UK quartet Powell-Payne have come up with quite an accomplished debut album, one that manages to call to mind the glory days of melodic rock without quite descending into out and out pastiche or nostalgia-chasing laziness.

Earjerking ballad Distance Between Us is a quite marvellous example of the art, a sort of cross between Europe and Journey that won’t fail to get you out of your seat if you’re of an age to remember ‘the real thing’. That it even comes close to ‘the real thing’ is a testament to the band, that it is the equal of anything ‘the real thing’ comes up with these days doubly so. This is very accomplished stuff.

In the late eighties the UK was literally awash with bands like P-P, bands who never quite got the breaks because they weren’t from the other side of the Atlantic. Even the most successful of their number, bands like Shy and FM, never quite got to enjoy the fruits their undoubted talent deserved, and it would be an awful shame to see the same fate befall these guys. On the evidence of ripsnorters like Girl Like You and All For Love (another big ballad, lighter-worthy in excelsis) these blokes are certainly in the same postcode, talent wise, and though the market for this kinda stuff has contacted massively, a bright future surely awaits if they can maintain the quality moving forward.

If heroic key changes, great singing, magnificent playing and top drawer songwriting excite you as much as they do me, it’s hard to see tracks like Better Days disappointing. Powell-Payne might be unknown now, but, if there’s any justice, that sorry state of affairs is set to change very soon. Exciting times lie ahead!

Voilà is out now.