Black Swan: Shake The World (Frontiers, 2020)

Now here’s a supergroup I can get behind. Black Swan is a new band on the Frontiers roster featuring some very impressive talent. It’s made up of vocalist Robin McAuley (MSG), guitarist Reb Beach (Winger, Whitesnake), bassist Jeff Pilson (Foreigner, ex-Dokken) and drummer Matt Starr (Ace Frehley), and that’s not a lineup you can ignore. The Black Swan debut is titled Shake The World, and it’s a wild one.

If you’ve caught any of the Michael Schenker Fest live events in the past couple of years, you know Robin McAuley’s voice hasn’t aged a day. He still has all of the power and range here that he displayed on those classic MSG albums. It’s not just McAuley though; the whole band gives 100% on Shake The World. Beach and Pilson work brilliantly together, and the songwriting process really captured the right elements of the classic ’80s hard rock sound without forgetting that it’s 2020. Great musicianship, great vocals, great energy and plenty of really strong songs that you’ll want to keep coming back to. My favorites are “Johnny Came Marching” (bit of a Blue Murder vibe on that one), “Long Road To Nowhere” and the title track, but the whole album rocks.

Black Swan really brings out the best from the individual members, and could be the beginning of something really memorable if they make this a regular thing and not just another one-off project. Shake The World is one of the best melodic hard rock albums 2020 has seen so far, and it’s an album fans of bands like MSG, Winger, Hardline, House Of Lords and Blue Murder ought to love.