New Supergroup doing what they do best, so sadly over shadowed by recent loss.
As with Black Star Riders, Last In Line have impressed with the approach that sometimes it better to keep writing rather than touring like a tribute band. Last in Line take their name from the Dio album and for good reason, Viv, Vinnie and Jimmy are all prior alumni. Viv, taking a break from his Def Leppard day job rounded up the gang, added frontman Andrew Freeman and wrote an album very much in the Dio style but with a fresh modern approach. Does this work, hell yeah!
You can’t put a band of this quality in a studio and not hit a rich vein of gold, Viv’s soaring riff laden interpretation of the songs are simply wonderful, with a more solo freedom, rather than the multilayered guitars of Del Lepp., each track sets up the roaring vocal range of Freeman to simply sing it for fun, like the Vegas showman he formerly was. Every track is a peach, but Devil in Me seems to be the one you’ll pick out on the airwaves, and I have no issue with that, though Orange Glow, for me is the killer.
The band is due to tour in 2016, but the very recent, and dreadfully sad, news that Jimmy has passed will no doubt impact this. That said the album is a very fitting end to his songwriting career.
10/11 Iain
