New York’s Spread Eagle’s flame flickered brightly for a short while back in the early ’90s, following in the slipstream of Guns N’ Roses and Skid Row with their hard-edged, sleazy, more black leather than lace, riff-heavy metal, and in “Switchblade Serenade,” a bona fide landmark song of that era.
Sadly, musical fads changed, and the band split in 1995, and they went off and did their own thing, most notably bassist Rob De Luca, who spent 16 years in UFO as well as stints with Joan Jett and Sebastian Bach.
The band reformed in 2006 with original members, vocalist Ray West and Rob De Luca, and had bursts of activity in between other projects, but with UFO now retired, that activity has ramped up, seeing Spread Eagle release two new albums over the last 6 years or so.
The band has been on the road with the Brutal Divine tour since August, and by the time they hit the stage at Trillians in Newcastle, they were a well-oiled metal machine.
Kicking off with “King Of The Dogs” with its spacey, Psychedelic guitar intro before hitting the groove-heavy riff ahead of some serious metallic thrashing saw Spread Eagle covered a lot of ground in the opening song.
“Sound of Speed” kicks like a mule with a skyscraping chorus to match, coming from their 2019 release “Subway To The Stars,” showing they hadn’t lost their touch in penning a top tune.
Of course, their classic debut was mined well with “Back On The Bitch” and “Broken City,” seeing Ray West hitting notes most singers dare not attempt while Rob De Luca pulled out all of the shapes in the bassist’s playbook, making it clear why he was the obvious choice to fill Pete Way’s baseball boots.
“Ant Farm” and “Street Noise” brought us bang up to date from their latest album “The Brutal Divine” while “Pushed To The Limit” paid tribute to De Luca’s time in UFO.
Of course, “Switchblade Serenade” sounded ferocious and slammed hard to close the set, but “Scratch Like A Cat” was thrown in as a last-minute extra to treat those who had headed out on a school night to take in some classic American Metal.
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