Montrose - Paper Money

Warner Bros. Records

When most people hear the name Sammy Hagar, they either think of him as the man who sang "I Can't Drive 55" or as the man who ruined all credibility Van Halen had as a "heavy" band. He is not usually thought of as the lead singer of American hard rock band Montrose. 

Named after lead guitarist Ronnie Montrose, who had a brief spell with The Edgar Winter Group in 1972, Montrose is one of those sort of precursor bands: you're not likely to have heard of them and they're only remembered for what the people involved did after the band dissolved. 

"Paper Money" is your typical American hard rock album, so this shouldn't last too long. The opener, "Underground", is slightly Head East reminiscent. It is not a very strong opener--the instrumentation is predictable, the guitar solo is quite simple, the lyrics are only mildly interesting. 

"Connection" is probably the best and most memorable song on the album. The guitar is high and razor-sharp in the intro, and the addition of acoustics takes it into balladeer territory. The Zeppelin/Aerosmith influence is palpable, though the song never gets overly heavy. The instrumentation has much more feel to it in this one, more then any other song on the album. It is slow and languid, taking its time and never culminating into the expected mother-of-a-blowout typical of the genre. Good restraint. The piano and string(?) flourishes in the background are nice touches, and the vocals are particularly longing. 

Following that, the album really doesn't have all that much more to offer. There is a little blues influence here and there on "The Dreamer" and includes the lovely little lyric "The more I live/The more I wanna die". "Starliner" is an instrumental fit for the soundtrack of an airplane documentary, and all the electronic stuff fits in well. 

"I Got The Fire" is the first song on the album to have an audible bass part with actually fun work being done, but the song is otherwise bland. They're trying so hard and it's not doing anything--dare I say this album is safe?--and is probably just some sex innuendo that features Sammy Hagar belting out the lyric "Just cause I'm skinny/Don't you sell me cheap", whatever the hell that is supposed to mean. 

"Spaceage Sacrifice" is exactly the type of apocalyptic-future-cautionary-tale garble you'd expect of a David Bowie song, but with none of Bowie's style. At least the bass line is a bit funky on the choruses. "We're Going Home" is another standout--Ronnie's on vocals, the mellotron is present, and it features an ambient, Pink Floyd-esque guitar intro. It has the sort of tired, foggy morning feeling to it--uplifting lyrics contrasted against sad music. 

"Paper Money" is about as interesting as the other songs on the album. Hagar's vocals are almost flamboyant, but the song is anti-climactic and doesn't go anywhere. Perhaps if a little more effort, a little more creativity, was put into the album as opposed to just going through the motions, it would be more memorable, more fun. Instead it's just a sad little paean of nothing. 

Rating: 3.5/5