The Monkey Puzzle

The Monkey Puzzle, UFO's eighteenth studio album, was released by SPV's Steamhammer label in Europe on 25 September 2006, in the United States a day later and in Germany on 29 September. Jason Bonham had left to join Foreigner, and the drum stool went back to Andy Parker, the founder member who had played the band's first concert in the late sixties. The line-up was Phil Mogg, Vinnie Moore, Pete Way, Paul Raymond and Parker; for Moore, who had joined in the autumn of 2003, it was his second album with the band. Tommy Newton, who had produced You Are Here and had recorded the live album Showtime at the Pumpwerk in Wilhelmshaven on 13 May 2005, produced the record, with Area 51 Studios in Celle as its base; the drums were recorded at Big House Studios in Hanover and all of the guitars at Vinman Studios in the United States. Mogg wrote every lyric and Moore most of the music, with Way contributing to "Hard Being Me" and "Who's Fooling Who" and Raymond writing the music of "Black and Blue" and "Kingston Town". Michael Roth plays harmonica on "Hard Being Me" and "Some Other Guy", and the eleven songs run from "Hard Being Me" to "Kingston Town". The album entered the UK Official Rock & Metal Albums Chart at No. 20 on the chart of 7 October 2006, the month in which the band began an extensive world tour. The Japanese edition followed on 20 December 2006, on Avalon. It is the last UFO album with Pete Way: when the band made its next album, The Visitor, in 2009, he was suffering from liver disease and could not take part in the recording.