Amazingly this is the band's seventh album since their debut back in 2004 and every album, bar the poor 'II' has had plenty of melodic hard rock treats and ballads to enjoy. Sadly this album saw a forced line-up change after the death of bassist Marcel Jacob (the opening song 'Heaven And Earth' is a tribute to him) and he is replaced by Nalley Pahlsson.

There are two first rate ballads on here. First up 'Candle In The Dark' which features a heart wrenching vocal from Mikael Erlandsson along and 'Jenny's Eyes' which rounds the album off in style. This features some tasty guitar work from Andy Malecek.

For the uptempo melodic hard rockers look no further than 'Caught In Between', which has a Talisman feel to it and upon closer insepction that's hardly surprising as Jeff Scott Soto wrote the lyrics. 'Top Of The World' and 'Last Mistake' also get the old foot tapping, the latter features Jeff Scott Soto again, this time on backing vocals and co-writing. There are a couple of songs that don't quite match the quality of the rest of the album like 'Renegade' but they still warrant repeat plays.

This album also contains two inspired covers. First up the Wizard classic 'See My Baby Jive' which the band must have had great fun recording with its deep voiced backing on the song's outro. They stay pretty true to the original although the guitar replaces some of the original horn parts. Cheap Trick's 'Surrender' is the other cover and Erlandsson's voice is a perfect match for that of Robin Zander. Again the band had some fun on the outro adding the band names.

Another fine album from a band who seem to have passed many melodic rock fans by and more's the pity. Rectify that now and grab this new album as it really is a lesson in enjoyable melodic rock.

****

Review by Jason Ritchie