Eight fantastic lumps of tuneage to wrap your lugholes around.

Stewart Sutherland is not a name that springs to mind when thinking of the power players in the higher echelons of Rock music, but that maybe about to change for the former Black Stone bassist. Rock Alliance is an ambitious project that sees him drafting in an accomplished array of musicians to produce a tour-de-force Rock album. The ensemble of talent includes the likes of Eric Langlois (Lift), Marco Bressette (Protest The Hero, Dead Tired), Kenny Aronoff (Mellencamp, Fogerty), John Rabbit Bundrick (The Who, Johnny Nash) and Phil Robertson (Burton Cummings).

With such a zealous undertaking, Sutherland hired the Juno award-winning production team of Jill Zimmerman and Darren Jeter Magierowski to manicure the songs. Of course, Rock music is a notorious breeding ground for inflated egos, but that can sometimes be the catalyst for something very special. Not that these guys have delusions of grandeur on a Gene Simmons or Yngwie Malmsteen level, but with such a revolving door of talent involved, a project like this could very easily go pear-shaped. Thankfully that's not the case.

'Rock And Roll Resurrection' lights the touch paper of the album, a high-octane Rocker ready made to blow the speakers on your car stereo and frighten the living daylights out of your dashboard Jesus. 'Bad News Travels Fast' and 'Radio' will have Classic Rock junkies on a glorious high with their addictive retro vibes, as will the strutting Funk-fest of 'Not On Me'.

By the halfway point in the album, you tend to forget that this is not your standard band situation. Each song is delivered like an established group who have been joined at the hip for years. Vocalist Langlois grabs each track by the scruff of the neck, especially the Southern sludge injected 'Kick' where his rasping pipes are taken to the limit. Penultimate track 'Bring The Fight' and closer 'Everything She Wants' stick to the tried and tested Hard Rock formula of chunky riffage and come to bed choruses.

There was a time when eight/nine track albums were the norm, and while there are no duds here, I couldn't escape the feeling that I'd been somewhat short changed with an extra-long EP. That said, there's still eight fantastic lumps of tuneage to wrap your lugholes around.

Brian Boyle