I Like to Rock
Say Hello
Tonite
Ladies Man
Before the Dawn
Babes in Arms
Better Do It Well
21st Century Schizoid Man
Line-ups came and went, but April Wine guitarist, singer and chief songwriter Myles Goodwyn kept the faith. The first time that faith was rewarded outside the band’s native Canada was with two breakthrough studio albums, 1978's First Glance and the following year's Harder... Faster. Both – the band's sixth and seventh releases – went gold in America.
First Glance was an album full of multi- styled rock, untroubled by thoughts of what American FM radio DJs might pick from it, but Harder...Faster offered an improvement on its predecessor. If you only know one track by April Wine, it’s here, the opener I Like To Rock, while Say Hello channelled Billy Squier with a Toto-like backing and went to the top of the charts in Canada. South of the border, the album spent 40 weeks in the Billboard 200.
Harder…Faster also reverberated across the water, with April Wine appearing on the bill at the first Monsters Of Rock festival in 1980.
Every week, Album of the Week Club listens to and discusses the album in question, votes on how good it is, and publishes our findings, with the aim of giving people reliable reviews and the wider rock community the chance to contribute.
Other albums released in October 1979
- Return to Base - Slade
- Reggatta de Blanc - The Police
- A Curious Feeling - Tony Banks
- Days in Europa - The Skids
- Victim of Love - Elton John
- Eat to the Beat - Blondie
- Cornerstone - Styx
- Damn the Torpedoes - Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers
- Broken English - Marianne Faithfull
- Cut Above the Rest - Sweet
- Tusk - Fleetwood Mac
- Head Injuries - Midnight Oil
- Hydra - Toto
- Images at Twilight - Saga
- Lovehunter - Whitesnake
- Magnum II - Magnum
- Mr. Universe - Gillan
- Whatever You Want - Status Quo
What they said...
"As suggested by its title, Harder... Faster sees veteran Canadian rockers April Wine taking things up a notch with relentless slabs of hard rock in I Like to Rock and Ladies Man. Also on hand is a memorable cool groover called Say Hello, a curious cover of King Crimson's 21st Century Schizoid Man, and the dual personality of Tonite, which alternates between quiet balladry and all-out riffing. (AllMusic)
"Hard rockers like Tonite and I Like To Rock still sound good today, whilst Say Hello showed a more commercial, radio friendly side to the band. Then there is the band’s version of King Crimson’s 21st Century Schizoid Man, which certainly rocks like a good ’un! A good chance for the band’s three guitarists to strut their stuff." (Get Ready To Rock)
"Why this bottom-of-the-barrel, cliched, untalented Canadian soft rock group thought they could cover King Crimson is beyond me. The cover of 21st Century Schizoid Man is without a doubt the worst song I have ever heard. It is lifeless, it is flat, and there are numerous wrong notes scattered throughout. Unless you consider yourself incredibly masochistic (as I do) avoid this record at all costs for that track alone." (RateYourMusic)
What you said...
John Davidson: I'd heard of April Wine but don't recall listening to them before, which is a shame because this is a good solid rock album. Reminiscent of Thin Lizzy at times, and Boston (without the Tom Sholtzisms) it would have fitted in my collection very well at the time.
Listening to it now its good, verging on very good. On first listen there's no obvious tracks that make me want to play the album again right away, but no tracks that I wanted to skip either. They also managed to make a listenable cover of Schizoid Man so props for that. Probably a 7 or 8 /10.
Mike Canoe: I thought that this album night be the shortest that the club has ever picked but Van Halen II is almost a minute shorter. Still nice that I can listen to the whole thing twice in just over an hour.
Decent hard rock but, for me, nothing dethrones I Like to Rock as the best track on the album. Tonite and Babes in Arms are my new faves but the King Crimson cover fits in surprisingly well. RIP (Rock in Paradise), Myles Goodwyn.
Mark Herrington: I’d never listened to this before , but it has many echoes of bands I favoured in the 70’s and 80’s. I’m reminded of Whitesnake, for example , in Before The Dawn and also smatterings of early Styx and Jefferson Starship. Good stuff here and there.
It’s a very good cover of Schizoid Man and it's easily the best track on the album, which made me wish they’d written some equivalent tracks. Myles Goodwin, lead guitarist, really stands out for me, with a style and delivery I really like. He really displays this talent in Schizoid Man, but also brings a depth that elevates many of the other tracks up a notch or two. Not an album I’d buy, but easily worth a 7 or 8.
Evan Sanders: I've been confused when people refer to April Wine as a Canadian band, as my introduction was when I lived in Flint, Michigan, where the residents insisted that the band was from their city. As far as the album goes, it sounds similar to many other Midwest rock albums from the era, perhaps early REO Speedwagon or Journey. Not a bad album, but maybe it paved the way to The Nature Of The Beast, which was part of our home collection.
Gus Schultz: “Journey to the stars, rock and roll guitars”. What a great line for a great song. Grew up listening to April Wine, they were always playing them on the radio in Canada. Think they always had at least one or more songs from all of their albums up to the mid 80s on the air. Myles Goodwyn was a prolific songwriter, bouncing from romantic ballads to rockers. He was April Wine, but always had talented musicians backing him up.
Their sound took a harder turn when Brian Greenway joined, after they seemed to slump a little with the departure of Jim Clench, who contributed greatly in the earlier days. First Glance kind of confirmed that change with Roller but when Harder... Faster came out, that cemented it. I remember a friend put on the LP and I Like To Rock was the first track. I was instantly impressed.
The drumming and the guitar tones are all great and the Day Tripper/Satisfaction/I Like To Rock riff at the end is pure genius. Every song on this album is very listenable, which wasn’t the case on most of their previous records. It's also sonically well done, with the help of Nick Bologna, who was a well know engineer/producer here in Canada.
A terrific album and maybe even a classic. Their next Nature Of The Beast did even better for them, being their most commercially successful. Unfortunately after NOTB things weren’t going too well for the band. They had a couple minor hits from Power Play, but never regained that earlier momentum and the band broke up a few short years later. They reformed later with original bassist Jim Clench and a couple of different musicians, but never made a strong comeback album-wise. They kept touring until Myles’ retirement last year, and I think they still are with Brian Greenway at the helm, but it just can’t be the same without Myles. Glad we have their albums to listen to.
RIP Myles. Good luck on your journey to the stars!
Gary Claydon: I've written on here before about how buying an import copy of the debut by a little known power-trio subsequently piqued my interest in the delights of the Canadian music scene. A veritable treasure-trove it's proven to be, as well. I'd heard of April Wine but never heard much by them. After all, with a name like that they could never be a serious hard rock band, could they? Pop, folk even but nothing to trouble the heavier end of the spectrum, surely?
It was hearing First Glance that changed my mind, particularly Roller, still, easily, my favourite April Wine track. They managed a degree of popularity in the UK for a couple of years as the 70s gave way to the 80s, with the kind of upbeat hard rock also purveyed by the likes of Y&T and Coney Hatch. Nothing spectacular, a couple of well supported tours, a couple of minor singles chart entries and a couple of top 50 albums. The best of the latter - briefly threatening the top 30 - was Harder.....Faster.
It's my favourite of their albums, simply because I think it's their most consistent. First Glance will undoubtedly have it's supporters, as will the more commercial 'Nature Of The Beast but Harder.....Faster is their most rounded effort. I've always been a sucker for a twin guitar attack, so throw in three of 'em and you've definitely got my attention.
The thing I've always enjoyed most about April Wine's recorded work is their guitar sound, that mix of clean, fuzzy and gritty that gives them a harder edge. Band leader Myles Goodwyn takes a lot of credit for that, of course, but the addition of Brian Greenway, from First Glance on, really helped elevate their sound. Even the mellower moments on Harder ....Faster (Tonite, Before The Dawn, Say Hello) avoid descending into cheesy AOR.
It's the pure, melodic hard rock that really grabs you, though, and April Wine really did it so well. Nothing illustrates that better than excellent album opener I Like To Rock. Even a somewhat corny Day Tripper/Satisfaction mash-up doesn't derail it. I'm always intrigued at what motivates bands to cover bona-fide classics and in 21st Century Schizoid Man April Wine chose to take on the complexities of one of the truly all-time great rock tracks. It could have resulted in red-faces all-round but, to their credit, they came up with an extremely listenable version.
Harder...Faster is an uncomplicated, enjoyable album that's a solid 7-8/10 any day of your rockin' week.
Greg Schwepe: "I Like To Rock.” There, say it again. Feels good, doesn’t it? And April Wine kicks off 1979’s Harder… Faster with a song that all of us reading this review can relate to, right? It’s why we write and read these reviews each week. Know your audience, and April Wine certainly did.
The two FM rock stations I listened to in high school then while off at college were both very “Canadian-centric” it seemed. If you were a north of the border band trying to make it big in the ol’ U. S. of A, these stations seemed to play whatever singles came their way to help them get over that hump.
So, whether they were out to help these Canadian bands, or just really liked good rock'n'roll, April Wine got played a lot on these stations. Along with fellow Canucks Rush, Triumph, Loverboy, and even Max Webster! It also helped that I was in the Midwest which was Ground Zero for music like this and ever present 10-12,000 seat “hockey barns” where bands like this would regularly fill these venues to capacity.
Harder… Faster is full of memorable songs, hooks, vocals, instrumentation; a complete package. The band can truly rock out and do the ballad thing without being schmaltzy. I detect no “cheese” in the band’s approach; solid rocking tunes and they don’t sink too low in the lyric department (unlike fellow Canadians Anvil from the selection a few weeks back).
The one cool thing about the aforementioned I Like To Rock is the breakdown section where you get the riffs from Day Tripper and Satisfaction that fade in and then mesh together. Ladies Man comes replete with some slide which has a little Billy Gibbons vibe to it. Babes In Arms gives us a little song along chorus along with a nice repeating guitar riff.
Finishing off Harder… Faster is a cover of King Crimson’s 21st Century Schizoid Man. A great version that takes that proggy masterpiece and totally rocks it up. This time a ton of guitars take the place of the keyboard and woodwind instrumentation as heard in the original. Perfect way to end this album.
8 out of 10 for me on this one. I may have never owned anything by April Wine back in the day, but thanks to those radio stations that played any new April Wine song that came out, I was always familiar with their music and something that fit in nicely with the rest of the music I was listening to at the time.
Philip Qvist: Before today, my main exposure of the band was their 1981 Hit Just Between You And Me and their follow up single, Sign Of The Gypsy Queen (which I only discovered now was a cover). I knew they were Canadian and they had three guitarists, but they were basically anonymous down here in South Africa.
And that's a pity, because they certainly rocked if Harder .... Faster is anything to go by. I see Myles Goodwin did most of the heavy lifting with the songwriting and singing on this album, although my favourite track was the Brian Greenway penned Before The Dawn.
Other good tracks are I Like To Rock (did the Beatles get any royalties for the outro?), Ladies Man and Tonite - while their cover of 21st Century Schizoid Man was quite interesting (in a positive way).
All in all, it is a pleasant surprise - a nice rocking album with no duds on it. April Wine definitely deserves further exploring from yours truly. An 8/10 from me.
Jim Husk: April Wine, the darlings of the East Coast Canadian Rock scene who the rest of Canada adopted after hearing the Stand Back Album. Their rockers were balanced with their ballads and you were guaranteed to hear guitar driving rock on every album release. The beauty of hearing April Wine play live is that their live sound, sounded exactly like their studio albums, raw guitar energy with catching lyrics and a driving groove. Although Harder Faster had a couple of April Wine greatest hits in I Like to Rock and Say Hello, I think April Wine was at their best with their 1975 release of Stand Back. Rest in Peace Myles.
Michael McAleer: I Like To Rock. Enough said. What a song.
Warren Bubb: Great underrated band. Fine album. Best tracks for me are Ladies Man and Before The Dawn.=
Adam McCann: Personally, my favourite April Wine album, brings back some very good memories. RIP Myles.
Wade Babineau: It's a tough day for those of us who live in Canada's Atlantic region with Myles Goodwyn's passing. Kudos to this group for posting an April Wine album to go over. This album along with Nature Of The Beast and earlier efforts like Stand Back certainly cemented their reputation as a group who could rock out with the best and also so their slow ballad style as well.
First three openers on this one were all in the setlist for years. I Like To Rock, with it's fuzz guitar-bass intro, is an absolute banger. For those with a keen ear, the ending has the group playing three songs at once: I Like To Rock, Satisfaction and Day Tripper. Great song ending, indeed. Say Hello, with legendary drummer Jerry Mercer kicking it off is another of the mid-tempo rockers that Wine were known for. Tonite starts off acoustically, but then kicks into gear and never lets up.
Ladies Man is the typical of the time, macho posturing. Before The Dawn sees guitarist Brian Greenway step up for the vocal. Solid mid-rocker. Babes in Arms – like Before the Dawn and Ladies Man – is solid rock throughout, as is the Better Do It Well. None really set the world on fire, but still workmanlike tunes.
We get to the closer, a cover of King Crimson's 21st Century Schizoid Man, and it's a certainly an odd choice given the straightforward nature of April Wine's recordings, but they certainly put their stamp on it. The live performances of this were even harder rocking. Myles was the guy who helped guide the group from a regional act to the national stage in Canada and their success in the US and around the world when there were but a few rock bands from Canada getting that kind of success. Solid 8/10
Hai Kixmiller: With the addition of guitarist Brian Greenway, and the strength of the tremendously popular rocker, Roller, First Glance was the album that made April Wine stars. After the release of First Glance, bands like Rush, Journey, and Styx were requesting April Wine as their opening act. For many April Wine fans, First Glance is the seminal "HELL YEAH!" album. Everything else is just "That's Cool".
Tim S. Howell: Harder... Faster was my introduction to April Wine. I Like To Rock and Say Hello were two of my favourite songs.
Final score: 7.60 (80 votes cast, total score 608)
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