Sharks

Sharks is UFO's sixteenth album, released in September 2002 on Shrapnel Records in the United States and on Steamhammer in Europe. The line-up was the same as on Covenant: Phil Mogg, Michael Schenker, Pete Way and Aynsley Dunbar on drums. When the record was announced in May 2002, Sharks was still a working title and a June release was expected; the track list given then had "No Revolution Song" at No. 6, the place that "Someone's Gonna Have to Pay" occupies on the finished album. Mike Varney and Steve Fontano produced it. Fontano also engineered, mixed and mastered the record, and he is a co-writer of "Shadow Dancer", "Sea of Faith" and "Perfect View". It was recorded and mixed at Prairie Sun Recording Studios, and Kevin Carlson on keyboards and Jesse Bradman and Luis Maldonado on backing vocals returned from the Covenant sessions. Varney himself played the guitar fills and the closing solo on "Fighting Man", and the album ends with "Hawaii", a brief piece written by Schenker alone. Sharks spent a single week on the German albums chart, at No. 75, and, as Mogg said in 2004, the band never toured it. It is the last UFO album with Schenker. In his own later account, the changes around the band, the choice of Varney as producer among them, had already worn away its chemistry, and in 2002 he gave the UFO name back to Mogg at Mogg's request. The Japanese edition, released by Victor on 21 September 2002, adds live recordings of "Only You Can Rock Me", "Too Hot to Handle" and "Rock Bottom".