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If ABBA had been a metal band, there’s no doubt that they would have been a melodic power metal band. If there’s one thing that the best European power bands understand, it’s the value of writing great soaring pop tunes – the sort of clean emotional melodies that would make Benny and Björn proud.

London’s NeonFly – and isn’t that just such a power metal name? – have absorbed so much from bands like Sonata Arctica and Edguy that they could easily pass for Finns or Germans.

Their debut is constructed around some lush Europop melodies, as lavish a production as their budget would allow, some high speed shredding and a bucketful of attitude.

They’re a young band still in thrall to their influences, but if they can write stuff as good as Ship With No Sails and Morning Star now, then when they develop a truer voice of their own they’ll be pretty much unstoppable.

Allan McLachlan spent the late 70s studying politics at Strathclyde University and cut his teeth as a journalist in the west of Scotland on arts and culture magazines. He moved to London in the late 80s and started his life-long love affair with the metropolitan district as Music Editor on City Limits magazine. Following a brief period as News Editor on Sounds, he went freelance and then scored the high-profile gig of News Editor at NME. Quickly making his mark, he adopted the nom de plume Tommy Udo. He moved onto the NME's website, then Xfm online before his eventual longer-term tenure on Metal Hammer and associated magazines. He wrote biographies of Nine Inch Nails and Charles Manson. A devotee of Asian cinema, Tommy was an expert on 'Beat' Takeshi Kitano and co-wrote an English language biography on the Japanese actor and director. He died in 2019.