Muse - Will of the People (2022)

Country: UK
Style: Rock
Rating: 8/10
Release Date: 26 Aug 2022
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Here's another major modern British rock band from the big mainstream gap in my knowledge. I'd bumped into Radiohead often, but somehow avoided people like Coldplay, Muse and Placebo, with the erroneous belief that they were simultaneously alternative and popular, which my brain can't compute. I should have checked them out long ago, of course, but too many bands, too little time. Apocalypse Later Music is giving me the excuse to do that now and my ears are being opened.

Of those bands, based on their most recent releases, I think Muse have to be my favourite. They're just as rooted in the music of Queen than the Darkness and, given who plays drums for the latter, I would suggest that's really telling. And they take every aspect from Queen, including the diversity that underpinned everything they did. Liberation is surely the most obvious nod to them this time out, from the Freddy Mercury-esque solo piano and vocal opening to the operatic vocal harmonies as it builds, but it's hardly the only one. Just listen to the guitar solo on You Make Me Feel Like It's Halloween and tell me that's not taken right out of the Brian May playbook!

In fact, Queen are all over this album, even if they're clearly not the only influence the band wants to channel. They're there on the opening title track, a stomping old school glam rock anthem, as if we're right back on Top of the Pops with the Sweet and Mud and the other legend from the era we don't mention any more. There's definitely some John Kongos in there too and some gospel too, a hand clapping pop take on it like Spirit in the Sky. It's impossible to ignore.

They're there on Verona, an emotional pop song driven by a Queen-like keyboard line that just has to have been somewhere on The Works, especially with the beat that joins it halfway through, and with another soaring vocal from Matt Bellamy from owes plenty to Mercury. They're there on the closer, We are Fucking Fucked, which, as its title might suggest, is as alt rock as this gets, but it's a grower, moving from a brooding tone into a Prodigy-esque celebration. It's the staccato nature of the backing vocals during the frantic breakdown at the end that's most Queen.

And, of course, they're there in Liberation, which is so Queen that it's shocking to acknowledge it's not a cover. The falsetto notes Matt Bellamy hits surely aren't as natural for him as they were for Mercury but he's certainly able to do the business and make them work. It's fascinating to hear a band that is so obviously influenced by one band but who take so many different aspects of their sound. The four songs I've mentioned are from different genres, but they're all Muse and they all have roots in Queen.

That ought to highlight how Muse aren't one trick ponies and the diversity on show here goes far beyond the songs I've mentioned. Compliance is arena pop, with slicing electronica, even with the rock beat and escalation like a rock song. Won't Stand Down is another pop/rock song that heavies up as it goes, which seems to be a habit for Muse. Ghosts (How Can I Move On) does that too, from being a ballad with a piano like a waterfall to being a clear power ballad.

That electronica trawls in a lot. We can almost hear the light show behind Compliance. Euphoria is poppy and driving and European. You Make Me Feel Like It's Halloween adds an organ to the Euro disco mindset, which is fascinating, especially when you add some Michael Jackson too. It's a funky take on the season and it surely has to end up with an animated video. And, as mentioned, there's plenty of crystal clear piano here too. It looks like Bellamy isn't merely the vocalist but the guitarist and the keyboardist too. He does a heck of a lot here, though there are other band members: Chris Wolstenholme on bass and Dominic Howard on drums.

Kill or Be Killed starts out with the most intense electronica and remains heavy otherwise, easily the heaviest song on offer. Initially it's simultaneously edgy and catchy like System of a Down, but it calms a little except for a frantic beat from Howard, and then crunches in with heavy guitar. The heavy riff in the second half reminds of a slow part from early Metallica and that's a clearly metal guitar solo too. Muse may get so poppy that they reach disco but they get heavy too. They have an impressive range and that's what I like about them the most.

And so, yet again, after concentrating so much on discovering obscure gems of bands to introduce to the world (and me), I find myself late to a mainstream party. This is Muse's ninth studio album and they've been huge since their second, Origin of Symmetry in 2001, so I have no excuses, but I'm very happy to have finally started to catch up.

Spirit Adrift - 20 Centuries Gone (2022)

Country: USA
Style: Heavy Metal
Rating: 7/10
Release Date: 19 Aug 2022
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I've enjoyed the last couple of Spirit Adrift albums, because Nate Garrett, who used to be the only member of the band, has been knocking them out relatively often. I gave Divided by Darkness and Enlightened in Eternity a 7/10 each, but that's a little misleading because they're albums I enjoy a great deal. They're traditional heavy metal, played with a strong emphasis on doom but with a lot progressive influences, and that's kind of against the grain in the U.S. right now, where a number of websites who should know better are using New Wave of American Heavy Metal as a tag for the most prominent batch of nu metal divas instead of bands like Spirit Adrift, where it would apply.

This isn't another new album to follow on from the ones in 2019 and 2020, but it's album length and it opens with a couple of new tracks. I really dig Sorcerer's Fate, the opener, which mixes the clean Iron Maiden guitarwork and heavy Black Sabbath riffing with a pacy doom feel and a psychedelic second half that's magnetic. This one feels like an epic of a journey, though it's only five and a half minutes in length. If this is what Garrett is writing nowadays, I'm even more eager for the next full length album.

The other new track is Mass Formation Psychosis, which is another good one, even if it hasn't stuck its claws into me as deeply as the opener. Again, there's a lot here, in its six and a half minutes, an impressive leap from a couple of acoustic chords to plodding heavy riffs in a heartbeat to get it on the road. It's a monster of a track, rhythmically stomping everything in its path, until it slows down into a Sabbath groove and mostly stays there. It's a less ambitious track for sure, but it's played as if Garrett and whichever of his new colleagues got on board in time really mean it. All of them are new to the band this year.

So that's a pretty impressive single, which is one way we can look at this release: two new tracks a new album would be proud to boast. However, instead of that approach, Garrett decided to tackle a diverse set of covers to boost this up to album length. There are half a dozen of them and I'd say that they count as unusual choices, if not the true deep cuts that Andy McCoy dug out of his mind for Jukebox Junkie. For instance, there's a Pantera track here and, as you probably guessed, it's a song from Vulgar Display of Power, but it may be the last such you'd guess, being the power ballad Hollow. It's an interesting choice that makes us wonder why and the others do likewise.

One reason might be the lyrics, because they're about personal loss, as are the lyrics to the track before it here, Type O Negative's Everything Dies. It's hard not to read something into those two being the first two covers here. Suddenly there's catharsis in the Hollow guitar solo. Sure, anyone playing in doom metal is going to drench themselves in darkness but this choice seems unlikely to be coincidence. I hope everything's copacetic with Garrett. I should add that I've heard both these songs before, but don't know either well, so I'm not hearing the originals in my brain as I listen to these versions. I wonder if Garrett was drawn to each for containing very different sections.

I do, however, know the other four very well and my questions are more about why such a diverse set of choices, questions that I probably answered right there. There's Escape, from my favourite Metallica album, Ride the Lightning, and it's always been an underheard gem in my mind, even if Hetfield hates it with a passion, so I am very happy to see it trawled out by Spirit Adrift. However, Garrett can't resist shifting to the riff in Creeping Death to fade out, as if he was at least a little unsure of his choice. Either would be solid and it's not surprising to me that he chose a Metallica song from the old days, given his choice of styles.

However, the remaining three are seventies rock songs and they're much greater departures for a traditional heavy/doom metal band. They're not the most famous songs by their respective bands and often not the most famous on their respective albums, but anyone who grew up listening to a diet of classic rock in the seventies or eighties ought to recognise them immediately: Waiting for an Alibi, Nasty Dogs and Funky Kings and Poison Whiskey. What's telling to me is that they're not reinvented here, just played in the styles of the original, right down to the guitar tone on that ZZ track, though the Skynyrd does end up in Maiden territory. I don't think there's any deep meaning here, just Garrett having fun. As did I listening to them.

Amon Amarth - The Great Heathen Army (2022)

Country: Sweden
Style: Melodic Death Metal
Rating: 7/10
Release Date: 5 Aug 2022
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There's a genre of crime fiction called cozy mysteries, the opposite of hardboiled detective stories because all the awful things that happen—and they're still rooted in murder—are kept away from the fore and the often female, often amateur sleuths quietly figure out whodunit without a lot of fuss. And then they get back to their cats and their chocolate and whatever signature dishes they have in their ovens. The reason I mention this is because it's hard not to like them. They're like an antidote to a down day. Just pick one up and suddenly you're turning the last page and the clouds have receded a little. And Amon Amarth are kind of cozy death metal for much the same reason.

I find it really hard to not like Amon Amarth. Everything they release is immediately accessible, as pleasant on a first listen as on a tenth. Their best songs can take root in our skulls to come out and play at random moments that we don't expect, but the majority sound good going in but promptly leave again to make room for the next one. And that means that, like most Amon Amarth albums, I enjoyed this one from the opener, Get in the Ring, to the closer, The Serpent's Tail three quarters of an hour later, and then promptly forgot whodunit.

Maybe part of this is because their focus on Viking history and mythology lends a brotherly sense of cameraderie to their sound. They've never been Viking metal, per se, but it's not hard to listen to a song like Find a Way or Make One and imagine yourself sitting in a centuries old wooden pub clinking large glasses of mead with whoever's sat around your table. Some of it is in the pleasant melodies wrought by guitarists Oliva Mikkonen and Johan Söderberg. It doesn't matter how fast or slow Jocke Wallgren plays his drums, those melodies weave around the room like magic.

And, quite frankly, a lot of it comes from the vocals of Johan Hegg, one of three founder members still in the band today. He sings in a gruff growl that doesn't carry any of the demonic overtones of the early death metal genre. He's like a giant teddy bear. We appreciate his skill in delivery, especially when he adds a narrative section in The Serpent's Tail, but he never sounds remotely threatening. We sit back and listen and, when he's done, we just ask what he's drinking and get the next round in.

All of which means that this is another Amon Amarth album. If they're your favourite band—and I can imagine that a good percentage of their fans consider them their favourite band—then this is another one. It doesn't do a single thing that you haven't heard already but you're going to love it anyway because they do what they do incredibly well. They're so tight that we don't even notice it any more. It's just a given, just like the subject matter and the riffs and every other aspect, right down to the pristine production by Andy Sneap.

The rest of us, who can't help but enjoy them but don't believe that the sun rises and falls on their say, want something else and there aren't too many moments that stand out. Oden Owns You All starts out as one, because the album suddenly feels urgent, the drums faster, the guitars deeper and, well, a little threat apparent. The beautifully intricate guitar duel during the midsection of Dawn of Norsemen is another. And Saxons and Vikings is the pinnacle of more.

That's not because it feels playful from the outset, though that doesn't hurt. It's because, oh hey, that's not Johan Hegg's voice all of a sudden. And, every old metalhead will immediately know it's Biff Byford of Saxon, his appearance perhaps heralded by the song's title. Saxon have got heavier over the years, but hearing Byford over a comfortable melodic death metal backdrop felt as if he had come home. He's a natural. Maybe Saxon should heavy up a little more!

And that's about it. Nothing I say here will make any difference to whether you pick this up or not or indeed how much you'll enjoy it. It is what it is and that'll be enough if you're an Amon Amarth fan. And yeah, this wasn't the greatest day but I feel a little better for having listened to this. And yet on I go to the next album, feeling no real need to listen to The Great Heathen Army again.

Mike Tramp - For Første Gang (2022)

Country: Denmark
Style: Melodic Rock
Rating: 6/10
Release Date: 2 Sep 2022
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Mike Tramp is probably still best known for being the singer in glam metal band White Lion, but it wasn't his first band and it wasn't his last either, as he moved into Freak of Nature, who were very good indeed. He's been putting out solo albums for the last couple of decades but I've only heard the most reent one, Second Time Around, which contained re-recordings of songs previously on his 2009 album, Mike Tramp & The Rock 'n' Roll Circuz. It was decent stuff, firmly on the lighter side of classic rock, reminding of people like Jon Bon Jovi, Bruce Springsteen or John Cougar Mellencamp. It ended up averaged out to a heavy Bryan Adams sound.

This one, on the other hand, averages out to a light James Taylor sound. There are only ballads on offer and they range from Eurovision-style pop ballads to, well, not much heavier rock ballads. The best is probably the opener, Det Jeg Var, which could be a rock song if it wanted to be—it doesn't—and kept on growing on me. It didn't seem like much to start with, but I may have just needed to adjust, given that I've been listening to Behemoth and Amon Amarth, and get back into a melodic rock mindset. Halfway through, I was really digging it and, by the end, I'd started humming along.

For a while, it worked for me. Vejkort is infectious too, another rock song and one with guitars, an occasion worthy of note here because the most frequent instrument here beyond Tramp's voice is a piano. It also has oddly sticky sounding drums to keep a beat, again not something to take at all for granted here, as the drums fade in importance with the album until they're gone entirely on a closer, called Album, that places Tramp against piano and a mist of orchestration. I can't say that I didn't enjoy the soft brass that takes both Album—the song—and the album, home, but I'd expect it more on an early seventies Tom Waits release.

It's worth mentioning here that one important angle both works for me and doesn't and that's an entirely Danish lyric sheet. Tramp's prior dozen solo albums were all recorded in English but this is entirely in his native Danish. From a vocal standpoint, that's great because, as good as he sounds in a foreign tongue, there's a level of intonation in play that's difficult to find unless a language is completely second nature and has been since being a toddler. He sounds amazing here, better yet than usual. The catch is that I have no idea what he's singing, because I don't speak Danish, and it would seem that the words are important here. They certainly were for Tom Waits.

So, without knowing what the words mean, and assuming that they're rather meaningful, I have to rely on the music and that's tough here because it just isn't the focus. Whoever's performing here does the job they're asked to do, so I have no complaints. It's just that this album is all about voice and, to a much lesser degree, solo piano, and, while I can happily soothe an evening away with one of Suzanne Ciani's Pianissimo releases, I can't even dip into that listening mode here. I'm missing one of the most important angles to the album.

And that means that the second half fades for me until that brass shows up on Album and the first half shifts away from me with the title track. For Første Gang For Altid is much softer than the two openers, being a ballad that feels romantic to me. It's the most Eurovision song here, not only for its soft pop/rock ballad approach but because there's disco creeping in around the edges and ooh and aah backing vocals. They'd have lapped this up in the seventies, as indeed they did when Mike Tramp was the lead singer for pop band Mabel, who won the Danish Song Contest in 1978. It's not my sort of thing though.

And, as good as this is from a subjective standpoint, it really ends up firmly on the not my sort of thing list. I really enjoyed hearing Tramp's voice again and especially hearing it sing in his native language, but this may be the softest album I've ever reviewed and it may remain that way. I liked Det Jeg Var and Jeg Holder Fast and I'd actually put them both above Vejkort, which is as heavy as this album gets, not much of a bar in the same way that I'm sure there's a most brutal Tellytubby but it's not likely to be fronting a street gang, but the rest would seem light even for fans of Bryan Adams.

Clutch - Sunrise on Slaughter Beach (2022)

Country: USA
Style: Hard Rock
Rating: 8/10
Release Date: 16 Sep 2022
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This thirteenth studio album from Maryland hard rock touring machines Clutch sounds good from the outset but it gets better. I liked Slaughter Beach more than I did Red Alert (Boss Metal Zone). I liked Mountain of Bone more than I did Slaughter Beach. And I had a blast with Nosferatu Madre, which grabbed me immediately and is still probably my favourite song here. It's a simple song but a highly effective one from its opening riff, which plays up the Sabbath influence that's never far away with Clutch. The rolling drums over that simple guitar work so well. It's over and done in 3:27 and, if Mercy Brown hadn't kicked in with bells, I'd have just repeated it for a while.

Red Alert is a up tempo opener and it sounds good, especially when its urgency dissipates and the breakdown sounds fascinating, maybe in the vaguely mystical way suggested by the cover art. The kinda sorta title track is quintessential Clutch, at once overtly simple but deceptively ingenious. It flows along on another ocean of grooves, just like everything here because there are few bands in the business who are so effortless with their conjuration of groove. Mountain of Bone has one of my favourite grooves here, built out of power chords and rolling drums. They're all good songs.

But then Nosferatu Madre arrives and the album levels up. As it continues, we're treated to a set of tracks that all sound immediately recognisable as Clutch but shift into slightly different musical territories. We Strive for Excellence is another urgent song but it's sassy too, which isn't a typical combination and not an easy one to master. Skeletons on Mars finds a spacy groove, some synths adding to an impressive use of feedback to conjure the scene. This one absolutely demands more listens, because one isn't enough. Three Golden Horns follows suit, seeping into our skins.

After Nosferatu Madre, which I find myself having to deliberately keep away from just so that I can review the rest of the album, my favourites here are Mercy Brown and Jackhammer Our Names, a very different pair of tracks that move even further from the default Clutch sound. It's perhaps telling that the former is at the very heart of the album and the latter closes it out.

Mercy Brown feels epic and, I guess, for Clutch it is, given that it runs an expansive 5:15. Yeah, that doesn't sound like much but this is Clutch and not Dream Theater. That's almost two minutes more than Nosferatu Madre and a minute long than anything else on offer. These nine songs wrap up in not much over half an hour because this band has no fat on its bones. What Mercy Brown has are a few elements that shift into proggy territory for them, not just those bells but a second half with a Clare-Torry-style vocalisation solo over the music.

Jackhammer Our Names feels rather like Nick Cave, because it's brooding and poetic and also for a few very recognisable chord progressions. the haunting vocalisation that floats behind the late parts of the song helps that too. It's the quietest piece of music here, but that doesn't mean that it isn't heavy, because it is very heavy, just in a different way. Mercy Brown adds the departures to their heavy sound. This one replaces their heavy sound with a different heavy sound. While it felt a little derivative on a first listen, it keeps speaking to me on repeats.

And, quite frankly, so does everything here, though the early songs are taking longer to engage to the full degree. I don't think they're just overshadowed by Nosferatu Madre—yeah, I finally took those self-imposed restraints off and went back to it to find it as glorious as ever. They're merely Clutch songs that sound like Clutch songs, while everything else adds a little something new. Last time I saw Clutch live was in support to Motörhead, which immediately dates that gig. It's great to see that, thirteen albums in, they're still absolutely on top of their game.

Behemoth - Opvs Contra Natvram (2022)

Country: Poland
Style: Black Metal
Rating: 7/10
Release Date: 16 Sep 2022
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Legendary Polish extreme metallers Behemoth have been around for over thirty years now, which makes them kind of an institution. Given that everything Nergal has got up to in that time, from a series of trials for blasphemy for ripping up a Bible to his stint as a coach on The Voice of Poland, it becomes difficult not to see them that way. However, this is only their twelfth studio album, their release schedule hovering around every four years right now.

I remember enjoying them in the mid nineties and whenever they've crossed my path in the years since, but it's been a while since I've heard a full album from them, so Post-God Nirvana was rather unexpected. It's a neat, if long intro, rather like a Coil layer applied to Heilung, though it's heavier than either with a buzzsaw guitar eventually showing up to underline that. It's a slow and chanting piece to kick things off. And an angry one. There's a lot of anger on this album.

And then Malaria Vvlgata explodes out of the gates like a TGV from a tunnel, dominating all in its path. Behemoth may have shifted in style from pure black metal to become pioneers of the black/death metal hybrid style, but I'm out of date with where they've ended up on that spectrum. This album plays to me far closer to black than death. It doesn't feel at all like blackened death metal. Maybe we could call it deathened black metal, but that's just clumsy and I'd plump for black metal pure and simple. It's fast and it's furious but somehow the guitar solo still manages to add a level. This one has energy to spare.

The Deathless Sun adds a few symphonic and choral elements that continue to elevate the album. The choral side isn't front and centre but it shows up at points to add texture, whether at the start of Ov My Herculean Exile or later in Thy Becoming Eternal, where the voices are almost teasing in a back and forth with Nergal. There's a repeated keyboard swell in Off to War! that feels acutely like a summoning. These do background things but they all add to the whole.

However, Nergal still feels angry. It sounds like he's still combining a black shriek and death growl but adding a cry of frustration to the mix. It doesn't hurt that the lyrics echo this. "I am nothing." "I am no-one." This cry is especially obvious on the closer Versvs Christvs, which is, of all things, an almost whispered ballad for its first minute and change. When it heavies up, because of course it does, it doesn't get fast immediately and that transition ably highlights how angry Nergal is here.

And that anger works wonders. The more frantic a song is and the more Nergal emotes, the better it plays to me. The sheer energy of Malaria Vvlgata is difficult to match but the beginning of Neo-Spartacvs manages it. And, quite frankly, liking the fastest material isn't that surprising to me as a thrash fan at heart. However, I found myself connecting more with the consistency that arrives in the second half, from Disinheritance to Thy Becoming Eternal. On the first side, I'm listening to an impressive set of individual songs. On the second, I'm listening to an album.

And I think that's what Nergal and co. are aiming for. There's still death metal here but it's clearly not the priority that black metal is. However, this is far from a return to their early years. It's a lot more commercial and accessible than the early Behemoth ever were, even though they show how they can still absolutely rip on faster sections and songs like Malaria Vvlgata that don't stop for a breather. I like this more mature black metal Behemoth and look forward to their lucky thirteenth album in another four years.

Razor - Cycle of Contempt (2022)

Country: Canada
Style: Speed/Thrash Metal
Rating: 6/10
Release Date: 23 Sep 2022
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Here's another blast from the past, this time from Canada, from the Ontario city of Guelph where I have some good old friends. Razor are kind of like good old friends too, given that my first Razor album was Evil Invaders back in 1985. I enjoyed them for a few years, nothing later matching that album but still enjoyable, but I lost track of them after Violent Restitution in 1988, as real life had sudden demands on my time. It was good to see their name crop up again as I thought they'd been gone for years. And they kind of had been, given that this is their first album since 1997, which is a quarter of a century. Welcome back, folks!

Nowadays, the line-up features two founder members. One is Dave Carlo on guitar, whose riffs are less biting than they used to be because he's warmed up his sound, but he's as good as ever and his solos still rip. The other is Mike Campagnalo, whose rumbling bass underpins the Razor sound and gives the rest of the band something solid to build on. He gets a few spotlight moments, whether that's during a pause for effect, where he rumbles along on his own, or in an intro like Punch Your Face In.

The new fish is Rider Johnson, who's on his second stint with the band, even though he didn't join until 2014. He's solid, whether playing slowly during the first half of Darkness Falls or at the more usual frantic pace of a speed metal band. In between is Bob Reid, who joined in 1989, so has been a mainstay in the band ever since I stopped listening. That's coincidence, of course, but it's telling, as he seems to be the biggest reason why this album is happening, being the driving force behind the Razor reunion in 1997, and my least favourite aspect to it.

He does what he does well, but it's not what I expect from a speed metal band. The lead vocalist in my day was Stace "Sheepdog" McLaren, who left because he'd lost his passion for being in a band, leading Reid to take over not only behind the mike but as the impetus behind the band continuing to function. McLaren had a wild voice that I'd say is more suited to the genre, rough and raw and as willing to scream as squeal or whatever other vocalisation is needed at any particular moment. To me, Reid has a more focused approach that's primarily aggressive, perhaps appropriate for a post-Pantera world.

That's backed up by the lyrics, which are primarily in your face aggressive and delivered with an in your face aggressive attitude. Remember the insane scream at the beginning of The Marshall Arts that was a statement of intent on the Violent Restitution album? That sort of thing isn't here because Reid isn't into that. He's into threatening to punch you in the face, whether that's conversationally in the closer, King Shit, or through the strictly regimented cadence of most of these songs. He fits with the lyrics, but the lyrics aren't exactly subtle, as you'll find in Jabroni, Punch Your Face In, All Fist Fighting, Off Your Meds, Crossed... well, pretty much all of them. This is fight music.

If what Reid does is your sort of thing, then you're going to be happy with this album, because he does what he does consistently throughout. If you came to thrash from punk, you may love this. If you came to thrash from NWOBHM, maybe not so much. I found that his approach led to an album that's one note and I wanted a lot more variety. It was at its best for me when it was instrumental, so my favourite song is easily the title track, being a couple of minutes longer than the norm, thus allowing for a couple of minutes of glorious riffing to kick it off and a strong instrumental section for solos in the second half.

After that, I'd probably go for All Fist Fighting, because Reid speeds up his delivery and makes it a lot more urgent and passionate. He still uses his rough but powerful punk voice but it feels real to me, instead of a rehearsed threat intended to prod someone into throwing the first punch. It's the difference between Anthrax with Joey Belladonna (or even Neil Turbin) and Anthrax behind Billy Milano. As much as I enjoyed Speak English or Die, I'm always going to go for the former and this is an album for those who want the latter.

So it's a 6/10 from me, I think. The band are solid and tight and still agreeably fast and I'm gleeful that they're back, but I think they've moved a little away from me.

Revival Black - Under the Light (2022)

Country: UK
Style: Hard Rock
Rating: 7/10
Release Date: 26 Aug 2022
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Revival Black are only on their second studio album, but it's going to have a lot of eyes on it, as its esteemed predecessor, Step in Line, featured very high on a bunch of lists in 2019 and topped at least one, and I should add their live album did the same during COVID. How have they translated that success and critical acclaim into the always difficult second album? Well, pretty well, as it happens.

The songs are good, though maybe not quite as instant as last time, but I'm falling in love all over again with how loud they sound on record. You could play this one on low volume and it would still seem loud, because of how the production handles the guitar. I love how the producer managed to crank it up so far without it turning into distorted static. That guitar sounds like it's actually being played live, to the degree that I almost wandered off to the bathroom with that joyous ringing in the ears that's there when we leave a venue after a good gig. There's a moment in Broken Home that sounds like I was still at the gig, the band's sound filtered through the walls.

I particularly like this because every component to this band's sound is traditionally played clean, whether it's the soulful old Bad Company hard rock sound, the power chords out of classic rock or the southern rock edge that's obvious in Dan Byrne's vocals—he often seems a cross between the soul of Ronnie van Zandt and the nasal edge of Mike Patton—but the guitars as well. However, the production makes those guitars dirty enough that the band aren't really playing instruments but simply manipulating the energy in the room into a musical form, like glassblowers hurling liquid glass around until it turns into an object of beauty.

The only catch to what Revival Black do is that everything feels so condensed, as if these aren't the songs but the purest essence of them that they'll happily rehydrate when they hit the stage. Every song gets right down to business, does what it needs to do and promptly leaves, job complete. If a song has an intro, like Broken Home or Wrong Side, it's generally wrapped up in under ten seconds so that we can't accuse anyone of lounging around. Even Alan Rimmer's guitar solos, which are an overt highlight, are as lean and mean as possible. I wanted them to keep going, especially on Left of Me and Wrong Side. Maybe they will on stage.

All that means that only the side enders feel like they have room to breathe. Hemispheres starts out without the dense sound we've become accustomed to and it's incredibly noticeable, as if the silence is suddenly bleak. It's a ballad and it feels all the more emotional because the guitar isn't there to overload our senses for for a couple of minutes. Hurricane has a breakdown midway that feels like the band suddenly decided to want to slap their names on an epic. Of course, given that they're Revival Black, epic means five minutes rather than ten.

I like these longer songs and would love for the band to write more like them that have a sense of patience to them. They're really good at stormers, as the opening couple of tracks here underline. Believe is a fantastic opener and Take You Out follows suit but with even greater success, courtesy of a backing vocal that becomes a theme, phrased like a gospel chant that a preacher at a revival might use to stir us up. Is that coincidence, given the band's name? I doubt it. But as strong as the pair of them are and as much as I enjoy them every time through, it's the (slightly) longer songs I have to call out as the highlights.

And that means that this is another really strong album from Revival Black, but there are hints at what they can do beyond just kicking our collective asses with three and a half minute belter after three and a half minute belter and I want a lot more of that. In fact, I have a feeling that, a couple of albums from now, they're going to be seen in a slightly different light, one where their talents at writing songs will be acknowledged alongside their ability to own the stage whenever they get up and start playing. For now, it's almost strange to hear them without crowd noise.