Foreigner

Mr. Moonlight

They're back! Sort of

Review Score:

(8/10)
Mr. Moonlight (1995.) Foreigner's eighth album.

The nineties started on a rather negative note for Foreigner. To start off the new year, they released an album with a singer other than Lou Gramm, who had left the band to pursue a solo career. The album (although I liked it pretty well, and several others did,) bombed big time. The band soon disbanded. Fortunately though, the band reunited (with Gramm) not long after this flop. And reunited, the band released their eighth studio album, Mr. Moonlight, in 1995. Read on for my review.

If you're expecting a straight-up classic rock album that's a carbon copy of everything Foreigner shelled out in the seventies and eighties, you're probably going to be disappointed. But if you're a fan of the band with an open mind, you're bound to be satisfied. With this release, the band shifts their sound in a more pop/adult contemporary direction. However, this is NOT a bad thing by any means. The Unusual Heat album demonstrated beautifully how much the band could benefit from trying new things, and here they do it again. Rockers are few and far between on this album; most of the tracks are pop-oriented. While shifting a sound like this from a rock-based sound to a pop-based one has killed many bands, Foreigner actually benefits from the experience! For the most part, every track follows a similar style, but manages to maintain its own sense of individuality. In the end, this is a very good album, even if it's not what you'd expect from this band.

THIS TEXT REFERS EXCLUSIVELY TO THE ORIGINAL AMERICAN CD RELEASE OF THE ALBUM, AND WAS WRITTEN ON MAY 25, 2004. Unlike the first four Foreigner albums, nothing the band recorded past 1981 has gotten the remastering and rereleasing treatment. This sucks, because these versions of the albums not only don't sound as good as the remasters of classic four albums, they also are out of print and difficult to find. If the record company can remaster and rerelease Foreigner, Double Vision, Head Games, and 4, and put bonus tracks on them, why can't they do the same for Agent Provocateur, Inside Information, Unusual Heat, and Mr. Moonlight? And who wants to hunt down these albums if their sound quality is weaker than the remasters and they don't contain bonus tracks? Obviously, no one but Foreigner die-hards.

Sure, Mr. Moonlight is a different kind of album, but it's still very good. I personally like the band's 1991 release, Unusual Heat, better than this album (even though it lacked Gramm), but that's just me. Give this one a listen with an open mind if you're a Foreigner fan - it shouldn't fail to please.

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