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> Login to your account > RegisterAnimal Tracks — The Story Of The Animals: Newcastle's Rising Sons
From page 85 of Classic Rock Magazine April 2001
Cover of April 2001 issue.
Sean Egan
(Helier Skelter) ***** In 1983 the original Animals reformed for the second time and released the album, 'Ark'. It was far better than one could have reasonably hoped for, but not good enough for author Sean Egan, who traces the difficult progression of the band who started life as the Alan Price REW Combo.
"With its brittle, glistening sound, shrieks of synthesiser and helium gas backing vocals, it sounds like much of the music that dominated the British singles charts in the early 1980s," he writes. This writer would beg to differ, as would the critics who lauded said work and the many who went to see the band on a tour the author rightly points out ground to a halt because "the band were stuck in each other's company in a confined space for several days."
It is this friction that made the original 60s Animals such a vibrant act. Such bands rarely last, which is probably why the first eight chapters of Egan's easy to digest tale deal with The Animals' first four albums and only one final chapter deals with that fateful re-union.
