No Means of Escape is the new Eagle Rock Blu-ray featuring the music of Scottish hard rock legends Nazareth, compiling both a recent live set filmed at London's Metropolis Studios and a 50 minute documentary titled 'Made in Scotland'. For the live concert, it features the line-up of founding member Pete Agnew (bass), longtime members Jimmy Murrison (guitar), Lee Agnew (drums), and latest addition Linton Osborne (vocals), who, ironically, is now no longer in the band, recently replaced by singer Carl Sentance. Kind of odd that this was released with the now jettisoned Osborne, but these things happen I guess.
Another oddity here is that the band commissioned artist Rodney Matthews to once again give his take on the classic creature from the No Mean City album cover, but the set list only contains one song from that stellar album, the great "May the SunShine", so if you were expecting Nazareth to revisit many of the tracks from that album you may be disappointed. Moving on from that though, Matthews once again did a fine job on the artwork adorning this Blu-ray, and the band play a nice selection of old favorites as well as newer tracks from Rock 'n' Roll Telephone and Big Dogz, their two most recent releases and last to feature original vocalist Dan McCafferty. Along with mandatory hits like "Razamanaz", "This Flight Tonight", "Hair of the Dog", "Love Hurts", and "Expect No Mercy", the band also dust out deep album gems "Silver Dollar Forger", "See You See Me", "Turn on Your Receiver", and "Bad Bad Boy", giving longtime fans a special treat with songs not frequently played live. Toss in newer cuts like "Sleeptalker", "One Set of Bones", and "Rock 'n' Roll Telephone", and you have a very well rounded set from the Scottish veterans. Murrison, who has now manned the guitar helm for the band for a very long time, offers up plenty of meaty, metallic, and bluesy licks alongside the solid rhythmic tandem of the Agnew's, and you can really tell that these guys have formed a tight unit, clearly able to carry on the torch for years to come. Osborne, for his part, has a similar gravelly roar to McCafferty, but he has little stage presence and you almost get the feeling he wasn't enjoying this gig much, which could be why the decision was made to make a line-up switch not long after. It's hard to replace a legend, and McCafferty is very much missed here, but it will be interesting to see how Sentance fits into this role going forward.
The documentary is a fun 'history of' the band, complete with interviews of the band members, including McCafferty, though it could have been even better with more classic live footage of the band from the '70s. As it is there's very little here, and in many spots instead of injecting a clip from the classic era they instead drop in footage from the Metropolis show. Kind of a missed opportunity there, but ultimately it might have been a rights issue on Eagle Rock's part, which is understandable. Overall though, this is an enjoyable Blu-ray of a veteran band who are still out, rocking on the road, something they've done now for close to 50 years.
See more about this release on our recent YouTube show!
Track Listing
1) Silver Dollar Forger
2) Sleeptalker
3) Rock 'n' Roll Telephone
4) Razamanaz
5) May The Sun Shine
6) See You See Me
7) Turn On Your Receiver
8) Bad Bad Boy
9) One Set Of Bones
10) This Flight Tonight
11) Hair Of The Dog
12) Love Hurts
13) Expect No Mercy
Bonus Features
50 min documentary 'Made In Scotland'.
Acoustic session track: 'This Flight Tonight'.
Additional interviews with Dan McCafferty and Pete Agnew.
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