Kev Rowland Lover Under Cover hail from Gothenburg, Sweden and this is the follow-up to their 2012 debut, ‘Set The Night On Fire’ which I have to confess and say that I haven’t heard. Formed by Mikael Carlsson (bass, guitars, keyboards, vocals), the rest of the band comprise vocalist and keyboard player Mikael Erlandsson (Last Autumn’s Dream), Martin Kronlund (Gypsy Rose, Phenomena) on guitars and drummer Perra Johnsson. The more I played this the more I felt that I was listening to the bastard child of The Quireboys and Poison, more smooth and polished than the former and with a more ballsy and slightly more bluesy edge than the latter. In fact, the longer it stayed on the player the more I became convinced that easily the worse thing about these guys is their name! Whoever thought that Lover Under Cover was a great name for a band should be taken out and shot…

There is a cover song on the album, and interestingly it isn’t mentioned within the press release, and it took me a little while to place who performed the original. Lover Under Cover call it “Toy Soldier”, but it originally had a ‘s’ on the end when it was sung by Martika back in 1989, and was then sampled by Eminem in 2005 as “Like Toy Soliders”. Whatever it is called, this is a strong version and doesn’t sound out of place on the album. Great musicianship, aligned with powerful hooks and great vocals, this is a melodic hard rock album that is a delight from the beginning to the very end, and is well worth seeking out. www.escape-music.com

Time Signature Angels will cry...

Genre: hard rock

While a lot of Swedish hard rock bands take the AOR-inspired path of melodic hard rock, Lover Under Cover have chosen a more straight up hard rocking approach on "Set the Night In Fire".

Thus, the listener is treated to relatively heavy, at times metallic, chucking rhythm guitars. Just check out tracks like 'Angels Will Cry' with its metallic guitars and 'My Best Friend' which its screaming guitar drive. For upbeat tempos and twin-guitars, check 'Hero', while the title track is heavy and groovy.

Now, while the main focus is on hard rocking metal-induced guitar riffs, Lover Under Cover do make use of melodic keyboards, but these never steal the limelight from the guitars and from Mikael Erlandsson's vocals (a reason could be that it is also Erlandsson who plays the keyboards along with Mikael Carlsson).

There are, of course, some quite melodic and soft moments on the album. With a band name like Lover Under Cover, there has to be, right? For instance, there is the U2-meets-90-US-radio-rock inspired ballad 'To Good to Be True' or 'Flash in the Night' which combines ballady verses with a power metal chorus (it actually works better than you might think).

Balancing between melodic hard rock and metal, Lover Under Cover's "Set The Night on Fire" rocks harder than most melodic hard rock releases and has more in common with 80s metal than 80s AOR. Fans of traditional metal and hard rock are likely to enjoy this album.