The Dead Daisies‘ last album, Holy Ground, was one of my fave albums of last year; The band’s first with ‘voice of rock’ Glenn Hughes, it was a bona-fide steamroller of an album, shot through with stone cold classic rock n’roll, the best of which, closing epic Far Away and rebel rousing, soulful rocker Chosen and Justified, were among the best songs released by anyone, anywhere in 2021.

Keen to follow up on the unalloyed brilliance of that album, the band’s prime mover, guitarist David Lowy and company are back a year later with what I hoped would be more of the same with Radiance. Which, to an extent they are; however Radiance, despite being a fine and very solid rock n’roll album in it’s own right, signally fails to match up to it’s predecessor in almost every way.

In simple terms, the songs on Radiance just don’t carry the same showboating oomph that was to be found almost everywhere on Holy Ground. A lot of this has to do with the fact that this era of the band have now lost the element of surprise, certainly, but that isn’t the only reason. Parts of the album don’t sound fully realised, as the band obviously sought not only to capitalise quickly on the gains made by Holy Ground and also to keep things more taut and punchy this time around. Closing track Roll On, in particular, sounds like it would have benefitted from the band giving themselves the chance to stretch out a little and put some meat on the bones of what is clearly a very good idea.

That said, there’s nothing actively horrible here, and the strutting, pounding hard rock of tracks like Hypnotize Yourself serve only to underline again just what an absolute freak of nature Hughes is when confronted with a microphone in front of him and a firing-on-all-six heavy rock band behind. His voice is pushed to it’s absolute limit on standout track Shine On as tha band’s resident axe God Doug Aldrich and returning drummer Brian Tichy go for broke in thunderous fashion in support, the result being a truly memorable slab of ear-shattering exuberance.

The title track sounds like something Hughes might have written for his 2016 solo album – which is a good thing – but to these ears the rest of the material just doesn’t leave the listener in a state of sweaty exhilaration in the same way that Holy Ground did. Now, that’s obviously more my problem than it is the band’s, and I’m sure you’ll draw your own conclusions when you get the chance. But for now I’m simply going to try and stay in the moment and enjoy Radiance for what it is, rather than what I wanted it to be. Which, as noted, is an album that’s pretty good in it’s own right…

Radiance releases on September 30th.