In the Army Now

Almost four years after their last studio album, and two years after Francis Rossi and Rick Parfitt agreed to relaunch the hitherto moribund band, Status Quo bounced back with an album that came as close as Christmas to restating the glories that most fans believed were buried a decade earlier. The title track sets things off in the way they mean to go on, a romping cover of a Bolland & Bolland number that could not have been further from the Quo norm if it had tried. But the band make it its own, and then keep on sparking, through an excellent cover of Ian Hunter's "Speechless," on to the hit single "Dreamin'," and peaking with the seething "Overdose." Indeed, no matter how many crimes against their own reputation may have been committed by Quo earlier in the decade, In the Army Now offered salvation and forgiveness all round. And, just for a moment there, it felt like this was one reunion that really was going to improve on its prototype.