Q5: New World Order

Cult classic heavy metal band Q5 shocked their fans when they returned after a lengthy absence in 2014 to start playing live. When they announced that they were working on their first new studio album in 30 years, that was an even bigger surprise. The eagerly anticipated New World Order is only the band’s third album, and expectations were understandably high.

We now have three albums from Q5, and they each have very different approaches. Their classic 1984 debut Steel the Light is a pure heavy metal album, and their controversial 1985 follow-up When the Mirror Cracks was almost an AOR album. New World Order is somewhere between the two, rocking hard but never quite hitting metal territory. Actually, if you took the more pure hard rock songs off of the last few Saxon albums and put them in one place, you’d be pretty close to the New World Order sound. Jonathan Scott even sounds quite a lot like Biff Byford on a lot of these songs.

So we’ve established that New World Order is essentially a rock album and it sounds like Saxon. The next big question is: is it any good? For the most part, yes. At 14 songs this album runs way too long, and not all of the songs are home runs. It sure starts strong though, with the hard charging “We Came to Rock,” “One Night in Hellas” and “New World Order.” “Just One Kiss” is a surprisingly good love song, and “A Warrior’s Song” is another highlight.

Overall, New World Order is a solid, enjoyable hard rock album. If it was Uriah Heep putting this out as their 39th album, it wouldn’t raise any eyebrows. As a comeback album after a 30-year absence though, “solid and enjoyable” aren’t good enough. Q5 needed to make a bold statement here, and this just doesn’t get the job done. If you’re a Q5 fan, you pretty much have to give it a try though. Fans of Saxon, Uriah Heep and UFO may dig this as well.