Sunstorm - Afterlife (Frontiers Music) Album Review

The Sunstorm brand has been around now for about 15 years and has been a bright spot in the melodic rock world. All 5 of the albums prior to the latest project were a vehicle for legendary vocalist Joe Lynn Turner. Turner apparently turned down another opportunity to keep the brand afloat. Rather than ending the project, the record label, Frontiers, recruited singer Ronnie Romero to pilot a revitalized version of the band. The results are suprisingly impressive. Romero has been fronting a number of projects and has been compared favorably to Ronnie James Dio and Graham Bonnet. The new album "Afterlife" was produced by Alessandro Del Vecchio who writes and arranges all of the music as well as playing keyboards and singing background vocals. 

The album's first song which is also the title track for this collection bursts forth with a searing guitar riff supplied by Simone Mularoni who has worked on other Sunstorm projects. He is a beast throughout this project, channeling people like Richie Blackmore and Joe Satriani. The chord shifts, the powerhouse drumming, provided by Michele Sana, and those ferocious bass lines played thunderously by Nik Mazzacconi give Sunstorm a unique and powerful hard rock audio template. "One Step Closer"offers a great singable chorus and a spiritual theme that dovetails with the title of the album. "Swan Song" opens with an airy synth which gives way to a crushing guitar riff, not unlike Sunstorm's signiture song "Edge of Tomorrow". Del Vecchio's lyrics continue to embrace pertinent questions while being generic enough to fit global or personal issues. 

"Born Again" combines elements of blues and hard driving rock while "Stronger" has more in common with AOR and melodic tendencies. Sunstorm was historically more aligned with bands like Journey and Foreigner but in recent years has more in common with the Rainbow and Deep Purple family adding rudiments of progressive rock and classic hard rock. "I Found A Way" makes good use of a bluesy riff and Romero's lower register which is very reminscient of David Coverdale. "Lost Forever" is a stunning power ballad featuring Del Vecchio on keyboards and background vocals. The tune is dripping with old school pomp and gives the album a bit of an intermission from the relentless guitar attack. 

"Far From Over" has one of the catchiest riffs on the album and certainly could be a radio single. A few plays and you're instantly hooked. "Here For You Tonight" is another superb melodic statement with a grand guitar intro followed by Romero singing over a memorable music bed. Mularoni's versatility on lead guitar is a factor throughout this record. "Darkest Night" has a couple of Journey-esque hooks that again make for more great radio fodder. Rather than let up, this album gets better as it goes along. 

"A Story I Can Tell" combines all of the aforementioned elements into one big bold finishing stroke. The band comes in rocking and goes out rocking in the same way. Despite what Gene Simmons says, rock is alive and well, you just have to know where to find it. Sunstorm's "Afterlife" not only keeps the franchise alive, it ends up being the strongest album in the catalog to date. A classic from start to finish.

Album Rating 9.6