Anyone remember U.K. rock gods Thin Lizzy? Can we hear a “Hell yeah, they rocked like the business…!”? Leader Phil Lynott died in 1986 basically from living just a little bit too much rock and ruin and the band broke up. Lynott, you see, was more than the front man and main songwriter; he was the distilled (literally) essence of the band. Former TL guitarist Scott Gorham was foiled in his attempt to rekindle interest in a Thin Lizzy “band” using a bunch of blokes that never even came close to sharing a stage with the much missed Lynott. Instead, they have renamed themselves Black Star Roders. The band peels a few frayed pages from the Thin Lizzy playbook with their medium intensity plod and overly prepared light metal hooks courtesy of Gorham and additional guitarist Damon Johnson, and that is about all. They riff and roll and try to sound dangerous and yes, old musicians need to make a living too but the anchor weight in this combo is singer Ricky Warwick. You may remember him from New Model Army. Or not. Needless to say Warwick doesn’t have the charisma or pipes of Lynott, and likely never will. His penchant for adding a huff of air-uh at the end of each vocal line gets tedious fast and the band tries to cover it all up by riffing like mad in a sad kind of past their prime way. Listen to this five times in a row and then wonder if you will ever listen to it again. For fans of Classic Rock Magazine. (Nuclear Blast, nuclearblast.com) Jeff Monk