Four years after a debut album which proved a cult melodic rock success, Blanc Faces are back with a sophomore release, but treading exactly the same ground.The Le Blanc brothers have produced another slice of uplifting, well crafted and defiantly old-fashioned AOR, coming over like a cross between Survivor, Foreigner and Alias, albeit with an updated production.

Robbie Le Blanc's voice perfectly suits a set of positive, optimistic lyrics, slightly unusual in a genre famous for expressing melancholies of lost love. The guitar solos are crisp and clean, and acoustic guitar and piano drive the songs where necessary. Highlights include the Survivor-esque title track, and I Swear, with its stabbing keyboard intro straight from the eighties, but the wistful Goodbye Summer stands out as an AOR classic. There is the odd slightly heavier moment such as Like a believer, and the album could have done with a couple more in this mould, while Fly closes the album with a Dennis De Young-era Styx feel.

Musically challenging it is not, but for lovers of classic AOR this album is marvellously warm and reassuring.

****

Review by Andy Nathan