Apart from writing songs for the likes of Cher, Meatloaf, Sade and David Gilmour, keyboardist Danny Peyronel's main claim to fame is that he was once a member of Heavy Metal Kids and for a heartbeat, UFO back in the 70's. His contributions to UFO's No Heavy Petting in 1976 was significant enough to get him four writing credits on the album and yet that apparently wasn't enough to keep him around as he was sacked shortly thereafter. After dabbling in a multitude of various projects throughout the 80's, the 90's found him concentrating more on writing songs for other artists. However by the new millennium Danny was making plans for his first solo album as well as leading a Heavy Metal Kids reunion. Make The Monkey Dance was released only in Germany in 2002 has now been given a second lease on life as it has just recently been reissued by Angel Air Records.
Armed with a formidable band of Italian musicians made up of Luca Verde (guitars, vocals), Max Zaccaro (bass) and Mario Zapparoli behind him Peyronel's only solo album to date is a solid, if somewhat underwhelming disc. The music for the most part sounds firmly planted in the softer side of 80's power pop, case in point a couple of radio friendly power ballads "Affection", penned with Starz guitarist Richie Ranno and "Ships In The Night". Ah… but don't despair, it's not really as tepid as it seems on the surface, because it's Danny's impressive set of pipes, along with his deft keyboard playing of course, that really saves some of the lighter sounding tracks from getting dangerously close to that dreaded melodic, AOR slop. When Danny and the boys do decide to heavy things up a bit is when the fireworks start to fly, it's just unfortunate there aren't more moments like "Happy", "Highway Lady" which is a re-working of a song he penned for the No Heavy Petting album, or the title track where he turns in some of that splendid Hammond B-3 playing that he's known for.
Don't expect to be completely blown away by Make The Monkey Dance because as I said this one tends to blow both hot and cold. That being said, this is still a decent sounding collection of songs worthy of the second chance it's been given here.
Track Listing
1) Makin' Room For Noah
2) Lie For A Lie
3) Never Been Cool
4) Affection
5) Make The Monkey Dance
6) Ships In The Night
7) Midnight At The Lost And Found
8) When I'm Dead
9) Bigger Than Love
10) 8.25 (Eight Twenty-Five)
11) Highway Lady
12) Happy
13) This Heart Is Broken
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