If Bloodrock U.S.A. was intended to be "At Last - Another Amazing Adventure to Open Your Mind" as the tag line read on the grotesque cover, then it's a bold, desperate, last-chance gamble, smack dab in the middle of an era dealing in treachery, lies, and deceit. The band's first three albums feel like half-consistent, backroom warm-ups, compared to this cold and anguished tome, where finally all cogs of the Bloodrock monster machine are working effortlessly and in unison. Interestingly enough, it also makes a complete mockery out of the second version of Bloodrock as well, which was more political and environmental in their aims, but far less beliveable. No one line sums it up better than this from "American Burn": "The end of your life is a steal". That was the prevailing wisdom of the time, and coincidentally, not too dissimilar from the present day, either. A sad, paranoid, inevitable sort of doomed magic drives this one to the top of my personal best-of list, as the original lineup would crumble mere weeks after the album was completed.