Bad Company's last platinum album,
Holy Water is a formulaic yet reasonably engaging collection of
AOR hard rock. Although the only original members on
Holy Water are guitarist
Mick Ralphs and drummer
Simon Kirke, the band does a fair job of approximating the sound of classic
Bad Company while adding enough elements of '80s
pop-metal to make the record appealing to teenagers who grew up on power
ballads. And the band does turn in a first-rate power
ballad with
"If You Needed Somebody," which rose all the way to number 16 on the singles chart. Surprisingly, that was one of three hits from the album --
"Holy Water" and
"Walk Through Fire" also received a fair amount of airplay. What that success signals is not a creative rebirth for
Bad Company, but that the group knew how to follow a formula very well.
Holy Water hasn't aged as well as their original hit albums -- instead of the clean, ballsy attack of
Bad Company and
Straight Shooter, it's awash in echo and synths -- but it is a finely crafted, big-budget record of the late '80s and early '90s. It's just as indicative of its era as
Bad Company is. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine
