Badlands:Voodoo Highway(1991)

Badlands follows up the fantastic debut album from 1989 in June of 1991 with Voodoo Highway.

Voodoo Highway features 13 tracks and one new member. Taking over the drum throne is Jeff Martin who replaced Eric Singer who basically bounced from band to band like Black Sabbath/Gary Moore/Badlands/Alice Cooper until our good friends Genie & Paul opened there wallets for Eric and he joined KISS.

Ray Gillen/Jake E Lee and Greg Chaisson go for a more fuller sound on the followup adding some cool Hammond Organ at times as well as more acoustic mashed with electric guitar like rock.

Different vibe than the straight ahead Zep/Bad Company mashup of the debut. Voodoo Highway is more Hard Blues Rock.

Now don’t think there mellowing out here on the followup. No way Jose as Badlands keep doing what there doing and that crafting excellent Hard Rock. A lot more use of percussion on this album as well a ton of Hammond organ to give it that authentic 70’s rock vibe!

Opening track Last Time  sets the pace and is great track as Ray takes over with his soaring vocals and Jake pushes the pedal to the metal on his guitar solo. Catchy verse/Catchy chorus…. A win win in my book!

Show Me The Way starts off slow and is a mid tempo track but the chorus is WICKED! Nice use of swift chord changes during the chorus as well which is so damn catchy…

Badlands lays down the law with great straight ahead rock tracks Whiskey Dust/Soul Stealer and how about that Jake guitar action at the beginning of 3 Day Funk?

Track 8 on this albums is a tune called Silver Horses and is perhaps for me the best track on this album as it just drives a serious ball of rock towards your noggin and man the Bass just is cranked on this album and the debut making it sound huge! End of album GEM folks! Listen to the audio only  track posted below…

Voodoo Highway features a pretty slick cover of James Taylors Fire and Ice.  This album that features a ton of rock and a lotta roll though ends with In a Dream that lasts just over 2 minutes but just features Ray and Jake.

Badlands should have been huge. What kept these guys from getting somewhere and past playing bars is beyond fucking me as both albums are solid and to Ray and Jake’s vision the second album is no rehash of the debut but a continuation with the added use of keys(which are done right and don’t make me  wanna puke) harmonica and as I mentioned earlier a ton of percussion added as well!

Shortly after this album came out the wheels came off of Badlands career and well they basically self destructed as a band in England in front of a crowd!

Click the link below on from the great blog site Every Record Has A Story. Steve Carr  attended the actual show when all of this went down! It’s a fantastic  account and one of the best written Rock Articles by an actual fan who was in the trenches at this show! Seriously click it!

Ray Gillen and Badlands: When Rock Bands Split Up In Front Of An Audience

Did you read it?? You better have and whats even cooler is that in the comments  (below my comment) Badlands Bassist Greg Chaisson  even left a comment as well…