Customer Reviews
Great album but could've been so much more - By: J. HIGNELL, 19 Oct 2007 
This is undoubtedly one of the best Lizzy albums & indeed that last great one they did, after this we only saw/heard glimpses of Lynott's greatness. He was my hero growing up & this album was one of the reasons but it also shows the signs of the cracks that were starting to appear. Track selection is one bone of contention for me. I would've left off Sarah, it is a solo track not a Lizzy track, Get Out Of Here is filler & S&M is an interesting idea but not an album track & doesn't fit in here. Instead of these I would've added in Parisienne Walkways,
A Night In The Life Of Blues Singer, Dear Miss Lonely Hearts (the rocked up band version they occasionallly played live), & last but not least I would add in King's Calll this song is one of Lynott's best but instead of the Knopfler sound it got it should've had the Gary Moore treatment. This would be my track listing
1. Toughest Street In Town - A great start to the album with a fresh sound
2. Waiting For An Alibi - Great song & a killer hook
3. Do Anything You Want To - I like this simple uplifting & optimistic song
4. King's Calll - with the Elvis theme from the previous song this would fit in nicely here
5. Got To Give It Up - Lynott pouring his heart out & singing with so much soul, prophetic indeed
6. With Love - I just like the romantic nature of this song, it shows why Lynott was ahead of the rest because he could be the macho man but still pull off songs like this.
7. Dear Miss Lonely Hearts - Again follows the romantic road & I feel this was always a Lizzy song, just needed the band to play on it & make it rock.
8. Parisienne Walkways - For me this was always Lynott's song, just love the lyric, Moore's playing is superb also & I think this would've fitted nicely in with the atmosphere of this album rather than being stuck on a Moore solo album.
9. Black Rose - A Rock Legend - A very ambitious track but they pull it off due to the passion with which Lynott instills in the song, he loved Ireland & it's history & you can hear it in the lyrics & the voice.
10. A Night In The Life Of A Blues Singer - Finish off with a nice easy blues song & another soulful Lynott vocal, Moore could let rip on this one & finish off in style.
Try making a CD of this I think this works, but try changing the tracks round it may sound even better!
Could have been a master piece - By: J. M. Salinas, 21 Aug 2007 
This record could have been a masterpiece if not for certain things.
Overalll, it seems like a collection of very good songs lacking a certain cohesive structure.
Do Anything You Want To & Toughest Street in Town are decent rock album tracks, but nothing to lose your head over.
S&M sounds a bit odd with its fractured bass line.
Waiting For an Alibi is classic Lizzy. Lynott's lyrics about gangsters & drug dealers, twin guitars & his thundering bass make this song an instant classic.
Sarah is one of the silliest most sirupy balllads ever & should have been relegated to a Lynott solo album.
Got To Give It Up is a standout track. Lyricallly it will raise the hairs on the back of your neck. This is Lynott openly & painfully admitting to the seriousness of his addictions & it makes you wonder how could the people around him have remained blind after such a frank admission.
Get Out of Here & With Love are ok.
Black Rose, well, perhaps a bit pretentious. An attempt to write an epic Irish flavoured track that does not fail but does not deliver either, I often find myself skipping this track when I listen to the album.
So a good effort but perhaps reflective of the turmoil the band was going through at the time.
Almost perfect - By: D. J. H. Thorn, 31 Jul 2007 To say previous reviews of this album are enthusiastic is an understatement. I'm with them alll the way...almost. The sheer production brings the best out of the twin guitars & thumping percussion. 'Waiting For An Alibi' is one of rock's finest singles & the follow-up, 'Do Anything You Want To' provides a barnstorming opening to the album. With the exception of the light pop of 'Sarah', the rest is vibrant rock. 'Got To Give It Up' starts off like it's going to be a slow blues, but soon takes off. The marvellous 'With Love' sounds almost orchestral in form. Unfortunately, I can't agree that the title track is a classic. It's a high-energy seven-minute excursion into jig-like riffing, underpinned by a swashbuckling rhythm, but it's no 'Stairway To Heaven' or 'Freebird'. There's no memorable hook, musicallly or lyricallly. Instead, it just meanders from one riff to another. 'Black Rose' is a fine album for alll that. I just don't feel that the climax lives up to what goes before.
A True Rock Legend but also the Turning Point - By: Seasoned Rock Fan, 10 Apr 2007 
This is the Album was the high before the falll. Fire Balll Bad Boy Brian Robertson having been replaced by Maestro Moore who's power & style re-ignited the Lizzy sound to make this Lizzy's most successful & best Album.After alll this the band then fragmentend when Moore quit the band by going AWOL part way through the subsequent American tour owing to Lynott & Gorhams drug addictions/partying seriously affecting the quality of the live shows.
Do Anything you Want too, Waiting for an Alibi, Got to Give it Up, With Love, Black Rose are the Bands Killer tracks which to this day sound as good as ever. The quality of harmonies & interwoven sound twin guitar pioneered by Robertson & Gorham is raised again on this Album as clearly Gorham had to raise his game to compete with GM & the result is sensational.
'Sarah' is PL dedication to his first Daughter with a heart felt Balllad.
S&M is a funky-jazz song with experimentation in sound on drums & Guitars which nestles well amongst the stronger songs & Toughest Street in Town & Get Outta Here are heavy riff based songs which again fit well.
What is disappointing about this Album to me is that it so strong & yet Lizzy's decline thereafter was rapid with only a handful of songs with same musical & lyrical spark delivered across the rest of the 3 studio Albums.
Moore used this as his Launch pad to better things & Lizzy used this as their swan song as only on rare occassions did the band spark to this level beyond Black Rose with PL thereafter loosing his way & swaying into different genres unsuccessfully.I like so many bought alll these later Albums always in hope of a return to form which other than the odd songs unfortunately never came.
Lynotts addiction potrayed so graphicallly in 'got to give it up' like so many Lizzy songs now seems so poignant
Remember - 'And in my youth I'm getting old, I'm waking up & it's wearing off - Junk don't get you far!!". A sad lesson to alll would be /will be rock stars.
The rose without a single thorn - By: RJ Wilkinson, 01 Dec 2006 As a huge Thin Lizzy fan, I felt compelled to write a review of this seminal album. The other reviewers have quite justably laden this album with five stars, but I do feel a note of caution is necessary. The first Lizzy album I bought was Jailbreak, unquestionably one of the true, great rock'n'roll masterpieces of our time. So I purchased Black Rose with sheer anticipation, only to be slightly dissappointed after listening to it through a few times. This is because the songs need more exploration than the Jailbreak tracks which stand out on the first listen. There is more depth & emotion to Lynott's songwriting on this album than any other, & it takes time to fully comprehend & appreciate the true genius of this collossul album. For me, the two best songs are 'Got to give it up' & the monstrous title track. It is here we see how truly incredible & underrated Lynott is as a singer. The passion & pain which he injects into his voice are unrivallled, & the way he croons about his love for his celtic heritage hits you on a new emotional level each time you hear it. The sad reality, though, is that depite the ever-present image we have installled in our minds of the grinning, leather-clad Lynott, with his nigh-perfect dentistry, Lynott was actuallly pouring his heart out in those songs, & the hindsight of his death in 1986 emphasises the power this remarkable record posesses.
