When Joe Lynn Turner left Sunstorm it was truly the end of an era. The arrival of the always busy Ronnie Romero allowed the band to explore a harder sound on 2021’s ‘Afterlife’ and 2022’s ‘Brothers In Arms’, but they essentially sounded like a different band. They were still capable of enjoyable tunes, but for those who’d enjoyed hearing Joe belt out classic AOR tunes like ‘Gina’ (originally recorded by Michael Bolton before he turned his back on rock music in favour of an easy listening crowd) and ‘You Wouldn’t Know Love’ (a staple from Cher’s rock period), the “new” Sunstorm might not have always hit the mark.
The band’s eighth studio album ‘Restless Fight’ could easily have had its name inspired by Sunstorm’s inner turmoil. The only musician on this record to have appeared on a prior Sunstorm disc is Romero – the golden boy of the Frontiers Records stable – who with three years loyal service can now consider himself a Sunstorm veteran. Everyone else has been a member of this band since 2023. The record label obviously considers the Sunstorm name to be of some bankable value, even if, on paper, this seems a little too close to “Rod Evans’ New Deep Purple” for comfort. Moving on from any quibbles as to how this could possibly be anything more than another Ronnie Romero album, on its own terms, most of ‘Restless Fight’ is actually great. Far better than it had any real right to be.
