Ever since Phil Lynott went to that big barbershop in the sky and Thin Lizzy effectively ceased to put out any new music, there's not been much hard rock from Ireland that's made waves outside their own borders. Sure, there's that other Irish band, but it'd be a bit embarrassing to call their stuff hard rock (except for the Batman Forever soundtrack song, which I thought rocked quite a bit). Plus, Bono's name conjures more mental association with Africa than Ireland anyway.

But in recent years, the country's shown signs of popping back up on the rock map (being that cool scrolling thing with popup photos that you saw in Global Metal). Glyder have been kicking ass of late, even managing to come down and put boot to butt in person last year. And then there's The Answer - their debut album Rise showed a good deal of promise, even getting the nerdy testimonial of having their song Never Too Late slotted into the Guitar Hero World Tour setlist.

Their second venture Everyday Demons ups the ante, doing its best to justify the growing exposure that the band is getting. It's good news right off the bat, the first three songs all being infectiously rocking tunes, the melodies getting their hooks into your head early on and waiting a hell of a long time before letting go. Things slow down a bit with Cry Out and Why'd You Change Your Mind, both of which have their moments but just don't inspire as much enthusiasm as the ones preceding them.

Fortunately, the middle order is bolstered with the happy big-chorus vibe of Pride and Walkin' Mat, which has some great bouncy broken riffing in the vein of something like Good Times Bad Times. From then on, it's business as usual till the end when Comfort Zone comes on. Most of the time, vocalist Cormac Neeson sounds like a hybrid of Robert Plant, Chris Robinson and Sebastian Bach, which works out pretty well, but here he goes completely clean and it's not too bad either. The song reminds me of Hunger Strike a bit - without Cornell's crazy high stretches, obviously. Anyway, they switch back to some good ol' hard rock n' roll with Evil Man to wrap up the whole thing on an upbeat note.

Short version - it's still a mashup of oldschool influences like Led Zep, Thin Lizzy and The Black Crowes, but it works. Guitarist and band founder Paul Mahon doesn't do much on the flashy front, but the songs rely more on those big melodies they employ, and the nice fat tone he gets from that Gibson goes a long way in helping that cause. The songwriting's getting better and they seem to have less filler segments this time around too. Who knows, maybe recognition will land on an outfit that deserves it, upsetting the status quo for a little while in the process. Either way, the music's pretty great.

Label: Albert Records
Year of release: 2009