STONE CIRCLE
Living For The Sunshine
Released March 2011

I quite liked the 2009 debut album from Perth’s STONE CIRCLE, but it lacked focus throughout – they didn’t seem to know exactly who they wanted to be.

Well, the good news is that along with a slight line-up tweak has come all the focus they need and more – “Living For The Sunshine” is razor sharp modern AOR which begs to played on radio - if only we had some radio stations willing to play Australian rock songs that weren’t written more than a decade ago.

There’s more than a little of Eddie Van Halen in guitarist Scott Howe’s technique, coupled with plenty of personal flourish, and throughout the album you can hear hints of many of the great American hard rock and AOR bands like Journey, Toto, Bon Jovi and so on.

‘Transparent’ and ‘Living For The Sunshine’ have huge melodies you could hang your coat on; ‘Lost’ is a power ballad as good as anything from the Eighties; ‘Gero Love Song’ (despite the title) is simply epic; ‘Take Your Chances’ would sit happily on a Van Hagar album, complete with “candid strip bar banter”.

You won’t find a better, more polished US flavoured rock album from an Australian band any time soon – “Living For The Sunshine” is a collection of classy, catchy, rocking tunes.