Essential Classics
Back Street Symphony
EMI, 1990
The youthful ebullience of Thunder’s debut still rings loud, clear and true more than 30 years after it was released. It plays like an English response to Guns N’ Roses’ Appetite For Destruction, released three years earlier. Even though it didn’t sell anything like as well as that album, it too was a manifesto that Thunder have been able to return to at all points in their career since. Produced by Andy Taylor and engineered/mixed by Mike Fraser (AC/DC, Poison, The Cult, Aerosmith), it sounds big, powerful and timeless.