An excellent delivery with a slew of bouncing bombastic behemoths.

“It’s a mystery, it’s a mystery, we’re all searching for a clue” so sung Punk pixie Toyah. It could be about this; there’s just no detail to go with this album. Ah, but Sherlock Google makes it elementary; this is Phil Vincent’s baby with a Vince O’Regan midwife. Not their first either and it shows; this is an excellent delivery with a slew of bouncing bombastic behemoths.

The riffs ring out and the beat batters you but they have the balls to soften it up and some of these choruses are pristine AOR sharers; they make ‘Open Fire’ more interesting than it perhaps should be and ‘Walking In Your Footsteps’ has the Melodic Rock family album clasped to its bosom; these are clear successes.

They have audacity too, how else then to explain ‘My Sacrifice’ closely mimicking ‘Kashmir’ which is surely in the same “do not touch” ballpark as ‘Burn’; they don’t half try hard to sell it.

Yes, they lose impetus occasionally; ‘Do Or Die’ has a vocal like Absolva’s Chris Appleton, but that is the only thing to really recommend it whereas ‘Piece Of Your Heart’ is bubblegum popping Sleaze with a bubbly solo but is entirely expected.

‘Tempest’ is not just a Rock album; this has fists to the face but a cup to the balls too. You can’t say fairer than that on a Saturday night... can you?

Steve Swift