In 1984, after an article in UK music magazine NME touted The Unforgiven as the next big thing, the six-man guitar band with a look straight out of The Good, The Bad and The Ugly exploded onto an unsuspecting LA hair metal scene with a profoundly different image and sound than anything happening on the Sunset Strip at the time. Within months, the young band found themselves in the middle of one of the biggest bidding wars in music business history. They signed with Motley Crüe s manager, Metallica s attorney, powerhouse booking agency CAA, and inked a multi-million dollar recording contract with Elektra records. But the ill-fated country-rock act recorded only one self-titled album, produced by famed Boston producer, John Boylan. The album featured an iconic, black and white cover shot that looked like a movie poster from a 60 s western, and it yielded a hit video at MTV for the band s first single: I Hear the Call. So what went wrong? Well, The Unforgiven set new standards for rock n roll excess, at one point being banned from the state of Colorado for life while on tour with ZZ Top. Then, the incorrigible band of guitar heroes was dropped by both management and label as they succumbed to infighting and the ravages of the road. As a result, this album never quite got its due; but today, it sounds like the Technicolor frontier love child of the Clash, U2, the Pogues, Def Leppard, Big Country and Ennio Morricone, definitely a hit record that coulda woulda shoulda been. And, of course, the spaghetti western look of the band proved to be enormously influential on everyone from Guns and Roses to Bon Jovi. Now, we at Real Gone Music are proud to present this lost 80s classic in its entirety, with a bonus track (the single version of I Hear the Call ) and a new track recorded by the band in support of their one-off appearance at the 2012 Stagecoach Festival. Liner notes by Chris Morris feature quotes from the band along with copious photos. Don your duster and get ready to rock!
