Album review : SPREAD EAGLE – The Brutal Divine

June 6th, 2026 by brianmc

Frontiers Music [Release date : 12.06.26]

This is US rock band, Spread Eagle’s fourth album in 25 years, and second album on the Frontiers’ label, not very hard on the heels of 2019’s rather good Subway To The Stars.

Ray West (v) and Rob deLuca (b) are everpresent. Newcomers, Rik deLuca (d) and Jommy Puledda (g) joined in 2010 and 2022 respectively.

Brutal Divine : The concept suggests that shedding old beliefs and facing the brutal truth about oneself or the world is a necessary but painful process.

You can understand why labels weren’t falling over themselves to sign the band over the years. Kudos to Frontiers for staying with them.

It’s a distinctive, powerful album of hard rock, stretching the genre’s generally accepted landscape in very different ways.
Maybe not original but lyrically radical just the same.

From the speedily rhythmic ‘Flat Earth Vultures’, to ‘Forbidden Local Honey’ to ‘Inside A Shrunken Head’, every song carries its own message.

The fact that Spread Eagle’s unique brand of hard rock is the delivery vehicle seems incidental at times.

‘Gunflower’ and ‘Jail Rat’ are fast moving, spiky hard rock songs, with punky rhythms and lines of caustic lyrics, each with a message, almost recited rather than sung.

A fast moving subway train of a song, celebrating New York City’s ‘Street Noise’ gives us a chance to draw breath.

Many of these songs might remind us of eighties’ rock bands who didn’t quite conform to the accepted norms, like Saigon Kick and Lillian Axe, who spoke their mind and paid the price in sales volumes, but gained in reputation.

‘Pushed to The Limit’ and ‘Scars In Our Eyes’ are more traditionally edgy, hard hitting hard rock songs, nicely building to ‘Ant Farm’.

It’s a heavy as a heavy thing rock song that bridges between the populist rage that seems to surround us, and straight up hard rock.

Brutal Divine doesn’t lack narrative ambition, and it’s filled with the kind of impassioned stuff that demands to be heard. We should hope it finds a big audience.

Credit to the band for aiming high. ***1/2

Review by Brian McGowan

Featured Artist: JOSH TAERK

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Power Plays w/c 25 May 2026

BABY JANE Midnight Highway (Sped Up) (indie)
ASTRAL ROCKS The Flame In Me (Astral Rocks Prodns.)
INDIGO SYNDICATE dwn4smr (indie)
THE SKBS The Prying Eye (indie)
AGAINST THE CURRENT Dead Man Walking (indie)
ICONIC Tears Keep On Falling (Frontiers)

Featured Albums w/c 25 May 2026

09:00-12:00 The Best of 2003 – 2025 (Melodic Rock)
12:00-13:00 The Best of 2003 – 2025 (Melodic Hard Rock)
14:00-16:00 The Best of 2003 – 2025 (Singer Songwriter)

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