Glenn Hughes dominates the Dead Daisies' hook-laden Holy Ground

The Dead Daisies' Holy Ground: What the Voice Of Rock Glenn Hughes did next

By Neil Jeffries
( Classic Rock )
published
The Dead Daisies: Holy Ground
(Image: © Steamhammer/SPV)

You can trust Louder Our experienced team has worked for some of the biggest brands in music. From testing headphones to reviewing albums, our experts aim to create reviews you can trust. Find out more about how we review.

Although The Dead Daisies released The Lockdown Sessions, a digital acoustic EP, last July, this fifth studio album is the full debut of another new line-up. 

It’s a real tectonic shift, given that Glenn Hughes replaces both singer John Corabi and bassist Marco Mendoza. Only band leader/second guitarist David Lowy remains from the line-up on their 2013 debut. 

Happily, Doug Aldrich plays stun-gun lead guitar for the third album in succession, and drummer Deen Castronovo completes the quartet, playing on his second studio album with the band, even sharing lead vocals on what could be the definitive cover of Humble Pie’s 30 Days In The Hole.

Hughes’s songwriting is much in evidence. Stylistically this record sounds more like his magnificent 2016 album Resonate than like any previous Daisies album. 

So over 11 tracks/ 48 minutes it’s uniformly slick, powerful and hook-laden. There’s just the question of whether to file it under ‘D’ or ‘H’.

Neil Jeffries
Neil Jeffries

Freelance contributor to Classic Rock and several of its offshoots since 2006. In the 1980s he began a 15-year spell working for Kerrang! intially as a cub reviewer and later as Geoff Barton’s deputy and then pouring precious metal into test tubes as editor of its Special Projects division. Has spent quality time with Robert Plant, Keith Richards, Ritchie Blackmore, Rory Gallagher and Gary Moore – and also spent time in a maximum security prison alongside Love/Hate. Loves Rush, Aerosmith and beer. Will work for food.