The PR blurb that accompanies Stargazer‘s second album, Life Will Never Be The Same, loudly trumpets that the band contains “one of rock’s best voices and one of the best blues-based hard rock guitar players around today”…

My word, for once the PR man wasn’t kidding us on! Because in the shape of vocalist Tore André Helgemo and his axe slinging buddy William Ernstsen they have just such a dynamite combination as promised, and this fact is rammed home repeatedly over the course of eleven superb slices of melodic hard rock on what is a front-to-back, no-holds barred exposition of sheer bliss for the listener.

Living at the intersection of full-blooded Euro metal and glossy, polished melodic hard rock as they do, there’s always plenty of room for a hummable tune in the Stargazer canon; And the opening brace of Can You Conceive It and Live My Dream both cram melody, harmony and face melting guitar playing into every available nook and cranny with the sort of panache seen usually only on records recorded by ‘the old Gods’… Imagine John Sykes finding himself in a rehearsal space with Europe… And now wake up in 3…2…1…

Seriously, there are some righteous tunes going down here. Rock the Sky is old school riffmania brought to glorious, living flesh for a new generation, and the superb, cocksure swagger of Will I Come To Heaven takes that template and runs with it in a blur of stackheeled strutting from our afore mentioned heroes and the rock-solid rhythm section of Jomar Johansen (bass) and drummer Svend Skogheim.

Keysman Sondre Bjerkset adds the final lustre, making this very much the finished product. As the riotous riff rock of closing track Push Me drifts into the ether, you find yourself realising you’ve barely had a chance to catch your breath, such has been the excitement of Life Will Never Be The Same. This is hard rock as it used to be made, loud and proud, nothing more nothing less, and you’re gonna lap up every second of it when you get the chance…

Life Will Never Be The Same releases on March 3rd.