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When a band proudly proclaim that it’s taken them nearly 30 years to follow up their debut album with a new record, you have to be forgiven for wondering who’ll care. But in the case of the reunited Stampede, all the proof you’ll need to care is in the music – which is as it should be.

Lumped in with so many other NWOBHM wannabes in the early part of the 1980s, Stampede showed class and grace on 1983’s Hurricane Town.

Now, they’ve delivered a record that takes the raw potential they displayed back then and shapes it into a collection of songs that is, if anything, better than those on the first record. And also seems to fit comfortably into the modern rock scene.

Led by the soulfully blessed vocals of Reuben Archer, the band have come up with some genuinely impressive stuff, with Homeward Bound, This Road and Shame On You true winners.

But it’s the flow here that quickly gains your attention. Because the way they’re pieced together is a testament to the way this band have immediately gotten into a groove, recaptured the sparkle of the past and driven on towards what could be a very successful future.

Malcolm Dome had an illustrious and celebrated career which stretched back to working for Record Mirror magazine in the late 70s and Metal Fury in the early 80s before joining Kerrang! at its launch in 1981. His first book, Encyclopedia Metallica, published in 1981, may have been the inspiration for the name of a certain band formed that same year. Dome is also credited with inventing the term "thrash metal" while writing about the Anthrax song Metal Thrashing Mad in 1984. With the launch of Classic Rock magazine in 1998 he became involved with that title, sister magazine Metal Hammer, and was a contributor to Prog magazine since its inception in 2009. He died in 2021.