Play It Loud

Slade’s second studio album is an amazing snapshot of a band on the cusp of finding their musical footing and aesthetic image. Released in 1970, the band had abridged their moniker from Ambrose Slade and adopted all the subcultural fashion trappings of England’s suedehead movement — an offshoot of traditional skinheads, suedeheads grew their hair longer and dressed more formally — this later evolved into the very glitter-rock style that Slade helped pioneer following Play It Loud. The opening “Raven” rocks on a British R&B template echoing equal parts Ten Years After and the Yardbirds before “See Us Here” and the more memorable “Angelina” blasts the kind of heavy, sludgy hard-rock that Australia’s sister suedehead band Coloured Balls were playing around the same time. The following “Dapple Rose” is impressively much more sophisticated, flirting with string-laden baroque pop on par with what Roy Wood and Jeff Lynne had been creating with the Move. The stompy “Get Down and Get With It” builds on a monolithic boogie, giving insight to that singular evolutionary moment before Slade’s Doc Martens turned into silver platform boots.