Label: Frontiers Music Srl.
Release date: February 17, 2023
Production: Alessandro Del Vecchio
Album length: 44.18 min
Genre: Hard Rock
Rating: 8.5/10
Robin McAuley, the revered Irish hard rock vocalist who recently popped back onto the radar through his work in Michael Schenker Fest and Black Swan, and who’s known for cutting some killer albums with Schenker under the McAuley Schenker Group banner, is back. Two years after the release of “Standing On The Edge”, he returns with its follow-up, “Alive”.
Before we put his latest album under the microscope, let’s shore up McAuley’s status a bit. Robin McAuley is one of the most recognizable hard rock singers out there. His voice marks the albums of eighties bands Grand Prix and Far Corporation, and of course the MSG albums “Perfect Timing,” “Save Yourself” and “MSG”. After leaving McAuley Schenker Group, he released his first solo studio album “Business As Usual” in 1999, then joined AOR icons Survivor. In the years that followed, he teamed up with Michael Schenker again in Michael Schenker Fest and recorded the albums “Resurrection” and “Revelation”. In 2020 he became part of the star-studded hard rock quartet Black Swan, rounded out by Reb Beach (Whitesnake, Winger), Jeff Pilson (Foreigner, ex-Dokken) and Matt Starr (Ace Frehley, Mr Big). They’ve put out two albums so far, the latest, “Generation Mind”, last year.
McAuley keeps his voice in superb shape even in the mature era of his musical career. That wasn’t hard to tell on the predecessor “Standing On The Edge”, and the new album “Alive” confirms it once again. The next thought might sound a bit corny, but here goes. Frontiers Music Srl, the label behind this album, set McAuley up with a whole studio crew. They not only played all the material on it, but also wrote it and handled the album’s production. Without this crew, there’d be no McAuley solo albums. A man of such vocal caliber and charisma, with no album? That would be a shame, even though McAuley is tied up with Black Swan, which, once again, is Frontiers Music Srl’s doing. So? Alessandro Del Vecchio is the quiet player in the background who pulls all the threads together into a format tailored to first-class hard rock bombast. There’s nothing on this album we haven’t heard before, but McAuley’s striking, excellent vocals give even this kind of (generic) platform the twist it needs. The vocal presence of McAuley’s charismatic performance holds the center, and everything on the album revolves around it. We can say flat out that it shines.
The songs deliver the required bombast, a brew of ravenous stage drama and instant musical hookiness. This should stir up MSG fans from the era when Schenker worked with McAuley. That’s the bare minimum. And it’s plenty to talk about high credibility, not just for the predecessor but also for Robin McAuley’s latest studio album “Alive”, which keeps up the predecessor’s high quality. Like I said: McAuley remains a vocal nightingale even at a round seventy. Razor-sharp, explosive, majestic and, to a degree, even astonishingly powerful in his charismatic punch, he’s been shining on the hard rock scene all along the road he’s traveled, and he does it with full intensity in 2023 too. The only exception is the dreadful album cover, but that doesn’t play a (primary) role in the actual musical artistry.
Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Tracklist:
1. Alive
2. Dead As A Bone
3. Bless Me Father
4. Feel Like Hell
5. Can’t Go On
6. The Endless Mile
7. Fading Away
8. My Only Son
9. When The Time Has Come
10. Stronger Than Before
11. Who I Am
Lineup:
Robin McAuley – vocals
Andrea Seveso – guitar
Alessandro Del Vecchio – bass guitar, keyboards
Nicholas Papapicco – drums
