Strangers in the Wind - Bay City Rollers

Les McKeown's final Rollers album saw the band continuing to push away from the teenybop sound that made their name, but with mixed results; a bizarre contractual agreement forced the band to include no less than 50% cover versions on the album (all of them drawn from elsewhere within the Arista label stable), which thoroughly derailed their attempts to build up their own internal songwriting machinery. Full marks for their ultimate decisions, but it scarcely allowed the band to prove their true worth and Strangers In The Wind wound up a considerably lighter-weight collection that it ought to have. A few bright spots peek through the AOR stew. The single "All The World Is Falling In Love" was a bouncy little bopper, while the album opens and closes with two solid efforts, "Another rainy day In New York City" and "When I Say I Love You". Elsewhere, however, Strangers In The Wind wanders morosely between the sad and the saccharin, and it was clear that something had to give. That something, of course, would be Les McKeown. He quit and the band would be reborn in his absence. ~ Dave Thompson, All Music Guide