War - Galaxy (1977) LP

There wasn't much that the emergent Star Wars culture didn't touch in the latter part of the 1970s, and War's 1977 LP, Galaxy, was no exception. As the band moved further and further from the funk that drove its earliest grooves through to its street-savvy "Low Rider" alter ego, War's core audience was co-opted by a new crop of fans just looking for a groove. Galaxy filled that gap well. On paper, the LP should have been driven by the title track -- a wonderful eight-minute frenzy that glories in compulsive hooks and weaves in some super-stellar Star Wars lyric riffing, all the while pounding the beat home underneath a rhythm borrowed from los Chakachas' "Jungle Fever." It's an outstanding opener. Unfortunately, the band drizzled downhill all the way through the rest of the set, across lightweight and uninspired material that couldn't even be redeemed by the sassy "Hey Señorita." Even the ballad "Sweet Fighting Lady" wasn't up to their usual down-tempo stuff, and any achievements were wiped right off the slate by the closer, "The Seven Tin Soldiers," which is an unending, unyielding 14-minute instrumental. One song, no matter how marvelously executed, does not an album make, and at the end of the day Galaxy couldn't pull the band out of its rut.