Danish rockers D-A-D have forged a 30+ year career on ignoring trends and making record after record of good time traditional hard rock. New album A Prayer For the Loud (Napalm Records), their twelfth album overall and first in eight years, continues that trend down to the letter.

Despite their name originally standing for Disneyland After Dark, in reality, they’re just identifying their target audience. A Prayer For the Loud is wall-to-wall middle of the road hard rock. All perfectly passable and inoffensive radio-friendly music, but lacking any bite, excitement, or edge.

If you like AC/DC, ZZ Top, post-Earth Rocker Clutch, Guns’n’Roses, or Aerosmith, there’s a good chance you’ll find a song or two you like on here. D-A-D have honed down the bluesy stomper (‘Burning Star’, ‘Nothing Ever Changes’), the radio-friendly singalong (‘The Sky is Made of Blues’), the hokey ballad (‘A Drug for the Heart’), and the up-tempo rock and roller (‘Musical Chairs’). There’s plenty of moments that you’ll naturally be bobbing along to.

It’s hard to be critical of D-A-D, they know what they do and they do it well. Every song is a satisfyingly-crafted ode to rock and roll staples. If you’d never heard a rock album before, you’d probably think this was really good. But the album lacks personality and is devoid of anything that sticks around after it ends. It’s just a collection of rock songs with no flair or flavour, and there’s nothing on here you couldn’t get somewhere else.

A Prayer for the Loud is a perfectly listenable for the most part, but rarely anything more. If you want an album with an identity of its own, this isn’t it.

6 / 10

DAN SWINHOE