UMUR "All Hell Breaks Loose" is the debut full-length studio album by multi-national hard rock act Black Star Riders. The album was released through Nuclear Blast Entertainment in May 2013. Black Star Riders consists of the (at the time) most recent touring lineup of Thin Lizzy: Guitarist Scott Gorham (Thin Lizzy, 21 Guns), guitarist/lead vocalist Ricky Warwick (The Almighty), guitarist Damon Johnson (Alice Cooper, Brother Cane...etc.), bassist Marco Mendoza (Blue Murder, Whitesnake, Ted Nugent) and drummer Jimmy DeGrasso (Megadeth, Suicidal Tendencies, White Lion, Alice Cooper...etc). According to Scott Gorham the founding of Black Star Riders doesn´t necessarily mean that Thin Lizzy won´t ever play again, but while touring in 2011 and 2012, the band started composing new material, that they wanted to record and release. It was initially planned that the new material should be released under the Thin Lizzy name, but after giving it a second thought, they decided against it, as they felt it wouldn´t be right out of respect for Phil Lynott and his legacy.

Thin Lizzy bandname or not, the music on "All Hell Breaks Loose" is unmistakably the sound of the legendary hard rock band. Ricky Warwick is not quite as charismatic a lead vocalist as Phil Lynott (but few are), but his voice suits the music well and overall he does a pretty good job here. The trademark guitar harmonies are featured throughout the album and one hard rocking riff is introduced after another. This is pretty killer hard rock and fans of Thin Lizzy should find lots to enjoy here. Tracks like the opening title track, "Hoodoo Voodoo" and especially the catchy "Bound for Glory" carry the hard rocking yet melodic Thin Lizzy legacy well, but there is also room for something a bit different on the album in the Irish traditional sounding "Kingdom of the Lost".

With the musicians involved it´s no surprise that the musicianship are excellent. The sound production is organic and well sounding too and when you add to that the fact that Black Star Riders have actually managed to produce some great memorable and instantly catchy material, "All Hell Breaks Loose" is just what the Thin Lizzy fanbase have been waiting for in years. While this sounds almost 100% like Thin Lizzy, I think they made the smart move by releasing the album under the Black Star Riders monicker. Because of Phil Lynott´s legendary status in the eyes of Thin Lizzy´s fanbase, it would have divided said fanbase. Releasing new music under the Black Star Riders monicker makes everyone happy. The band gets to release new material and tour with it and Thin Lizzy´s fans aren´t given the possibility to shout "Heresy". That´s what you call a win/win situation. A 4 star (80%) rating is deserved.

Kev Rowland Everyone remembers the first time. It may not be as exciting these days as it was when I was 15, but back then there were no digital downloads and the only way to get hold of music was to buy a vinyl album at a record store. I still have the very first hard rock album I ever bought, Thin Lizzy’s ‘Live and Dangerous’, and have never lost the love I have for a band that for me epitomised what music should be all about. I bought all of their rock albums and was mortified when they broke up and I still hadn’t seen them in concert. “Oh well” I thought, “they’ll be back”. And they were, but with Phil long gone it just didn’t seem the same somehow. John Sykes was one of the guys who convinced Scott et all to get back on the road but he left the band quite some time ago and in recent years ex-Almighty frontman RickyWarwick has been providing the vocals. They have enjoyed touring so much that eventually talk started on a new studio album, which would be the first since 1983’s ‘Thunder and Lightning’, but eventually they felt that they just couldn’t release a Thin Lizzy album without Phil, and Brian Downey and Darren Wharton also declined to get involved so a new name and line-up was required.

So, this is not Thin Lizzy. But Ricky Warwick (vocals), Scott Gorham (guitar), Damon Johnson (guitar) and Marco Mendoza (bass) have all been touring under that name, so it is only Jimmy DeGrasso (drums) who has not been involved. But, I can understand where they are coming from in that without Phil it wouldn’t and couldn’t be the same, so the fact that it sounds like a combination of ‘Black Rose’ and ‘Chinatown’ must be a total coincidence then? The use of Dubliner Patrick D'arcy's Irish whistles, uilleann pipes and bodhran on “Kingdom Of The Lost”, definitely makes one think of the former, while one song after another made me think of the glory years. I am not a huge fan of the very early Lizzy albums, but from ‘Jailbreak’ onwards every single one was a classic and this sits very happily alongside them.

This is not a Lizzy tribute, this is all about the band taking that legacy and honouring Phil by making something he would be proud of. The final words belong to Scott Gorham, who said “Phil would dig it, In fact, I think he’d like to be in the band.”