From the wreckage of
Free came
Bad Company, a group fronted by singer
Paul Rodgers and featuring his drummer bandmate
Simon Kirke,
Mott the Hoople guitarist
Mick Ralphs, and
King Crimson bassist Boz Burrell. The latter is something of a ringer, suggesting an undercurrent of adventure in the band, but as the group's eponymous 1974 debut decidedly proves, the band is proudly not progressive. If anything,
Bad Company excise the excesses of
Free -- there are no winding jams and very little added color by way of pianos or even air in the production; those two tricks are evident on their title track/rallying call "Bad Company," and the details make a difference, as do the pastoral acoustics of the closing "Seagull" -- reducing their rock & roll to a strong, heavy crunch; compare "Ready for Love," a tune
Ralphs brought over from
Mott the Hoople, to the original to see how these quartet members keep their heads down as they do their business. Appropriately enough given their name, there's a sense of slow, churning menace to Bad Company. Even the quickest songs -- the blues boogies of "Can't Get Enough" and "Movin' On" -- don't exactly proceed at a rapid clip, a steadiness that makes the quartet seem heavier. It's hard rock painted in stark black & white: cranked guitars mirrored by a deliberate wallop from the rhythm section, a rock & roll so loud and basic it wound up not aging much at all even though it pretty much defined mid-'70s album rock. [The Rhino 2015 reissue greatly expands the original album by adding a second disc with 13 bonus tracks, including demos, alternate takes, single edits, and two non-LP B-sides. Much of this consists of rougher, longer alternate mixes and demos, but the non-LP "Little Miss Fortune" and "Easy on My Soul" are also here, both cut from the same cloth as the album but lighter in tone (and in the case of "Easy on My Soul," slightly quicker in step). The most interesting alternate is a "Hammond Mix" of "Can't Get Enough," which not only has organ but a guitar army out of
Jimmy Page, and that just proves that the minimalist heavy rock of the finished album was very much intentional.] ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine