ALBUM REVIEW: T. Rex - The Slider

    In 1971, Marc Bolan boldly chose to go where no rocker had gone before, and the result was T. Rex's Electric Warrior album, a brilliant tour de force of what the genre could do and just how good it could sound - hooks galore, fuzzy guitar, and Bolan's brilliant stage presence made for an indelible album that rightfully goes down as a classic to this day. By 1972, though, glam rock was no longer a burgeoning new genre, but was seemingly the next vanguard of pop; in June of that year, one month before The Slider released, no less, David Bowie released The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars, catapulting him into stardom and establishing Bowie as the face of the genre; that same day, Roxy Music released their self-titled debut, an earth-shattering glam record filled with innovation; by November, Lou Reed's Transformer was the final piece of evidence that glam rock was here to stay. The Slider came out in between these albums, and it sadly stands as probably the weakest of the four. While Bolan still can write a good rock hook, ultimately the performance style and focus on slower moments detracts from what made T. Rex so damn good in the first place. After the declaration that was Electric Warrior, it's hard to see The Slider as anything but a disappointment...

    ...which is odd, isn't it? On paper, many of the same sonic ideas and sounds on Electric Warrior that helped make it as appealing are also on The Slider. The tight group on that album is still here, with Bolan's galvanizing guitar playing still the center of the universe here, and it's more than just the band; Tony Visconti is back in the seat as producer, and the album sounds incredibly clean under his watchful eye; the same use of varied percussion remains on many of the album's songs; even the presence of Howard Kaylan and Mark Volman on backup singing remain. All the pieces are here for an Electric Warrior 2 boogaloo, and at the album's best it does come close to capturing the magic again. The most apparent example of this in my mind is the killer title track, but the same can also be said for Side B opener "Telegram Sam", which is effectively just another "Bang a Gong", but hell I'll take it. Even the semi-blues of a moment like "Lean Woman Blues" are carried over pretty well here on moments like "Baby Boomerang" or the kicking "Rabbit Fighter", both of which help demonstrate what makes the album appealing.

    So what happened with the rest of the album? Frankly, I can boil it down to two major problems - the first is the over-reliance on slower "ballads". If you'll recall, some of my least favorite moments on Electric Warrior were the slower ballad moments like "Life's a Gas" or "Cosmic Dancer", even if the latter is a particularly popular track. Frankly, I just don't think Bolan can do ballads like that very well - Bowie would release "Lady Stardust" and "Rock 'n' Roll Suicide" the same year as this, and they both blow every single one of those out of the water. So imagine my frustration when hearing "Mystic Lady" or the durge "Ballrooms of Mars", the latter of which somehow finds a way to suffer from Wild Life Syndrome despite being only four minutes - hearing Bolan yell "Rock!" during this song is ironic to me. This isn't to say that's my only problem when so much of the album sounds like it bleeds into itself. Surely I can't be the only one who thinks that "Metal Guru" and "Rock On" are effectively the same song. The riffs aren't even that good on the latter, and frankly the backing vocals get on my nerves.

    Surely it wasn't a fluke, and The Slider showcases that something great is certainly still with T. Rex, but I can't help but feel that most of The Slider is a considerable step-down from the preceding awesomeness of Electric Warrior. An over-reliance on ballads and some weak rockers ultimately makes what could've been a solid successor drag on far more than it ever needs to. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't at least a little disappointed by the results of this album, seeing how much fun I had with their previous album, and with most people calling this album effectively the same, I was excited to hear it - it just stinks that instead of Electric Warrior, the most I got was half-charged at best.

RATING: ✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯

Listen to The Slider.