The Whole World's Goin' Crazy

Album review

A year after the release of Stand Back, one of April Wine's greatest achievements, they returned with the similar-sounding Whole World's Goin' Crazy. Although the album didn't yield any solid rockers such as "Tonite Is a Wonderful Time" or "Oowatanite" (both from Stand Back ), it does contain one of the band's best ballads in "Like a Lover Like a Song," which also reveals Goodwyn's talent for singing the slow stuff. Most of the other tracks have April Wine sounding sturdy enough, especially on "Gimme Love," "We Can Be More Than We Are," and on the title track, which actually cracked the Top 20 in their homeland. With Jimmy Clench gone and bass man Steve Lang joining the band, April Wine continued on with their prospective arena/radio brand of rock; the only problem was that too many comparisons were being made to the album that came before it, with not enough time left in between for Stand Back's impact to wear off, especially within the group's growing fan base. But Whole World has enough likeable guitar-led rock to make it one of their better releases from the '70s, with Goodwyn and Moffet garnering serious relationships with both the all-important hard rock hook and the syrupy soft pop ballad. Within the same year they released Forever for Now, which has April Wine sounding less enthusiastic and drifting somewhat into stadium rock banality.
© Mike DeGagne /TiVo