Album review : HEAVEN’S EDGE Philadelphia

Frontiers Music [Release date 13.11.26]

Remarkably, for a career that began in 1987 then suffered a series of setbacks, break ups and reformations, Heaven’s Edge are well and truly back.

After only two albums in 40 years, their Get It Right album, in 2023, first on Frontiers, was a new beginning for an old band. What the label refers to as the band’s “second act”.

So, is Philadelphia the band’s third act? It could be, but we should hope not.
Yet it bears all the hallmarks. It fits the popular structure … the climax, the resolution, so is the music here hopelessly dated or a fresh take on an old genre ?

The album opens with a weather warning done in axework. Thunder, lightning, like Dan Huff on ‘I’m A Believer’.
It’s a challenging intro. An opening salvo.

The fourth track, ‘What’s He Got’ is the fulcrum around which the album spins. It would be easy to say that it’s huge, brassy and bombastic, and leave it at that, but there’s more. This track brings back all that was great about melodic hard rock in the eighties. The decisive chord shifts, the heart stopping hook, the mainlining on adrenaline.
Reggie Wu’s axe solos shine, his fab arpeggios and slide runs push the needle into the red. Steve Parris’s guitar shadows Mark Evans’ vocal, an echo of the past, renewed in the present.

There’s a bit more grit in the mix now, but this song, and others, like ‘Definite Maybe’, powered by an anthemic groove, like ‘You’re Mine Tonight’, a frantic, shouty assertion, and ‘Young Hearts’, a big booming rock song, are all emotionally direct, and are in full possession of heart and soul and warmth, as well as winning melodies.
Elsewhere, the darkly passionate ‘Wrong Or Right’ and the string heavy acoustic ballad, ‘I Wish You Would’ have a classical feel, cut and reshaped into moments of rock’n’roll theatre.

Clearly then, although the music travels (mostly) in the direction of AOR conventionality, the sharper production, edge of the seat arrangements and collusive songwriting give the band’s music a rare quality, of the type that other bands can only aspire to.

Welcome back (again). ****

Review by Brian McGowan

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Power Plays w/c 9 November 2026

ZETRA Adrena (Nuclear Blast Records)
THE HARBOURS Breathe (indie)
SUM SUN Worth The Wait (indie)
SKERRYVORE Second Chance (indie)
WASTED WIZARDS WTF (Dalapop)
BLACKTOP MOJO Time The Killer (indie)

Featured Albums w/c 9 November 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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