War: War Live : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

This set, recorded live at Chicago's High Chaparral, adds no new wrinkles to War's grindingly familiar string of hits. Excitement on the four sides surfaces only when the audience recognizes the opening strains of such favorites as "Slipping Into Darkness" and "The Cisco Kid" (a passable collection of riffs in its studio version but done live at a slower pace that highlights its redundancy). But since War has neither a compelling lead singer nor a disciplined, inventive rhythm section, the highs promptly evaporate. The band's only recourse is to run through its numbers virtually note for note, pointlessly expanding them to eight- or ten-minute lengths. On "Get Down," they take 15 minutes to get to the point: berating Richard Nixon and the Chicago police. This may seem surprisingly like beating a dead horse, but that's all War Live ever accomplishes.