Angel

Angel's later releases were given over entirely to the sort of pomp and glam excess that made them a virtual spot-on blueprint for '80s hair metal, and their debut certainly has Queen-ish guitar and shrill hair-sprayed aggression in abundance on numbers like "Rock & Rollers." But from the opening notes of "Tower," there's a curious admixture of progressive rock, almost entirely due to Gregg Giuffria's contributions of harpsichords, piano, and Mellotrons. Like many first albums, this one is in some ways more interesting than the more Angelic follow-ups, simply because it shows as much what routes they did not follow as which ones they did. ~ Paul Collins