At the end of the day, you can’t beat experience. And, on his new album Banshee, AOR Titan Paul Sabu proves that adage again and again over the course of a set of eleven songs, delivering a taut, tight group of songs designed to send your pleasure receptors into the red again and again if heavy yet melodic rock is your bag.

Songs like Rock, with it’s coruscating rhythm guitar chug, Turn The Radio on and Kandi – both primetime AOR bangers of the old school – are absolutely out of the top draw, all designed to show off our hero’s gravelly pipes in their best light, an even the more workaday material – Midnight Road To Madness, say – would qualify as a highlight on the albums of most other acts operating in this field in 2022.

Sabu shares all the instrumental duties with sometime UFO/Dokken/MSG man Barry Sparks (who also contributes backing vocals), and together the pair have created a warm, organic sound built on chunky guitarage and classy keys (have a listen to the superbly dramatic intro to the title track for proof) that absolutely sounds like a full band firing on all six. It’s a big sound – it need to be to accommodate Sabu’s massive talent – and it’s been put together to perfectly recall Sabu’s glory days of the past – if you’ve ever liked any of the man’s output before, there’s nothing here that’s going to sully your opinion!

It’s a real shame this album has come out too late in the year to feature in too many ‘best of’ roundups, but I’m sure we’ll come to look back on Banshee in the fullness of time as one of the best AOR albums 2022 had to offer. Congrats to all involved! Now, how about some live dates to top things off?

Banshee is out Now.