Guardian Fire and Love thoughts...

The song Turnaround came on in my car on the way home from a restaurant today. It occurred to me that it sort of has a Motley Crue Dr. Feelgood element but not as raw. Fire and Love has a bluesy aspect and slightly rawer than First Watch. I remember buying this in March 1991 and was impressed. I think this edges out Miracle Mile slightly. If you take off 1 or 2 of the acoustic ballads on Miracle Mile but leave The Captain (I like the galloping acoustic vibe) on it would of been a better 10 or 11 song album.

I love F&L. MM is probably my favorite—although Sweet Mystery wouldn’t be missed—but you really can’t go wrong with any of the first 3. I will say that I think the second half of F&L is a bit better than the first half.

Fire and Love is a 10/10 album for me. It is flawless. Seriously, not a single bad moment on it. 1990 album of the year.

It's a great album but I listened to it so much back in the day I got burned out on it.

Fire and Love is one of my all-time top favorites.  There is nothing about it I don't like.  Even in my ballad-hating teen years I loved "Never Say Goodbye."  I agree Miracle Mile could have been even better, but it has too many ballads.

Never could get into Fire & Love, but absolutely played the heck out of Miracle Mile.

Fire and love is awesome!!! My favorite guardian album and I also give it a 10 out of 10.

It beats Miracle Mile by a nose, mainly because it is much more raw and had that hard rock feeling from the 80's.
But I can't complain about MM, though. I also love the ballads on that album.

By the way, I am a rocker, but when it comes to ballads from rock bands, Guardian is one of the best out there.

As close to perfection as an album can be for me.  Definitely in my top 3 of all time.

"Time and Time Again" is the best track.   

Miracle Mile is really good but it has too many ballads and overall too many tracks as others have mentioned above...trim 2 or 3 songs and it actually would be a better album.

deathisgain wrote:Never could get into Fire & Love, but absolutely played the heck out of Miracle Mile.

This.  I put many miles on "Miracle Mile" and "First Watch" but could never get into "Fire & Love" except for the song "Power Of Love."  Not sure why, but it just didn't do it for me.

It took me a little longer to warm up F&L than to FW and MM. But now I love all 3. (Fire & Love, Turnaround, and The Rain are my favorites on F&L).

I don't care much about first watch. In fact, I could never give to it enough listenings in order to form an opinion about it. Once I noticed Jamie Rowe was not singing on it, I have lost interest immediately.

I really like this album. I think it's one of the most solid Christian hard rock albums out there. I was amazed that it existed after hearing it later in life and knew if I had heard it at the time I would have put it up there with any secular release of its kind. I can still play it on road trips and run the track list and enjoy my time. Nearly flawless.

Miracle Mile? It's got some absolutely amazing tracks but is incredibly uneven and over long. I have to skip around too much. It was ambitious but it just didn't work out as well. Tony's guitar playing is the star of the show and The Captain is one of my favorite ballads ever. I wish it were more solid.

I never bothered with anything on either side of those two albums, not enjoying anything else I've heard.

Fire & Love is a great album.  Miracle Mile is a solid release but if I had to choose, I'd pick Fire & Love.

Fire & Love and Miracle Mile were absolutely stellar releases by both bands.  Had they not been Christian albums, they could have been huge.  They had that mix of Bon Jovi/Tesla/Extreme that could have worked well for them in the secular arena.

Mix in a lot of Jesus and they were largely overlooked by anyone outside the church, sadly.  Somehow Stryper managed to stay popular in all that, but Guardian should have been there as well as those two albums were every bit on par with their secular counterparts.

Remember Zrock, the national radio station out of Texas? They played Guardian on occasion and if I remember correctly, would have an hour dedicated to Christian Metal on Saturday nights.

alldatndensum wrote:Fire & Love and Miracle Mile were absolutely stellar releases by both bands.  Had they not been Christian albums, they could have been huge.  They had that mix of Bon Jovi/Tesla/Extreme that could have worked well for them in the secular arena.

Mix in a lot of Jesus and they were largely overlooked by anyone outside the church, sadly.  Somehow Stryper managed to stay popular in all that, but Guardian should have been there as well as those two albums were every bit on par with their secular counterparts.

They were even on a major label (Epic). I guess they just came out too late to be noticed (there were plenty of bands, Christian and Secular, who were overlooked due to the massive deluge of hair metal releases in 89-91).

WildWorld wrote:

alldatndensum wrote:Fire & Love and Miracle Mile were absolutely stellar releases by both bands.  Had they not been Christian albums, they could have been huge.  They had that mix of Bon Jovi/Tesla/Extreme that could have worked well for them in the secular arena.

Mix in a lot of Jesus and they were largely overlooked by anyone outside the church, sadly.  Somehow Stryper managed to stay popular in all that, but Guardian should have been there as well as those two albums were every bit on par with their secular counterparts.

They were even on a major label (Epic). I guess they just came out too late to be noticed (there were plenty of bands, Christian and Secular, who were overlooked due to the massive deluge of hair metal releases in 89-91).

I agree with you, they were a little late to the party.
F&L was released in90 and MM in 92, if I am not mistaken.

In order to hit big, the time has to be perfect in music. And, of course it is not depending only on the band and its talent.

I really got into 80's christian rock/metal listening to Reign Radio starting around 1999/2000. i was amazed at how many bands had solid, good albums where every song was good. I often wonder if the bands would have released their albums as rock/metal albums and not Christian if they would have had more success.

Fire and Love is my favorite Guardian album - and "Never say goodbye" one of my favorite rock ballads of all time.

One of the first christian bands I ever heard. The first song that I heard at my friends car stereo was Time stands still. The guitar playing on that song is so classy and stylistic that I had to buy the cd.