A band, and album that just don’t get enough attention! Mean Machine was LUCIFER’S FRIEND’s eighth album, and last for some 13 years. The album was a reunion with singer John Lawton, who’d left the band in 1976 to join Uriah Heep, while Lucifer’s Friend carried on for a pair of albums (and live shows) with Mike Starrs (ex Colosseum II). Lawton had left (fired) from Heep in ’79, and recorded a solo album in 1980, with members of Lucifer’s Friend backing him. But, the band was still promised (owed) Elektra one more album. Now, if you are familiar with Lucifer’s Friend’s catalog, you’ll know that the band changed with every album; not so much the personnel, but the direction. The debut was a heavy album, seen as a proto metal album in 1970, that sat comfortably alongside Deep Purple’s In Rock, Uriah Heep’s debut, and Black Sabbath’s first couple of albums. But nothing following that matched the heaviness of the band’s debut, instead veering off into fusion, and including more brass and orchestrated instruments.

Mean Machine brought the band back to being a guitar driven hard rock band. It fit in time with the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal, and was full of guitar riffs from Peter Hesslein opening a number of well written serious rockers, with John Lawton returning to a more powerful sound, than some of the softer rock he’d sang during Heep’s pop-aimed era. Mean Machine is a solid album of 80s hard rock, well produced, starting with “One Way Street To Heartbreak”, and not really letting up ’til the end. Riffs, melodies, harmonies, memorable choruses, and great songs like “Hey Driver”, “Fire and Rain”, “One Night Sensation”, and “Born To The City”. The more pop anthem “Action” was released as a single, but neither the single or the album did much, as Elektra did very little to promote it; a shame as this is really worth hearing.

The band disbanded again after this, but would reform in the mid 90s for Sumo Grip. But, if you come across Mean Machine, check it out, a great underheard gem of 80s hard rock.