1979 ∙ A&M ∙ Reggae Rock
My “band” in high school played “Message in a Bottle” at a talent show. We sucked. We did worse than suck, we super-sucked. I was actually the singer and have a pretty hard time memorizing lyrics. I lost my lyric sheet and basically kept screaming blahblahblah-o through a tiny Gorilla amp. We were punk, dammit! You can tell by the cover of this thing that the guys have matured quite a bit in the one album since their debut, Outlandos D’amour. The sound on this one is much more dense (despite remaining a trio), but the songs much less memorable (aside from the aforementioned “Bottle”). They just don’t seem to be having as much fun here. Don’t get me wrong, the album doesn’t suck or anything, but they certainly hit a mini sophomore slump in my opinion.