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Black Star Riders - The Killer Instinct

Label: Nuclear Blast
Format: CD download
Released: 2015
Reviewed By: Mark Gromen
Rating: 7.5/ 10


Lest you've been living under a rock, Black Star Riders are the remnants of Thin Lizzy, wisely foregoing that hallowed moniker, now that ex-Almighty singer Ricky Warwick is fronting the band, with guitarist Scott Gorham, long a member of those venerable Irish hard rockers, who dates back to the days with Phil Lynott (R.I.P.). While the names might have changed, essentially the sound remains the same (to paraphrase one of their contemporaries). The sophomore effort contains 10 tracks, although the deluxe edition includes a second, bonus disc, with a pair of non-album tracks (acoustic-only ‘Gabrielle’ and slide guitar stomp ‘The Reckoning Day’) and acoustic versions of four others that re-appear elsewhere.

 

Musically, this picks up where the surprisingly successful (and superior) “All Hell Breaks Loose” debut left off, a retrospective of Lizzy styles, from all out rockers (like the unofficial USA national anthem: ‘Sex, Guns & Gasoline’), a bluesy ‘You Little Liar’, whiskey soaked mid-tempo numbers (‘Charlie I Gotta Go’), acoustic ballads (countrified ‘Blindsided’) and everything in between, with Warwick ably slotted into the spotlight. Past, overt Irish-isms have been tempered a bit. In fact, ‘Turn In Your Arms’ opens with a recurrent Native American rhythm. Variations on a theme, a historic, well-loved theme.

 
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