THUNDER: Rip It Up (HARD ROCK): review / opinion to read on Music Waves

In their 28 years of career, Thunder has gone through all kinds of states, breaking up and reforming several times, enjoying huge success in the UK but remaining unknown in Europe. What has never changed is their energy, their pleasure to play and the melodic quality of their very British hard rock. So when a new offering from Thunder pops up, in this case this "Rip It Up" in early 2017, the impatience to push the "play" button itches the phalanges.

This excitement is nevertheless tinged with a slight apprehension because the 2009 "Bang" had not transcended the fans, due to a perceptible exhaustion of the band at the head of its own label. Now back under the leadership of a big stable, Thunder had released an encouraging "Wonder Days" in 2015 and is back in top shape with a "Rip It Up" that is the most telling expression of it. Indeed, Luke Morley's latest delivery recaptures the magical Thunder recipe of the band's heyday with hard rock burns with unstoppable melodies ('The Chosen One', 'Shake Down'), sharp and twirling guitars ('Heartbreak Hurricane') and the rediscovered inspiration of his creative brain.

The English have also built a reputation thanks to softer tracks, bluesy ballads on which Morley's writing and the powerful voice of Dany Bowes, often compared to Robert Plant, are marvelous. This last opus does not break with this tradition and even pushes the exercise further with an exemplary ballad 'Right From The Start' or a haunting and heady blues, the superb 'In Another Life'. Luke Morley's solos make these last two tracks take off even more. Special mention also to 'The Chosen One', mid-tempo hard rock in the purest tradition of the band with its numerous guitars that accompany the choruses and verses with catchy rhythmic phases reminding the work that had made the success of "The Magnifient Seven" in 2005.

If some tracks are less immediate and the opening of the album a little sluggish with the eponymous 'Rip It Up' or the introductive 'No One Gets Out Alive', the pleasure of the musicians transpires from each track. Their osmosis is perceptible throughout the exercise and the euphoria is communicative. The blues-rock titles follow one another at the end of the album and the rumbling riffs make you tap your feet on 'Tumbling Down' with its intro as a as a wink to Roger Daltrey, or shake your head on 'The Enemy Inside'.

Thunder does what it can do at best - English hard rock - and their immediately recognizable style is always present. The five Englishmen don't reinvent anything except their history which they continue to write in the continuity of their already long career. "Rip It Up" is one more stone in the band's flawless edifice, a rock nugget that will delight all hard rock fans, and that will certainly take an extra dimension in concert. - Official website

THUNDER

RIP IT UP

EAR MUSIC

HARD ROCK