OK, that’s the first time I noticed that this thing’s an indie and not Alert/Koch or anything… wow. And it sure shouldn’t be, ‘cos this has the potential to be a smash Canuck hit, no question, led by the buoyant, guitary, up-tempo title track. OK, first things first, this is 12 (11 and a hidden) tracks clocking 57 minutes, and all but a couple and a half are fairly heavy or rocking or whatever you call it when a drummer and bassist go nuts and a guitarist goes fairly/nearly clean strat through an amp and does a lot of colourizing. It’s loud, it’s raucous, but deft to the touch. The lyrics are substantial, kaleidoscopic and inspirational and most of the way towards as good as Pye’s (big booklet, lots of words, mostly by an unknown Kim Mitchell fan named Craig Baxter who’d never done lyrics before – long story). The guitar playing… Kim is a blast, whether feeling his way through the structures (see above) or soloing like a nut, making duck sounds, chicken sounds, a caterwaul of illogical noises, putting aside his Holdsworth runs for a twangy, heavy Billy Gibbons or Jeff Healy playing hard rock. Another perspective: this is like a heavy Gary Moore album of late, say Scars, major noisenik-ing from a blues vibe but way more intelligent than the blues – I stress, there are no blues songs on here, just sporadic blues “licking.” What’s also cool, the production is pretty radical, the very specific and not often used Joe Hardy doing with this sparked trio (he’s also in the trio – plays the bass) what he’s done for ZZ Top, namely incredibly bright, trebly values, which make Greg Morrow’s drums positively explode come pop-fruity fill time. Hardy himself buzzes up the bass, meeting Kim halfway to fuzz pedal power chord – they really do meet in the middle, and on every track, as it’s all one unifying, very unique sound. And the songs, soft or hard, are all classy and mature – this is good, stick -to-the-cerebrals stuff at any speed. I’m feeling Van Halen as well, maybe even Vai in a conservative song mode, i.e. back at the two Roth albums. Could have done without the one cover, ‘I Got A Line On You’, although with these buffed steel production values and some new guitar lines, it’s quite transformed. Look, this is just all very cool, like, you know you’re not being patronized, Kim delivering tasty hard rock with some grey matter, and as a bonus, you get a signature sound, part Kim, part Hardy, party hardy, partly heard on under-rated 1994 Kim Mitchell masterpiece Itch, which, whether you already own one or not, you should purchase at the same time you pick up this one.