Michael Schenker and Phil Mogg really started to find their groove as a songwriting team with their second album together (and fourth UFO release overall), Force It. In fact, the last remaining folk and space rock tendencies that had stolen much of Phenomenon's thunder are summarily abandoned here, as the group launches itself wholeheartedly toward the hard rock direction that would make them stars. The first step is taken by Schenker, of course, who confidently establishes the aggressive, biting guitar tone that would define all the releases of the band's glory years. "Let It Roll" and "Shoot Shoot" kick off the album in rousing fashion, and while holding them under a microscope might reveal them as rather disposable slabs of hard rock, they would remain concert favorites for the band nonetheless. The punchy single "Love Lost Love" sounds tailor-made for the American market and acoustic ballad "High Flyer" is quite good, despite taking a dip in energy. But things only really start to gell on the album's second half. Schenker and Mogg wheel out their most mature composition yet with the piano-led "Out in the Street," whose softer sections truly highlight Mogg's highly disciplined, understated vocal style and make the guitar player's more restrained soloing all the more memorable. Schenker is soon back in charge, however, on the stuttering riffs and blistering fretboard work of "Mother Mary" and the downright vicious stop-start strut of "This Kids" -- both UFO anthems. One of the band's best albums, Force It will not disappoint lovers of '70s English hard rock. [The 2007 reissue included five bonus live tracks and the previously unreleased "A Miliion Miles."] ~ Eduardo Rivadavia, All Music Guide
Track List
(try tracks 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10 and 12)
quite simply, Strangers in the Night is one of the best-sounding , best-paced, all-out listen-able live albums ever committed to a recording medium. (i bought it on vinyl in 1979 and spent countless hours looking at that pixelated double-fold album cover...) holds up today as well as anything else recorded in the last 30 years. i could repeat this comment in 30 more years and it'll still hold true. don't try to deny 70's era UFO...
Moxy - Rid'in High, if you can find it, is also KILLER, and similar in genre. Raw, uncut, classic 70's hard rock to the max! But, good luck finding it.
Music from this era will last FAR longer than the crap the record companies are feeding us today. I mean, come on, fall out boy? really? -- Schenker, Way, Parker and Mogg, ROCK.---- U.F.O.----Their four LP run of Force It, Lights Out, Obsession, Strangers in the Night may be one of the more impressive era's of this, or any band.