"Love's A Loaded Gun", "Might as well be on Mars" (such mournful vocals towards the end and good to see a Dick Wagner co-write), "Die For You" (good vocal here even if it reminds me a lot of the bland ballads Whitesnake were churning out around this time) and "Burning our Bed" are all quite edgy and I find them my favorites on the album, especially "Bed" although I think it would have been better to let the song end after the moment of silence from the final guitar strum when Alice intones "I'm free...but I'm alone" instead of coming back in.
The title track is also great, especially coming out after a rash of suicides by young people and Politicians/Religious figures blaming music (and especially blaming Ozzy Osbourne and Judas Priest
of all bands) and it was cool of someone of that peerage urging young people NOT to do themselves in over something temporary and putting Ozzy on background vocals to boot. Also, remember Alice had been blamed for a 13 year old hanging himself back in 1974 (I think), so he could probably relate to what Ozzy and Priest were going through."Hurricane Years" has great energy and a neat riff, but wonder if the "Spider" could be a precursor to ALONG CAME A SPIDER. "Wind Up Toy" has quite an evil vibe to it (could almost be a companion piece to "Dwight Frye"), but loses momentum by going on far too long and way too many back up singers-indeed, I can't believe Alice and Peter Collins (who does a decent job producing) felt all those "Gangs" were needed. Always liked "Feed My Frankenstein" even if I'm sick of it by now.
So, while this was eclipsed by the awesome THE LAST TEMPTATION a few years later, find this better than TRASH, although all the "Guest Stars" were really not needed and wish they could have used the original cover. Lastly, although I like his version of Hendrix's "Fire" (regulated to a B-side!), I think it would have been neat for Alice to continue the theme of painful love and close the album with a cover of B.J. Thomas's "Hey, Won't You play (Another Somebody Done Somebody Wrong Song)". ***
