Defender

Released five years after his last effort (an eternity for the prolific Irish blues guitar slinger who had been churning out at least an album a year throughout the ’70s), Defender is another quality blues-rock offering. Although Gallagher is in fine tough form here and it was his debut release for his own indie label, there is little difference between this and some of his less stellar ’70s albums like Top Priority and Photo-Finish. The pounding, guitar-heavy opener “Kickback City” sounds more like hairy rockers Bad Company than anything approaching the deep Chicago and country blues Gallagher dearly loved. The quality picks up substantially as the volume subsides on “Loanshark Blues,” but by-the-books crunch-rockers like “Failsafe Day” and the unfortunately titled “Road to Hell” don’t bode well for Gallagher moving out from an increasingly formulaic pigeonhole.