Making Contact

Making Contact, UFO's eleventh studio album, was released by Chrysalis early in 1983 (CHR 1402); Record Mirror's issue of 5 February reported it out that week, and it entered the British chart in the week of 12 February. Founder member Pete Way had quit the previous year, so the album was made by a four-piece of Phil Mogg on vocals, Paul Chapman on guitar, Neil Carter on keyboards and guitar and Andy Parker on drums, with Chapman and Carter sharing the bass parts between them. According to the sleeve it was recorded between August and December 1982 at the Manor in Oxfordshire and at the Town House, White House and Maison Rouge in London, with Mick Glossop producing and engineering. Mogg is credited on all ten songs and Carter on nine of them, while "When It's Time to Rock" is credited to Chapman and Mogg; issued as a single, it entered the UK singles chart in March 1983 and peaked at 70. The album reached 32 in Britain, and in America it entered the Billboard 200 on 30 April and climbed to 153 in May. Record Mirror's reviewer heard a band fighting back after Way's shock departure and singled out Mogg's singing. The first British tour without Way was booked to open at the Ipswich Gaumont on 21 March 1983. By then, Parker recalled, the band had all but run out of road; he stayed through the many line-up changes until April 1983, and after a final British tour the members went their separate ways. No new UFO studio album appeared until Misdemeanor in 1985, made by a new line-up around Mogg. A 2009 remaster added "Everybody Knows" and two songs recorded live in Oxford.