Early last year Sentinel Daily bossman Scott Adams sent me The New Roses’ debut album, Dead Man’s Voice to review, thinking I’d enjoy it’s eighties hard rock stylings. He was right.

Fifteen months later the boys are back with a second album, One More for the Road, which pretty much picks up where that rollicking debut left off.

So, what you’re getting here is eleven (fourteen if you get involved with the bonus tracks) barnstorming hard rock songs that really bring to mind the cowboy-booted n’bandannaed glory days of the late eighties when literally every band in the world worth its salt sounded like this. Vocalist Timmy Rough has the sort of voice you’d kill for if you were in the singing game, a glorious reworking of Spike from the Quireboys’ gravel-throated roar which, when firing on all six, is an absolute force of nature.

The man will blow your speakers with his vocal chords alone on tracks like the sublime Dancing on a Razor Blade, and that’s before he picks up his axe to join his six-string sidekick Norman Bites for a bit of low-slung ear-abuse. Bites is a bit of a star himself, with a bluesy solo style that won’t fail to please those who know about such things, whilst simultaneously snaring casual bystanders with the infectious bombast of his riffage.

Stupendously Rough works a bit of Billy Ray Cyrus into the superb Faces strut of Life Ain’t Easy (For a Boy With Long Hair), which also kicks a bit of Georgia Satellites into the mix, whilst the balladic Fight You Leaving Me is a titanic slab Mike Tramp-styled of song and emotion that’ll surely have you waving a lighter in the air as you listen to the album on your portable device on the bus on the way to work. One More for the Road follows the same template (with another nod to that man Cyrus) with the added bonus of beefed-up guitars.

Basically, if you enjoyed Dead Man’s Voice, One More for the Road is more of the same, yet immeasurably superior in pretty much every respect. The New Roses have really upped their games in 2017, and this album is, in my not so humble opinion, an essential purchase.

One More for the Road is available now through Napalm Records.