Developing from an all-star project hatched by drummer Mirka Rantanen (last seen in the pages of Sentinel Daily thumping tubs for King Company, if I’m not mistaken), Circus of Rock has now coalesced into a ‘proper’ band and the band is here now with a new full-lengther for your delectation…

King Company is actually a pretty good point of reference here; CoR offer up a muscular take on the Euro hard rock template, with the guitars of Samuli Federley and Vesa Virtanen cranked to eleven and dominating the album’s sonic landscape. The best tracks – the superb Whitesnake tribute Broken Pieces and the dramatic Back For Good – get the mix of muscle and melody spectacularly right, and if the rest of the tracks are slightly more faceless in nature then they lose nothing in the commitment and performance stakes to these two standouts.

Surprisingly, props are due too to vocalist Mark Boals; I’ve never been over keen on his vocal style, and his ‘throat for hire’ status on the scene seems, to me at least, to slightly water down the impact of whatever he lends his talents to, but here he stands proudly stage centre and delivers one of the most convincing performances of his career. His voice is perfectly matched to heavier tracks like Kill The Lights or Hellfire, and his interplay with Alessandro Del Vecchio on the afore-mentioned Broken Pieces is particularly impressive. Count me as a fan from now on!

The pompous All or Nothing adds a touch of Europe to the mix, and features some great drumming from Rantanen, who locks in with the rampant axes of Federley and Virtanen in fine old-school style.

Hugely enjoyable, then, and if you are old enough to remember the source material of this kind of melodic metal at first hand you’ll find a fair amount that’ll raise a smile on Hellfire.

Hellfire releases on June 30th.