The Dead Daisies

★★★

Holy Ground THE DEAD DAISIES PTY LTD.

CD/DL/LP

Aussie/British/American hard rock collective’s fifth.

Masterminded by David Lowy, guitar-playing principal of his family’s private investment firm, The Dead Daisies have always seemed like a millionaire’s vanity project, as if Lowy is signing up estranged members of Whitesnake and Journey to help indulge his rock star fantasies. And now he’s landed his biggest catch yet: Deep Purple’s ex-singing bassist Glenn Hughes, whose almighty roar elevates Holy

Ground, just as it did The KLF’s What Time Is Love? in 1991.

It all sounds disgustingly expensive – the musical equivalent of a custom supercar – but fun. Unspoken thunders away like The Who’s Won’t Get Fooled Again played by a metal covers band, while moonlighting Whitesnake guitarist Doug Aldrich manages to rein it in on a cover of Humble Pie’s 30 Days In The Hole. Hughes’s voice papers over the songwriting cracks, but everyone sounds like they’re having the time of their lives.