Radioactive – X.X.X. (Frontiers Music)

Radioactive is a project rock band founded in 1991 by the Swedish guitarist, songwriter and producer Tommy Denander with X.X.X. being his fifth album under the Radioactive name. Denander is another of those spectacular musicians who have contributed so much to the music industry and a list of his credits is staggering and far too long to cover here but check it out and you will be surprised to see how many bands and albums he has been involved with.

The first three Radioactive albums came out in 2001, 2003 and in 2005 and there was then a real gap until he released F4UR in 2015 and then another barren period until we get to the far too long overdue X.X.X. In many cases, you know exactly what to expect as Denander is the master of hard but melodic rock which the Swedes seem to produce so easily and all with a real touch of class too. So, if you are a fan of American style melodic rock then you cannot go wrong with any Radioactive album with all five staying very close to the AOR template.

As with previous releases Denader has brought in a wealth of vocal talent to add their unique talents to the proceedings with the likes of with Robin McAuley, Robbie LaBlanc, Clif Magness, Christian Ingebrigtsen, Daniel Byrne and Jerome Mazza all making significant contributions. It is worthwhile to note too that all four previous albums have been e-released in digital format and it will be interesting to see if this eventually leads to a physical release some time in the future too. Tommy Denander plays guitar, bass and keyboards with drums courtesy of Olle Romö and Neil Anami with Andreas Carlsson, Tommy Denander, Tommy Henriksen and the world famous producer Mutt Lange all combining to provide sumptuous backing vocals. The guitar work of Denander is beautiful and controlled with some very emotional soloing and the contrasting singers all combine to bring the project together perfectly, their styles may be different but they all have exceptional voices and inject their own personalities in the songs that they perform on.

Think of Journey combining with W.E.T., Creye and H.E.A.T. and you’ll have some idea of the sound. The music is mainly hard AOR but they do sometimes break out into a little classic rock too which makes this a very intriguing and exciting addition to the Radioactive catalogue.