John Fogerty - Eye Of The Zombie CDs • Vinyl Records • LPs • Music Albums

his 1985 comeback LP. On the one hand, the exuberance of that album's title track, the rockabilly affirmation of "Big Train (from Memphis)" and the sexy road fever of "Rock and Roll Girls" announced Fogerty's joy at being back in action after nearly a decade on the sidelines. But the haunted, claustrophobic quality of "The Old Man down the Road" and "Searchlight" ("What was the demon that made me run/Can I ever hope to understand") – as well as the obsession with his much-ballyhooed business problems on "Mr. Greed" and "Zanz Kant Danz" – suggested that Fogerty's withdrawal from the music scene was not benign in either its causes or its effects.

Oddly, Zombie opens with an instrumental, "Goin' Back Home." On that track, Fogerty's forlorn, feedback-laced guitar solo floats over a dreamy, hymn-like synthesizer melody. Then "Eye of the Zombie," a sort of third-rate "Thriller" ("A beast already dead/Comes to join the dance of the zombie"), instantly shatters the calm. "Headlines," a refried boogie riff posing as a song, follows, featuring Fogerty shrieking about news reports that "gotta million ways to say/Another crazy day."

On "Violence Is Golden" and "Soda Pop," Fogerty tackles worthy subjects badly. "Violence Is Golden" whips up some apt connections between military bluster, macho sexual posturing and profiteering, but its thumping choruses and inane food metaphors ("Pass another plate of shrapnel/Sprinkle it with TNT/Gotta have another grenade salad") overstate the obvious. "Soda Pop" is such a bitter denunciation of music-biz greed – cruelly misfocused on Fogerty's fellow pop stars rather than on the corporate structure that exploits their excesses – that it has the inevitable effect of making you wonder if Fogerty is protesting too much. Even if you agree with him, Fogerty makes you feel uncomfortable about being on his side. And for someone who lived quite comfortably for nine years without having to record or tour – essentially without having to work – Fogerty seems to think an awful lot about money. His repeated screeds about greed seem at times to mask an envy of – even an identification with – his villains.

Fogerty's at his most engaging on "Knockin' on Your Door," a gritty jo