Review by Sonny for Thin Lizzy - Thunder and Lightning (1983)

Thin Lizzy could sometimes be a great hard rock band and Phil Lynott was as much a lyrical poet for the common man as Bruce Springsteen across the pond. Good though most of their albums were, with some really anthemic songs in their repertoire, I don't think that their studio albums ever really captured their live energy suffciently. This is a viewpoint that I think is borne out by how much esteem people attach to the Live and Dangerous double live set. I managed to catch them on the Black Rose tour in 1979 and got to see that energy and vitality up close and was lucky enough to witness exactly how Lynott worked an audience and got them eating out of his hand. As the NWOBHM swept across the UK during the early '80s Phil and co started to develop a harder edge, both lyrically and musically with tracks like "Killer on the Loose" and "Angel of Death", which has even been covered by polish death metallers Vader, coming to the fore. Inevitably then, that they would react to the musical zeitgeist and issue an album that occasionally pushed their long-established hard rock sound over into heavy metal territory. Now let us not overstate things, Thunder and Lightning certainly isn't a "Piece of Mind", "Court in the Act" or even a "Holy Diver, it is still recognisably Thin Lizzy with more than one of its feet still in rock territory, but as the title track explodes from the speakers following a short, typically 80s synth intro, then it is obvious that the band have upped the ante on the aggressiveness of their attack. I think a significant event that contributed to this change was the replacement of the laid-back Snowy White with Tygers of Pan Tang guitarist John Sykes, a six-string slinger who had obviously grown up and paid his dues in the heart of the NWOBHM and whose harder-edged guitar style was much more suited to the younger metal audience than the bluesy, Clapton-esque White. Of course Sykes was only one half of the twin guitar attack with long-time member Scott Gorham still most definitely present. When Sykes lets rip though, even on a track like "The Holy War" then he makes it sound more metal than it actually is, so when applied to a more fundamentally metal track like "Cold Sweat" then the effect is multiplied tenfold.

I wonder exactly how much "Thunder and Lightning" can really be considered metal because, apart from those already mentioned, contemporary albums were "Kill 'Em All", "Show No Mercy" and "Melissa". Now is T&L even close to being as metal as any of those albums? No of course it isn't and the majority of the tracklist is still under the rock umbrella for my money, but Sykes' contribution and the songwriting of tracks like "Cold Sweat" and the title track hint at a more metal aspiration, probably just naturally absorbed from the audiences and support acts the band interacted with in the Brave New Metal World of the early 80s in the UK and Ireland.

So, considering this only as a Thin Lizzy album, irrespective of its metal credentials, how does it compare to past glories? Well, for me, Lizzy albums were always a little bit patchy, even classics like "Jailbreak" with Phil Lynott's excessive sentimentality sometimes getting the better of him and being reflected in the odd soppy track that really didn't do too much for me. I would say that this was a big improvement over the unremarkable "Renegade", but doesn't touch the likes of Jailbreak and Black Rose, at least as far as the songwriting goes, but it is certainly enlivened by Sykes guitar work which raises it a knotch or two in quality. Inevitably, because that is just how it was back then with legacy acts, the album also has that eighties' stadium production sound with accentuated percussion and synths that I find a little bit kitsch nowadays and which I generally struggle with (see Judas Priest's entire eighties' output for further examples) and which also drops it in position in Lizzy's overall discography for me. So once more a patchy release, but when it is good and the stars align, it is very good.