Tom Keifer Band

Rise

Cleopatra Gravel throated ex-Cinderella frontman re-enters the fray.

Cinderella may have looked like an explosion in a wig factory when they arrived in 1986, but frontman Tom Keifer always had more grit than your average hair-metal bozo. His second solo(ish) album in six years – and only the sixth album he’s made in four decades – Rise takes Keifer’s bluesy, rootsy rock’n’roll swagger and gives it a modern rock respray that puts it in roughly the same ball park as latter-day Cinderella acolytes Halestorm.

It’s a convincing mash-up of the kind of old and the sort of new. The Death Of Me and Waiting On The Demons sound punchy and modern, although Keifer’s wildcat gargle – a sound that makes Rod Stewart sound as crystal as Sarah Brightman – will always anchor it in the classic. It’s a real shame that Cinderella seem to have gone the way of the dodo for the second and likely final time, but this is a fine substitute. ■■■■■■■■■■