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My take on ODYSSEY was that it was Yngwie’s most balanced album stylistically and definitely an improvement upon the uneven songwriting that plagued TRILOGY. Aside from his debut album (which remains my favorite), I would consider it to be one of his best albums, alongside MARCHING OUT. He still had the Johansen brothers backing him and even some appearances from Bob Daisley on the album. This was a great era for Yngwie and definitely his peak in America. Nothing he did after this was quite as polished or consistent.

Joe Lynn Turner really does a lot to make this album work so well with more emotive vocals and sense of melody. It's rare to hear so much soul on an Yngwie record and unfortunate that he didn't stay on longer. His contributions definitely elevate this album from just being another collection of Yngwie's fretboard gymnastics.

Listening to ODYSSEY all these years later was actually something of a treat. It was even better than I remembered in many respects with so many highlights throughout. My favorite tracks include “Rising Force”, “Riot in the Dungeons”, “Déjà Vu”, “Crystal Ball”, “Now Is the Time” and the instrumental “Krakatua”. Although I wasn’t as thrilled with the obvious hit single “Heaven Tonight”, I could tolerate it some.

I did feel critical of just one aspect of the album – and that would be Yngwie’s overplaying. He was always trying WAY too hard to prove that he was the fastest guitar player in the world and the songs do often suffer from his lack of restraint. Still, a solid album and the end of an era.

MUSCLE OF LOVE was rushed into American record stores on November 27th, 1973, just before the band was to depart on a month-long U.S. Christmas Tour. Although it did chart well (#10 on Billboard) and sold enough copies for a RIAA Gold certification, I’m guessing that the album largely benefitted from the success of BILLION DOLLAR BABIES and the tour that followed. I don’t believe that most fans really knew what Alice & Co. had in store for them this time around.

If there is any real loose concept behind MUSCLE OF LOVE, it may have been the recurring theme of sex. Still, the band denied there was any real theme and the overall vibe is very light hearted and playful. Alice himself acknowledged that the lyrics were usually written within a couple of hours and “weren’t exactly deathless prose”, as he confided to journalist, Bob Greene.

What’s noticeably absent are any of the horror themed tracks that fueled many of his past albums and the shock rock image they’d earned as a live act. Instead, they’re dressed up as grinning sailors outside a strip joint on the inner sleeve, which I suppose is yet another way for the boys to be bad. It’s not just the image they were portraying that’s was tamed here. While they hadn’t exactly changed genres from hard rock, there is definitely more of a Pop/Rock sensibility to these songs.

So, what’s my verdict on MUSCLE OF LOVE? It was definitely a precipitous step down from BILLION DOLLAR BABIES, which is my absolute favorite album from Alice Cooper. My issue with MUSCLE OF LOVE is there just wasn’t enough top shelf material written for this album. They were obvious rushing this out to satisfy Warner Brothers and didn’t have time to come up with anything better. There is some redemption to found in the title track, “Man with The Golden Gun” and “Teenage Lament ‘74”, but even these songs really can’t compare with the heavy hitters they’d composed for the last three albums. There’s no denying the band had done better work before.

One of the main reasons Alice fans have been so forgiving of MUSCLE OF LOVE is due to the sad fact that this was the last studio album that the original Alice Cooper Group ever made together. I think many of us were just thankful to have another record before the band split up. It IS an enjoyable album with adjusted expectations, but it’s clearly not as potent as what came before or after it.