According to the obviously home-made inlay to Son of Eric’s debut album Epiphany, this band plays ‘guitar driven, high-octane rock music with soaring vocals’, and while listening to the first track ‘The Truth’ I feel inclined to agree. Sure, it’s unpolished, dirty rock’n’roll, but it has attitude, edge and energy. The raspy vocal performance by Bryan Erickson and the inspired soloing by Todd Duane seem to fit the bill just fine.

But just 3 minutes and 19 seconds later ... disaster. The second track ‘High Plains Drifter’ sets off with a drumbeat that sounds as if it came straight off YouTube – the production is just terrible. And sadly, the same goes for the rest of the line-up. The singing sounds strained and off-key, the riffs are completely unimaginative, and did I mention the drums? Cardboard boxes and pot lids, I tell you.

I simply can’t imagine what happened here. Did these guys have one good track and one day in a proper studio and then just thought: ‘Hey, let’s meet in Eric’s garage tomorrow and put together another half hour of material and release a CD.’? Believe me, that’s what it sounds like. Poor singing, untight playing, dull riffs and solos and a production you would almost be ashamed to call demo material standard. Although I can understand why someone – according to the inlay – would compare Son of Eric to Whitesnake, whoever likened this lot to Iron Maiden and Alter Bridge must be plain daft. Don’t believe a word of it.

The first track on this CD (that is, if you can call 35 minutes of music a proper CD) sets a reasonably high standard and makes you ready for more, and nine tracks of this would have easily scored them a 65 or 70 rating. But don’t get your hopes up because it’s followed by half an hour of shoddy musicianship, the ultimate low points being the ballad ‘Blind Man’ and the acoustic track ‘Gone’.