British metal; it’s a lesson in survival.  After the nuclear holocaust, we’ll still have British metal bands and their legions of devoted fans.  Listening to “This Day is Mine”, the single taken from Rise to Remain’s debut album “City of Vultures”, you can understand why.

The song opens with a 4-bar mid-tempo guitar intro before a thunderous volley of floor toms and bass drum batters the way into the body of the song.  It’s all powered along by a monster of a guitar riff and packs everything you expect from a great metal record into three and a half minutes.

The band have the classic New Wave of British Heavy Metal line-up of bass, drums, two guitars and singer and they’re descended from that movement in one other way; the singer is Austin Dickinson, son of Iron Maiden’s Bruce Dickinson.  It’s all there; the playing is tight, technically brilliant and very aggressive with the two guitars combining effectively in various ways including the harmony playing that Thin Lizzy fans will remember, the rhythm section is a metronomic powerhouse and Austin Dickinson has a great rock voice.

“This Day is Mine” crams in almost every metal trick you can imagine including some great shredding, breakdowns, great vocal harmonies and a big crash ending.  The band is already being tipped as the next big thing in the metal magazines and, on the evidence of this single, it’s easy to see why.  They’re currently on tour in support of their debut album “City of Vultures” (released on September 5).  If you’re at all interested in British rock, they’re well worth seeing.  Find out more at:

www.risetoremain.com .

Whether you love metal or loathe it, you certainly can’t ignore it.  Out on September 19.

Well, it’s a bold move to name your band Messiah.  It creates a certain level of expectation which, ultimately, you have to live up to.  At a time when careers are created by appearing on a talent show singing someone else’s songs, it’s great to be reminded that some bands actually do it the right way by learning to play, performing live and writing songs.Until very recently, Messiah were a 5-piece from Edinburgh who recently released their debut album “Synesthesia” (if you want to know what it means, just google it).  Now they’re a 4-piece, deciding to carry on rather than split following the departure of their lead guitarist and songwriter.  It’s a brave decision, but is it the right one?

There are a lot of good things to say about the album, but there are a lot of jarring little things which don’t quite work as well.  The songs are inventive melodically but often lyrically limited and the influences on the lead guitar parts are sometimes painfully easy to pick out.  The overall sound is obviously influenced by the Stone Roses and the mid-90s Britpop sound, particularly the vocal style but some of the lead guitar work is very derivative.

When the songs, performances and production on the album gel, the results are outstanding.  The album’s second track, “Fantasia”, with the tribal floor tom intro and the vaguely menacing harmonies works perfectly and “Lazy Daisy” is a great Faces/Black Crowes –style riff monster which doesn’t have to mean anything; it just sounds great.  The penultimate track “Let the Good Times Roll” is an acoustic piece which sounds great if you don’t analyze the lyrics too closely and ignore the overdone acoustic guitar soloing under the vocal.  Some of the production and arrangement tricks on the album are a little bit too obvious; a bit too much unison playing with guitar and vocal, bass and guitar and drums and guitar.  Maybe the problem is that a first album is so much easier to get out now.

There was a particular moment at the Stranglers’ Edinburgh gig where the band seemed to have truly succeeded in bringing the audience together. About six songs in, the Picture House was flooded in orange light and a huge chorus reached an even bigger climax:  “Always, always, always the sun!”. No person present could resist singing as loud as they could muster and the sound was incredible. Grins appeared across the faces of everyone onstage, the first time this had occurred the whole night.

This doesn’t mean that the band hadn’t had a good time up to this point. They had already bounced their way through the hit “Peaches” amongst others to everyone’s delight. The Stranglers almost didn’t play the Picture House. It quickly became apparent that Baz Warne had suffered some sort of accident involving a hotel shower door before the show and had one hand almost completely covered in bandages, making the energy of their performance even more surprising. There was of course the odd wince and moments where the guitar would stop as Warne inspected his hand but all this did was make the performance seem more human, something all crowds love, this one in particular.

Despite this, bassist Jean-Jacques Burnel seemed to be doing a very good job at looking as unimpressed with anything as he possibly could. Drummer Jet Black was an extremely tight performer but at his current age of 72 he seemed to be putting all of his energy into keeping this up: at the start of the band’s second song, “Was It You?”, there seemed to be a bit of a mix-up with the setlist. A total of three false starts were played and the culprit seemed to be Black playing the drum part for an entirely different song. Each time the band stopped, Burnel and Warne both turned to Black and exchanged confused and amused looks as they attempted to run it again.

At the age of 46, Baz Warne is the youngest here, replacing Hugh Cornwell as lead vocalist. He brought most of the band’s raw energy to the stage and did all the talking, which didn’t amount to much: only a song introduction here and there and an explanation of his own hand injury.

The band gave the audience a portion of the show to calm down, playing songs that were perhaps not as well known as the obvious hits and favourites of big fans.  This made the return to the signatures extremely welcome and showed how well the Stranglers can craft a setlist, managing to raise the excitement even further by cheekily leaving the enormous rocker “No More Heroes” until the final song of the second encore, finishing the night with a boom. Other songs included in the encore were a stellar version of the Kinks’ “All Day And All Of The Night” and “Hanging Around”.

Of course, it wouldn’t be fair not to mention support act Wilko Johnson who played for a good hour beforehand, still strutting all over the stage as he is famous for. It was remarkable what a sound his band of three, including himself, managed to make as he stormed his way through Dr. Feelgood hits as well as solo material. This was a perfect opening for a consistently rocking night.

One thing you can say about Robbo is that he doesn’t waste any time. After all, it’s only 33 years since he parted company with Thin Lizzy and he’s just released his first solo album. Okay, he had his own band, Wild Horses, and worked with Frankie Miller and Motorhead, but this is his first solo outing since departing from Lizzy at the height of their fame. The album happened as a result of Robbo’s friend Soren listening to some old demo cassettes and suggesting that Robbo should record them as a solo project.

The songs that made the final cut are a mixed bag; some Robertson originals, some Phil Lynott songs, some Frankie Miller songs and some collaborations with Lynott and Miller. Some have been released before and some haven’t. The only element common to all the songs is Robbo himself and the band (Ian Haughland, Nalley Pahlsson, Leif Sundin and Liny Wood) put together for the album.

The album opens with 2 Robbo compositions, the title track, and “Passion” which wouldn’t sound out of place on an 80s Don Henley album and runs through various permutations of Robertson, Miller and Lynott compositions, finishing on the Frankie Miller classic “Ain’t Got No Money”. The poppiest song ever written by Phil Lynott, “Running Back” from the “Jailbreak” album, appears in 2 versions here, a slow blues version and a mid-tempo rocker which works well apart from the jarring piano solo.

It’s obvious, even on the first listen, that Robbo is still a great guitar player. His growling and howling Les Paul/Marshall sound is as distinctive as ever and his solos still show great technique and melodic invention. Even the vocals are good and the rhythm section and production are excellent. Which tells you that there’s a big “but” on the way.

Although Robbo plays virtually everything except drums on this album, he isn’t a one-man-band. He has a talent which only functions properly with a collaborator strong enough to encourage the greatness and to know when to apply the brakes. Apart from the Celtic soul brothers Frankie Miller and Phil Lynott, and perhaps Jimmy Bain (also Scottish), Robbo hasn’t worked with anyone strong enough to bring out the best of his abilities live or on record. The best material on the album is written either by or with Lynott or Miller apart from, possibly, “Texas Wind”.

Robbo’s musical versatility also works against him at times. He’s known mainly as a melodic rock lead guitar player but he grew up playing with a band (Dream Police) which later formed the core of the Average White Band and also played on a live Graham Parker version of “Hold Back the Night”. Most fans like their heroes to stick to one predictable style and Robbo is just too good for that, which is one of the reasons why he always polarises opinion in the rock fraternity.

Brian Robertson, November 1978 (Photo by Allan McKay)

“Diamonds and Dirt” is patchy because the songs are written by a variety of people over a relatively long period of time and some songs don’t wear too well. The one constant throughout the album is the great playing which we expect from a rock hero. If you set aside the rock sectarianism and listen to this album with an open mind, it’s actually really good.