Having toured persistently, and with five energetic and unpretentious albums to their credit in three years, the members of Foghat have secured for their modest talents a niche as a middle-level act. Fool for the City, the fifth album, reveals a band keenly aware of both its strengths and limitations. They have the knack for turning a simple riff into a dense, driving number free of the excesses that so often overextend other similarly limited rock groups. Foghat fares especially well with the title song and with the Righteous Brothers' "My Babe." Lonesome Dave Peverett's howling vocals (he sounds like he's singing from the far end of an aluminum drainpipe) and the biting, dual rhythm guitars of Peverett and Rod Price give the band a cutting edge and an identifiable sound—all given a boost in the studio by longtime producer/engineer Nick Jameson who recently joined the group on bass and keyboards. Foghat's music is so sturdy, succinct and infections that one wonders why they haven't attained the prominence of, say, BTO or the Doobie Brothers This band may well be only a single away—and "Fool for the City" may well be that single. (RS 201)

BUD SCOPPA