Album review: Tuk Smith & The Restless Hearts – Rogue To Redemption

'Feet don’t fail me now,' Tuk Smith implores of himself on Take The Long Way, the first of several would-be hard rock classics on his new band’s second album. The former Biters frontman has seen all this before, has felt the sting of disappointment when things don’t work out, but is one of those guys who somehow meets it all head-on and channels it into positivity.

Glorybound, another hook-lined highlight, may spit out a kind of road-worn weariness, but its strident guitars, rippling drums and rocket-powered chorus propel it, like so much of this album, into a happy place. Little Renegade is another of Tuk’s best, a cathartic sing-along delivered in generous and even more uplifting manner.

Good as it is, you can’t ignore the fact that Rogue To Redemption does sound distractingly like glittery 1970s pop-rock eccentrics Cheap Trick. There’s no suggestion of plagiarism – these songs belong entirely to Tuk and they’re probably the most immediate he’s written – but the spirit, vibe and nasal twang of that band is ever present, like the ghost of Christmas past. So, while Lost Boy doesn’t sound precisely like CT classic Surrender, it does sound like it wants to be that very song when it grows up.

Tuk and his men know their art, and they’re quite happy with the existing rulebook. Often, you wish they’d slam it shut and get brave. Nobody in their right mind wants a reggae or hip-hop record from Tuk Smith, but witnessing an artist of this calibre playing with genres, churning and juggling things about as Ginger Wildheart has consistently done – that would be something more heroic.

For a simpler life, however, and for those who prefer straight, toll-free roads that are resolutely sunny and welcoming, Rogue To Redemption is as direct a route map as you’ll find all year.

Verdict: 3/5

For fans of: Black Star Riders, Thin Lizzy, Blackberry Smoke

Rogue To Redemption is released on August 30 via Gypsy Rose