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No Heavy Petting

UFO - No Heavy Petting Audio CD

A fair review of the UFO "No Heavy Petting" 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 UFO reviews here, or go back to the UFO tabs.

Band: UFO
Title: No Heavy Petting
Rating:

Release Date: 2008-02-12
Media: Audio CD

Tracks: 1: Natural Thing 2: I'm a Loser 3: Can You Roll Her 4: Belladonna 5: Reasons Love 6: Highway Lady 7: On with the Action 8: Fool in Love 9: Martian Landscape 10: All or Nothing [#][*] 11: French Kisses [#][*] 12: Have You Seen Me Lately Joan [#][*] 13: Do It If You Can [#][*] 14: All the Strings [#][*]

Another Early Hard Rock Masterpiece From UFO
With 1976's "No Heavy Petting", the band continued to show artistic growth although not as much as with the previous collection "Force It" (1975). In the beginning UFO cranked up some excellent space rock for a few years but as soon as the band recruited Michael Schenker on guitar, their direction shifted towards a more hard rock based sound that proved to be hugely influential for later groups. Still this album tends to be the most overlooked one form the Schenker period containing many examples of UFO's great songwriting. In addition to Michael Schenker on guitar, the line-up features Phil Mogg on vocals, Pete Way on bass, Andy Parker on drums and a new addition to the band since the "Force It" tour: Danny Peyronel on keyboards/backing vocals who was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina! I've always thought that is really cool since. . . that's where I'm from too! It's great to be able to listen to UFO with a member from my own city and country of birth!

The intense hard rock opener "Natural Thing" starts the album with the rhythm section of Way/Parker playing tightly. The verse, the pre-chorus and chorus are all killer and a seemingly The Who-inspired passage provides an effective link to the second verse. This tune has always been a crowd pleaser and while this studio take delivers the goods, an even better version of it appears on the immortal live LP "Strangers In The Night" as a medley with the awesome ballad "Out In The Street". After it's over, we go into "I'm A Loser", in my opinion the album's best written and most complex song. An acoustic guitar introduces it with an harmonized melody on top. Mogg is in excellent form throughout and Schenker plays one of his best ever solos! It's very melodic yet highly technical for its time. Before its conclusion Peyronel plays a fast three chord pattern eventually concluding with the F, G, and A chord progression that sends it into the stratosphere! It's an epic finale!
Drummer Parker lent a hand in the songwriting process for "Can You Roll Her" (Mogg/Schenker/Parker) providing a killer dual bass drum beat! This is the shortest song on the album (2:50) and the lyrics talk about a motorcyclist doing well over the speed limit with Schenker delivering an appropriately fast, aggressive solo towards the end. Definitely a highlight!
Now it's time for a ballad: the Schenker/Mogg written "Belladonna". The emphasis is put on guitar arpeggios with Peyronel doubling them on harpsichord. The result is a solid, atmospheric, haunting composition with a brilliant lead melody form Schenker in the middle plus an emotional vocal performance from Mogg. I have always felt a little disappointed with the song's arrangement though since it is totally devoid of Parker's drumming! Perhaps it would have been cool to incorporate a "Stairway To Heaven" type of dynamics, that is to have the drums come forward in the middle. On my first listen, I was expecting something like that to happen but it never came. . . still it's an excellent tune! I liked how that E major chord is added during the solo.
The riff-driven "Reasons Love" comes next with some heavy drumming from Parker (perhaps to make up for his absence on the previous track). The main riff is augmented by a funky chord on the verses. But wait. . . in the middle Schenker delivers a blistering lead that makes use of the mixolydian scale! This is it folks: air guitar heaven! Now pay attention to track number six "Highway Lady": a fast-paced hard rocking tune written by Peyronel on his own and it is a tribute to the ladies of the road. The guitar and piano blend well throughout while Schenker managed to come up with another highly melodic solo again!
In "On With The Action" the band slows down the tempo considerably. Lyrically, it's a tale about the night-life of the city. Schenker is playing at his melodic best here but this time the scale is based around a combination of bluesy/minor! An amazing performance from him! I'm gonna go ahead and tell you that this song actually sounds much better live! The "Doctor Doctor" (live version) '79 single, taken from "Strangers In The Night" actually had a b-side. . . an excellent live take of "On With The Action" recorded during the Obsession tour in 1978. The problem? That version is still hard to find! It was disappoinitng to find out that the 2008 "Strangers" remaster version left that b-side off.
Their cover of Frankie Miller's "A Fool In Love" follows. Here the band brings forward a bluesy hard rock style with a pop twist that is similar to the group Free. The solo is short & sweet and right before it there's a cool bridge. Very enjoyable! The last piece "Martian Landscape" is another composition that Peyronel provided and it's an amazing reflective ballad. His tremolo-phased keyboard dominates but Schenker added a cool harmonized motif that repeats until the fade out. Peyronel explained in an interview that the song was not written about Mars, it is actually about Argentina! That's really cool. . . UFO has a song about my country! That was the end on the original album but today is our lucky day. . . now we have five excellent bonus tracks! Unlike some other reissues, this bonus material adds a lot to the original LP!

Bonus Tracks:
"All Or Nothing" - I was always a fan of the original version by the Small Faces and the band didn't disappoint with their own interpretation! The performance is well-executed and faithful to the original with Schenker adding a cool harmonized lead in the middle. What I didn't like though was the fade-out ending which makes it sound a bit incomplete. In the original Small Faces arrangement, the intro arpeggio was reprised after the final chorus and it concluded with the chord ringing out. I wish the band would have used that ending instead!

"French Kisses" - A hard rock/pop gem! Musically it recalls "Love Lost Love" from "Force It" but in the middle it has an instrumental bridge where you'll hear an awesome, harmonized melodic solo from Schenker that gives off a Brian May vibe! A great addition!

"Have You Seen Me Lately Joan" - Since this is another Frankie Miller cover, it is likely that the band decided to leave it off the album because they had already included "A Fool In Love". It's a folk-rock type of thing with a combination of acoustic and electric guitars. Mogg gave a fine vocal performance here while at the end Schenker plays another one of those excellent Brian May like harmony leads. Very enjoyable!

"Do It If You Can" - An up tempo hard rock number with Free/Bad Company styled verses. The pre-chorus/chorus part is catchier. A shame that it was left off although it sounds a bit unfinished since there's no guitar solo! I think both the pre-chorus (with the lyric "so wild/wait until tomorrow/it never comes") and chorus ("tonight, tonight. . . we're gonna make it girl") could have been incorporated nicely into "Highway Lady"!!!! For the people who heard the album. . . Do you agree with me?

"All The Strings" - It's too bad that Peyronel didn't stay in the band too long. He was a heck of a songwriter! I mean this is another excellent ballad written by him on his own! It has a Mott The Hoople feel but the negative thing is the fact that there's no guitar at all! Schenker could have added one of his brilliant melodic leads here, it would have sounded fantastic! Still, a worthy addition to the original LP!

In conclusion, you should check out this excellent band and album if you are interested in the roots of hard rock! Make sure you get this awesome 2008 remaster with the bonus tracks though!
Thanks for taking the time to read!
Later. . . .

classic UFO
Much better sounding than the original LP. Just downloaded this remastered recording. The 5 bonus tracks are icing on the cake. This has all the elements that made the classic lineup so great. Great songs, Phil Mogg's vocals are very powerful but not over the top, Schenker rips some of his best solo's here too. Instead of being self indulgent little outtakes, they fit in with the songs. I also think the Parker/Way rhythm section never sounded tighter than on this cd. Natural Thing smokes( almost better than the live version),Have You Seen Me. . . and Tonight,Tonight are nice additions. A Fool In Love has the classic UFO crunch with great lyrics and melodies. I would recommend this, Strangers In The Night and Lights Out for any fan wanting to sample UFO. .

ufo schenker era
mine was fine the cover matched the disc. i bought mine back in the spring of 2008. i bought mine from a vintage record store in edison,nj. this cd is classic ufo, what more can you say. schenker is awesome on this cd. the band can rock. i see why they were huge in europe, they never really broke onto the scene here. also i believe this is one of the last ufo cds with schenker on it. this is a ufo classic according to many people. i really like it.

another masterpiece by the great UFO
A growing concern of mine is that, with time, people will slowly start forgetting about UFO. I'm a little worried about something. I don't like the idea of one of my favorite hard rock bands from the 70's gradually fading away, and huge UFO fans would throw up at even the thought of such a thing happening.

You see, UFO is one of those bands that had, and still has, quite a lot of fans, and they were pretty popular in the 70's, but I fear sooner rather than later this fantastic band will start slipping peoples minds, and won't be remembered anymore. I feel it's my job -as a 27 year old guy who wasn't around in the 70's- to do my best sharing this wonderful band with as many people as possible.

Let's be honest- the lead singer has such an incredible voice I feel like crying when I hear it, and the guitarist is just as wonderful at what he does on the guitar. He goes the extra mile to create some truly spectacular solos.

With all that said, No Heavy Petting is perhaps one of the best examples of what "solid" means, in terms of hard rock masterpieces. Along with Wishbone Ash, Humble Pie, and Hawkwind, these are hard rock bands that should be remembered for years to come.

No Heavy Petting happens to contain a PERFECT selection of hard rock songs, and I couldn't argue with anyone who thinks it's the bands best album. It might just be. I love Phenomenon a little bit more, but No Heavy Petting is really just as incredible too. Please, remember UFO and keep these guys in your CD collection. We can't let these good ol' rockers disappear. Time goes on, but great music should stick around forever. .

Natural Thing
Under the microscope the album comes across as the band being set in their ways, not wanting to stray from their formula. After a debut album that told us UFO had something and a second release that totally crystalized their sound full form UFO seemingly fell into a bit of a slump on the third record No Heavy Petting. The gutsy opener Natural Thing is purely esential UFO here as is it's follow up tune I'm A Loser. Though following the idea on Force It's Out In The Street only it's done better here as Schenker serves up one of the most jaw droppling solos you'll ever hear on 70's rock. These two tracks are the key moments for NHP and the group seem to sort of run of ideas or, perhaps inspiration on the rest of the record. Can You Roll Her is a good song in it's own way as is Belladonna,which features a very memorable chorus. Reasons Love and A Fool In Love bring things up again as they deliver the proper grooves that will make you want to blast this record. Highway Lady however finds UFO going through the motions a bit and Martian Landscape has some cool progressive flavorings. All in all the guitar rock is there, UFO is here, but unlike Force It where they seem determined to never let go this time around they seem set on duplicating without many good ideas. However just thinking about a classic era UFO album and how overlooked the group it is this should no way be a reason for passing this release up. Vocalist Phil Moog would certainly carry the UFO monkier on in the 80's by himself, to make much worse records than this. In the end the album stands up pretty well however out of the 5 original UFO studio albums featuring the classic line up it's the weakest. The 2008 remastered/expanded edition features the same great packaging as the others and all previously unreleased studio songs which are vary from good to great songs. Making this a very worthy addition. . . as if anything Moog/Parker/Way/Schenker did aren't anyway.

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