REVIEW: RIVAL SONS – LIGHTBRINGER (2023)

When Rival Sons announced they were splitting their album into two parts, there was the suspicion that it might be a little pretentious.

Then I heard the first chapter. It was more than a return to form, it was a statement.

A couple of months after it came out, I watched them live for the first time in almost five years and watching them play the new stuff it was as clear as day that there was nothing half-arsed about it.

So after the darkness cometh the light. Fittingly for such an ambitious project, Part Two, as it were, begins with its sprawling, epic “DARKFIGHTER”. The title track that the first album didn’t have.

This is Rival Sons with the handbrake off. ‘Who’s gonna be my island” offers Jay Buchanan. And it seems they’re searching for something, anything. But the vast solo section is what convinces. You’re thinking of The Doors, and this is trippy and blissed out as you can imagine, or at least it is until it explodes. Guitarist Scott Holiday is in rare form here. He’s stunning and this nine minutes is likewise.

At that gig in the Autumn, they played most of these and “Mercy” stood out as being what you imagine Rival Sons to be. Massive groove, but always with a little Californian mellow just below the surface.

This, though, is the yin to the “DARKFIGHTER” yang. Or the other way around? And this is the most personal- at a guess – record of their career. “Redemption” veers into Americana territory, and Buchanan had spoken of its importance to him when he played it. That passion comes over all the way through it.

It is meant as a compliment to say that, although it came out in 2023, “Sweet Life” doesn’t sound of this century. Somewhere there’s a cave at the back of Woodstock where they found all these, right? Surely. We can be more certain, though, that Rival Sons’ gift for writing hooks is better than ever.

Indeed, there’s a case for saying that, if not better than ever, then this is the best Sons material since the seminal “Pressure And Time”. You can’t really listen to “Before The Fire” and think anything else. It’s the work of a band that is certain of what it wanted to do.

At the show, they’d made “Mosaic” a bit of a centrepiece. Buchanan had spoken about his desire to “close the chapter” after writing it. Maybe writing this project wasn’t the easiest of experiences. “Joy, heartache, laughter and pain” goes it’s first line, and they are all here.

As, in fairness, they have been throughout. On every level you can think of, this record matters. That shines through on “Lightbringer” as it had been a beacon on “DARKFIGHTER” In the summer.

A whole that is just as good as the sum of its parts.

Rating 9/10