Live: Birds of Pray

By RUSSELL BAILLIE

(Herald rating: * *)

Still fighting the temptation to release that inevitable Live live album, the American quartet return for their sixth long player.

Their dwindling following will be happy to know it's right up there with the last couple so far as shout-it-from-the-mountain-top choruses, lyrics of possibly meaningful spiritualism (quite a play on words they've got in the title isn't it?) and a general urge to hold their market position as the Zen Bon Jovi.

But with singer Ed Kowalczyk being his usual rock prophet self ("I believe society will never dream like me", he proclaims in Sanctity of Dreams) over the usual hard rock grandiosity that sounded dated this time last decade, this album's only real point seems to be showing that Live will go on. And on.

Label: Radioactive