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Closer to Home

Grand Funk Railroad - Closer to Home Audio CD

A fair review of the Grand Funk Railroad "Closer to Home" Audio CD. Please note that the below review is the views of the authors, and authors only. You can get a complete list of all Grand Funk Railroad reviews here, or go back to the Grand Funk Railroad tabs.

Band: Grand Funk Railroad
Title: Closer to Home
Rating:

Release Date: 1995-03-07
Media: Audio CD

Tracks: 1: Sin's a Good Man's Brother 2: Aimless Lady 3: Nothing Is the Same 4: Mean Mistreater 5: Get It Together 6: I Don't Have to Sing the Blues 7: Hooked on Love 8: I'm Your Captain

Grand Funk at their best
I felt, its predecessor, known as The Red album, tried to be somewhat "progressive", while the band clearly had little idea of how to proper develop a long composition. "Closer to Home", a 3rd album of this hard-rocking power trio from Michigan, marked a welcome change in their sound. This album shows Grand Funk doing what they do best, play loud and heavy straight in-your-face hard-rock with a strong blues-rock influence. Most of the songs are about 5 minutes or shorter, and the band keeps them dynamic and interesting. As usual, Mel Schacher's bass is superb, and Mark Farner's singing is top-notch, showing some traces of soul-music. The band shows its all during the 45 minutes of this recording. They play both loud and mellow, Farner provides good riffing and inserts some special guitar licks, drummer Don Brewer sings along with Mark or they exchange vocal lines on "Hooked on Love", while "Get It Together" features a female chorus backing vocals. Often the band turns solo parts into almost uncontrolled energetic studio jam, which sounds very good.

I'm glad that Mark, Don and Mel realized their strengths, stopped trying to write long developing compositions (they couldn't do it properly anyway), and instead put out strong hard rock songs, varying from the famous ballad "Mean Mistreater" to a faster "Nothing is the Same". This album is great to listen to. The only gripe I have concerns the closing 2 songs which both feature a 2-minute fade-out chorus repeat, which, to my mind, adds no value and could very well be cut out to maintain the dynamics.

Obviously, if you need only one CD by Grand Funk Railroad, this is the one.

Grand funks best album
This was their first album of original material when they became a trio. This album has the classic closer to home. I liked this album because their music style was unique and true to themselves. They were not trying to be commercial, they just played their music the way they wanted to.
Their other non-commercial writing style album was e pluribus funk.
Their latter albums were produced too highly with the influence of being commercial because that is how they made their living after their legal battle with their first producer. So to alleviate as much unsurety as they could, they hired commercial successful producers.
This album is probably the best representation of what kind of music grand funk railroad is about.

One Great Album
At the beginning there were considered a Heavy Metal band (White Noise) of course even that part of there career has been reclassified as classic hard rock because of what Metal music has advanced too but it cannot be said that GFR is at least not a grandfather of Heavy Metal. The Grand Funk Railroad was a band that constantly reinvented themselves, almost with each album. GFR's first two albums On Time and Grand Funk (what we GFR Fanatics call The Red Album) were extremely heavy and somewhat simplistic (also GREAT). So when Closer To Home Came out it singled a change. Now this "heavy Metal Band" is showing the ability to change and showing versatility and more sophisticated lyrics. Closer to home is more of a blues based album there GFRs pervious efforts and It also contains GFR magus Opus (Best song) in my opinion I'm Your Captain Closer To Home. Its wonderful song and singer Songwriter Mark Farner said it came to him in a dream and that he believe God gave him this song to be meaningful to people. It has been meaningful to me for over 20 years now and to millions of others as well. The song is just a beautiful blend of melodic Guitar chords (Mark Farner) a great lead bass line (Mel Schacher) and wonderful drumming along (Don Brewer) with great lead vocals by Mark and wonderful Harmonies between Mark and Don, take all that and include a great orchestra blended and you have an all time rock classic. Closer to Home is worth the price just for I'm Your Captain Closer To Home alone, but that is not all. This album is great from start to finish. Sin's a Good Man's Brother is a hard rocker with an infectious groove. Aimless Lady a cool Bluesy rocker. Nothing is the same showed more sophistication in lyric writing for the young band and it rocks as well. Mean Mistreater and is slow down for the band a bluesy song crying out for lost love. Get it together is a fun (mostly) instrumental a nice grove provided by the rhythm section and some nice guitar chops at the end. Hooked On Love has that Gospel feel that influences much rock n roll from the 60s and early 70s, a typical we got to have Love song and a very good one. And Finally I'm Your Captian/Closer to home which is GFRs magus opus as I said previously. IYC/CTH is one of rock n rolls classic songs and its simply a beautiful songs. Coming form GFR such a heavy band at the time it was a big surprise. This album shows GFR still with gritty power but also shows striking maturity for the three young man, Mel, Don and Mark. This is one of Rock N Roll's classic hard rock album by one of Classic Rock's best bands. I would recommend this album to any hard rock/rock fan and any metal fan who wants to see the beginnings of modern hard rock and metal.

A must have for every hard rock fan
At the beginning there were considered a Heavy Metal band (White Noise) of course even that part of there career has been reclassified as classic hard rock because of what Metal music has advanced too but it cannot be said that GFR is at least not a grandfather of Heavy Metal. The Grand Funk Railroad was a band that constantly reinvented themselves, almost with each album. GFR's first two albums On Time and Grand Funk (what we GFR Fanatics call The Red Album) were extremely heavy and somewhat simplistic (also GREAT). So when Closer To Home Came out it singled a change. Now this "heavy Metal Band" is showing the ability to change and showing versatility and more sophisticated lyrics. Closer to home is more of a blues based album there GFRs pervious efforts and It also contains GFR magus Opus (Best song) in my opinion I'm Your Captain Closer To Home. Its wonderful song and singer Songwriter Mark Farner said it came to him in a dream and that he believe God gave him this song to be meaningful to people. It has been meaningful to me for over 30 years now and to millions of others as well. The song is just a beautiful blend of melodic Guitar chords (Mark Farner) a great lead bass line (Mel Schacher) and wonderful drumming along (Don Brewer) with great lead vocals by Mark and wonderful Harmonies between Mark and Don, take all that and include a great orchestra blended and you have an all time rock classic. Closer to Home is worth the price just for I'm Your Captain Closer To Home alone, but that is not all. This album is great from start to finish. Sin's a Good Man's Brother is a hard rocker with an infectious groove. Aimless Lady a cool Bluesy rocker. Nothing is the same showed more sophistication in lyric writing for the young band and it rocks as well. Mean Mistreater and is slow down for the band a bluesy song crying out for lost love. Get it together is a fun (mostly) instrumental a nice grove provided by the rhythm section and some nice guitar chops at the end. Hooked On Love has that Gospel feel that influences much rock n roll from the 60s and early 70s, a typical we got to have Love song and a very good one. And Finally I'm Your Captian/Closer to home which is GFRs magus opus as I said previously. IYC/CTH is one of rock n rolls classic songs and its simply a beautiful songs. Coming form GFR such a heavy band at the time it was a big surprise. This album shows GFR still with gritty power but also shows striking maturity for the three young man, Mel, Don and Mark. This is one of Rock N Roll's classic hard rock album by one of Classic Rock's best bands. I would recommend this album to any hard rock/rock fan and any metal fan who wants to see the beginnings of modern hard rock and metal.

Another GrandFunkRailroad Great
The sound quality is excellent. Another great release,That has lots of GrandFunk hits. A real must have for every GandFunk fan.

You can see a complete list of all Grand Funk Railroad discography, or go back to the Grand Funk Railroad tabs. There is also a good guide on how to read guitar tabs here.