Blood Of The Sun

Blood’s Thicker Than Love Listenable Texan retro rockers’ first album since 2012.

This southern sextet proudly describe themselves on social media handles as ‘70s style hard rock’, and that’s reflected immediately in a vaguely innuendous title of this fifth album, alongside an album sleeve falling just the right side of the sexy/sexist divide and a logo font that probably last saw the light of day on a Top Of The Pops compilation.

Happily, though, the music is of equally vintage quality. And for a band specialising in fastpaced, snappy, NWOBHM-influenced metal, they don’t half like their songs long. There are just six here, the shortest clocking in just shy of six minutes, but there are enough flinty riffs and spiky hooks on the likes of the Motörhead-inspired Keep The Lemmys Coming and the Purple-ish Livin’ For The Night to justify an extended jam or two. Jon Lord-style organ flourishes and twin-guitar solos make welcome regular appearances, and all told it’s breathless, timeless stuff. Can we ask not to wait six years for the next instalment, please?