Line Up

by Richie UnterbergerLeading off with the 1981 number six U.K. hit single "Night Games," Line Up is a journeyman, early-'80s cross between hard rock and AOR. It's neither pop nor heavy metal, but somewhere in between. Though it may be far less metal than the group he'd just left (Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow), it was also far less catchy than, say, the post-Keith Moon-era Who. It was just the sound of a guy belting out mediocre songs with a lot of lung-power in the waning days of '70s-style hard rock popularity, with Cozy Powell's thumping drums doing more than anyone else to bring it into the 1980s production-wise. Some debts to old-time rock & roll are also heard in the cover of "Be My Baby"; a pretty lousy, ponderous pass at the Kinks' "Set Me Free"; and an-out-of-place-sounding run through Chuck Berry's "Anthony Boy." Also on hand is his low-charting, synth-heavy cover of Argent's "Liar," with other songs bearing some faint traces of the likes of Supertramp and the Police.