums. If you want a great album--"Revenge" is amazing. It's a little pricey and/or cumbersome to obtain, but its well worth it if you get your hands on it.

This band is still one or my long time favorites. I have wornout about four or five cassettes of Revenge throughout my lifetime,and I still can`t get enough of T.S.O.L. Now in the Compact disc age I can experience the True Sounds of Liberty each and every day. Revenge is on the top of my CD collection. I am just glad to be around to enjoy it. It is truely great ROCK-N-ROLL!!

From start to finish this album is one of my all time favorites. I don't know what the band was into when they made this recording, but this is dark, angry stuff. A manic, punked out Jim Morrrison risen from the grave.

I was introduced to TSOL on tour for the "Change Today" album. The Joe Wood era is all I really know. I hear punk purists speak of the Jack Grisham releases as being the only true TSOL material, all the while discounting the Joe Wood material as being substandard. I just don't get it. The older stuff was good is a certain "garage" context, but I felt that the band grew quite a bit with "Change Today," and then "Revenge" takes it one step further, by adding some professional production elements.

I remember when "Revenge" came out, it stayed on my turntable for months. I would put on "Madhouse" every morning while I was getting dressed to get me pumped for the day. It worked!

If you like your punk to sound professional, and if you want the vocals to have bite while remaining in key, seek out these two offerings from the TSOL era with Joe Wood at the helm. I saw this lineup twice live, and they were 2 of the best shows I've seen. I think this sound was inspirational to the Offspring, Green Day, and Sum 41.

If, however, you like your punk raw, chaotic, and out of tune, then seek out the earlier and later Jack Grisham releases.

This is one of the creepier albums of all time, and one of the best. Every song on here reminds me of being in the California hills in a big, dusty, house of my Aunt. Brilliant!

Sorry, if I offend some of the TSOL fans out there....but, TSOL's Revenge is TSOL's best work and is my absolute favorite music album of all time. Yes, I said "of all time". Need I say more?