Black Star Riders: Heavy Fire

The album’s title track groans with the promise of feel-good rock and flashy guitar licks, while ‘Dancing With The Wrong Girl’ epitomises that roof-down-drive-at-sunset feeling – think a reincarnation of the Eagles.

Then all is lost. Is that it? Only two good songs? Not what you expect from a band heralded as creating compelling hard rock, and whose members populate the legendary Thin Lizzy in their spare time.

‘True Blue Kid’ is bog-standard, clumsily exacting clean guitar solos in an altogether unremarkable way. In fact, there’s nothing that’s going to make you sit up in your seat anywhere beyond the record’s first 15 minutes.

There is really no other word for Heavy Fire other than ‘nice’ – nice vocals, nice melodies, nice production, but it all leaves you expecting more. You almost find yourself leaning forward in a bid to urge the music on.

Heavy Fire is the sound of driving down a nondescript road with eyes on a destination that’s forever out of reach: a mirage in the desert.

Get unlimited access to the coverage that shapes our culture.

Subscribe to Rolling Stone magazine

Subscribe to Rolling Stone magazine