Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
Memories of our youth are perhaps the greatest we hold onto. They are the ghostly images in which form and shape the future and they are the ones that remind us of how far we have come. Youth though also works to remind us that every day we wake up and put our feet on the cold hard floor that we have a debt to owe our former selves and the need to better our position, spiritually as well as mentally, is burned into the back of a black and white photograph hidden somewhere in an insect nibbled box.
Some memories though are far too cherished to leave to the fate of an inquisitive bookworm and they are hard to let go, they need to be kept fresh and allowed space to breathe and it’s no wonder that many keep being returned to in the end. The same is to be said for glory and artistic highs, and no matter how many times a great band says they are going to sail into the sunset with their heads held high, the urge to do just one more record, thankfully, is too much to ignore.
Thunder have given so much to their fans over the years, time, blood, sweat and tears and music in which gets the mind racing and the heart pulsating as if attached to a cardiac machine set on overdrive, memories of so many highs set in stone and relived over and over again. In Wonder Days, the memories of youth collide with glory, like the mountain and a prophet, neither gives way to other, and the only thing to cave is the fan’s resolve not to jump head first and shake like a gibbering fool as the expectation for the future becomes too much.
Wonder Days indeed, the ability to take the black and white photo of youth and turn into a full spectrum of colour, to remember bright blue skies, of non-stop, never ending holidays and the discovery of the things that shape your life forever. It is within this that Thunder have bought their distinctive and tremendous sound back once more and offers Rock its own memories in which to handle.
Music is arguably for many the biggest aid to retaining memory, the cognitive dissonance being bound back together when time and tune are married and in songs such as The Thing I Want, Black Water, Chasing Shadows, When The Music Played and the killer upbeat finale of I Love The Weekend, Luke Morley, Danny Bowes, Ben Matthews, Chris Childs and the ever consummate, never ceasing heart of Harry James spark every cell, every neurone and synapse back to life. Over a quarter of a century may have elapsed since Back Street Symphony was unleashed but the sound that crashes and burns deep into the new found memory banks, is still as unrelenting, still as decent and more importantly still so full of style, it would make a secret service agent grimace and think they were underdressed.
If ever there was a rock band that keeps coming back for more, that just never lets go of the fan’s pulse for long, then Thunder strikes hard, fast and with precision every time.
A welcome return to Thunder and for the fan’s sake, never leave again.
Ian D. Hall