Italian hard rock veterans Bad Bones, as usual, put in an honest shift on new album Hasta El Final!, coming up with a varied album full of what Grand Funk Railroad might have termed ‘good singin’ and good playin”…

They throw in a bit of a curveball with opening headbanger Bandits, which strangely enough sounds a bit like Lemmy jamming with Helloween, but after that the trio knuckles down to deliver a set of dependably tuneful hard rock and heavy roll. Wanderers & Saints add a little radio friendly AOR sheen to the mix, whilst best track Sand On My Teeth, which features a superb solo from Mekk Borra, a lovely bass tone from Steve Balocco and crucial cowbell interjections from drummer Lele Balocco, will remind longstanding fans of just why they fell in love with the band in the first place. Similarly the slightly punkier To Kill Somebody finds all three operating at the peak of their powers, delivering a sonorous body blow to the senses that shows real songwriting maturity.

If this is your first contact with Bad Bones – first off, what took you so long? – Hasta El Final! is a great introduction, showcasing the band’s many and varied talents in neat, compact gobbets of melodiousness; Rocking metal (Behind The Liar’s Eyes) jostles with metal-tinged rock (Libertad) for the listener’s attention, and, despite a slightly dry production that doesn’t always give the players the support they deserve, in terms of songwriting this is an album that’s as strong as any the band has released to date.

Hasta El Final! releases on March 17th.