BATON ROUGE – Lights Out On The Playground [Music On CD reissue] (2025) , MP3+FLAC, FAKE

Now we have here in exclusive the Music On CD reissue of long time out of print BATON ROUGE second album, 1991’s “Lights Out On The Playground“. This finely crafted record is another in a long list of albums that deserved far more attention that it received at the time.

Coming at a time when the Rock charts were dominated by Bon Jovi, Damn Yankees, Warrant, Steelheart, Slaughter, and the like, ”Lights Out On The Playground” should have been Baton Rouge’s big breakthrough. It certainly had all of the right elements.
As happened with all American melodic hard rock bands circa 1991, Baton Rouge’s second LP was a melodic hard rock album with a definite bluesy flavor; it featured a dynamic vocalist in Kelly Keeling, and it boasted a bright production by former Surgin’ mainman Jack Ponti, whose songwriting skills were among the best in the business (Ponti co-writes all tracks). The song “Desperate” is one of the best metal ballads ever written, and I’m still perplexed as to how neither Baton Rouge nor Babylon A.D. (included in their 1989 album) could make a hit of it.

The highlights here are many; “Slave To The Rhythm”, “Full Time Body”, “Tokyo Time”, ”Dreamin’ In Black And White” where we get both edge and nice melodies. And of course the aforementioned “Desperate”.
And as on the debut, the band flirt with AOR on a couple of tracks “The Price of Love” and “Light at the End of the Tunnel”. Kelly Keeling shows here his range and can sing everything from tougher hard rock to more melodic rock.

“Lights Out On The Playground” may not have reached a huge audience, but it was still a terrific melodic hard rock album. This is the kind of music that gets your blood pumping. If you’re already a Baton Rouge fan, you know what I’m talking about. If you haven’t heard this Baton Rouge album yet, but are a fan of the late ‘80s and early ‘90s American hard rock sound, you’ll definitely want to check out “Lights Out On The Playground”.
Highly Recommended

01 – Slave To The Rhythm
02 – Full Time Body
03 – Tie You Up
04 – Desperate
05 – Tokyo Time
06 – Vampire Kiss + The Midge II
07 – The Price Of Love
08 – Dreamin’ In Black And White
09 – Down By The Torchlight
10 – Light At The End Of The Tunnel
11 – Tear Down The Walls
12 – Hotter Than Hell

Voice – Kelly Keeling
Guitar, Vocals – Lance Bulen, Tony Palmucci
Bass, Vocals – Scott Bender
Drums, Vocals, Percussion – Corky McClellan

MP3 FLAC its fake!