Black Star Riders, Another State Of Grace - album review
This supergroup continue to carve themselves a comfortable little nook in the contemporary rock world.
Black Star Riders - featuring Thin Lizzy’s Scott Gorham and Ricky Warwick, Robbie Crane (RATT), Christian Martucci (Stone Sour) and Chad Szelida (Breaking Benjamin and Black Label Society) – have released their fourth full-length.
And after their last effort Heavy Fire peaked at No.6 in the UK charts in 2017 they will be hoping this latest riff-fest can garner similar success.
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And rip-roaring rock rollercoasters are the order of the day. As are militaristic song titles. Soldier In The Ghetto, Why Do You Love Your Guns?, Standing In The Line Of Fire and In The Shadow Of The War Machine all point to a band with war and destruction on their mind.
The first of those is a tub-thumping and great fun slug-fest. Uplifting guitars and keys dance together over Crane’s funky bass to create a frolicking track with a playful tint thanks to the jagged electronics jingling over the top.
The last of those mentioned has a really dark twang to it through that agitated opening salvo, but it actually opens up into a lighter dance-off thanks to the triple guitar threat of Warwick, Gorham and Martucci.
There’s a touch of glam rock to the screeching Ain’t The End of The World. This fast-paced number cements memories of Thin Lizzy’s Boys Are Back In Town with Warwick’s almost skipping vocal delivery and the singing guitars. They say the band is “the next step in the evolution of the Thin Lizzy story”, and this track is proof of that.
This style is also seen in Tonight The Moonlight Let Me Down. Building verses jostle with the kind of verve and hopefulness you might expect to find in a song covered by the cast of hit teen TV show Glee.
They slow it down as well, with the softer acoustic underbelly to Why Do You Love Your Guns? And it builds to a proper rock ballad of a chorus where the guitars croon with one another for a lighters-in-the-air moment.
It’s a bit too glam rock to ever come across totally serious. But this can be good fun when they do get it right.
Rating: 7/10
Black Star Riders will play KK’s Steelmill at Starworks Warehouse in Wolverhampton on October 25 with support from Walsall’s Stone Broken and Wayward Sons
