Shouting and Pointing

AMG Review of Shouting and Pointing

Stephen Thomas Erlewine
All Music Guide

The remnants of Mott the Hoople truncated their name to Mott with 1975's Drive On, and retained the shortened moniker for Drive On's sequel, 1976's Shouting and Pointing. New lead vocalist Nigel Benjamin sometimes decides to escalate into a falsetto on the album, while the group attempts to stay true to Mott the Hoople's loud, glammy update of old-time rock & roll and Ian Hunter's wry, self-deprecating wit. When Hunter commented on the plights of a rock & roll band to a heavy Chuck Berry beat, his humor was sharp, the melancholy was deep, and the music rocked hard, and here, the band tackles balls-out rockers, two-part epics, and the "Ballad of Mott the Hoople" rewrite "Career (No Such Thing as Rock 'n' Roll)." Shouting and Pointing isn't necessarily unlistenable, and follows the same form one would expect from the band, albeit with less success.