Foghat's eighth album unravels the story of a driven character trapped by twin forces, night and the past. His race against time through the songs reflects the desperation Foghat once felt over its own past. The band had been formed in the face of British music business blacklisting so thorough that the quartet got work only when it emigrated to a U.S. base of operations. The three nuclear members lost their name, nationality and, for as long as their former group Savoy Brown stayed visible, even their hard-won following.

Foghat's ability to overcome adversity makes it easy to understand the band's concern with black musical style. Besides five tightly-knit originals, Stone Blue includes two blues standards, an R&B chestnut and some dobro work by guitarist Rod Price, who's really come into his own on this record. Foghat's slavish chanting of Bo Diddley's "Chevrolet," as drums smack like an overseer's whip, provides a concise appraisal of the boys' feelings as newcomers to an alien music scene. All they could do was sing and mobilize. In Stone Blue, vocalist Dave Peverett rants, "I'm tired of being in the wrong place ... I ride through the night in the pouring rain." Until the end of the album, love and musical stardom seem interchangeable images of all-but-unattainable goals: "Like a prisoner caught in my own dream / I used to worry 'bout what might have been."

Foghat has recently rocketed beyond the highest success level its original members could have reached had they stayed with their respective British bands. Though Stone Blue is absorbed in the past, lost opportunities no longer threaten. "Dreams become reality," sings an Americanized Dave Peverett on the album's closer, "Stay With Me," in which love, passing time, and a Rod Price pop tune are woven into what could be a top ten hit. Peverett's voice is on his sleeve; Roger Earl's cymbals ring against Price's guitar like morning bells. The song dispels doubts that Foghat could handle a variety of styles. Like everything on the LP it stays true to the band's character.

--- Richard Hogan