Thin Lizzy - Shades Of A Blue Orphanage

Shades Of A Blue Orphanage is the second studio album by Irish rock band Thin Lizzy, originally released in March 1972 by Decca Records.

Named after the musicians' previous bands (Eric Bell's Shades of Blue, and Phil Lynott and Brian Downey's Orphanage), Shades Of A Blue Orphanage proved that Decca Records had absolutely no idea of what to do with Thin Lizzy.

The Thin Lizzy represented here found themselves in the same position as many other blues-schooled rock bands at the dawn of the post-hippie '70s: aesthetically confused and willing to try anything in hope something would. While it may not qualify as an overlooked classic, it’s still an illuminating document of a band finding its voice for the first time, if only in fits and starts.

As Shades Of A Blue Orphanage makes abundantly clear from the get-go, Thin Lizzy weren’t lacking ambition at this stage, but rather direction.

Album opener "The Rise And Dear Demise Of The Funky Nomadic Tribes" is every bit as ridiculous and unwieldy as its title suggests, cycling through tough funk grooves, proto-metal riffage, and progged-out breakdowns en route to a drum solo that fades out unceremoniously at the seven-minute mark. But the track is also something of a red herring, an early, clumsy stab at heaviosity from a band that, at this point, had a much better grasp of intimacy.

Even though Thin Lizzy’s sound had yet to settle into place - variously taking the form of ersatz Elvis exercises ("I Don’t Want To Forget How To Jive"), pavement-splitting rockers ("Call The Police"), Astral Weeks-esque folk reveries ("Chatting Today") and ethereal piano lullabies ("Sarah") - Lynott’s lyrical voice was already providing a sturdy anchor to rally it around.

On richly detailed character studies like "Buffalo Gal" and the hymn-like title track, the then-23-year-old Lynott was already singing with the rueful wisdom of a man several decades his senior, laying the foundation for the rugged-romantic archetype that would define his legend.

This LP housed in a gatefold sleeve with reproduced artwork and remastered audio is pressed in the USA on 180-gram heavyweight vinyl.