Review: Heaven’s Reign – Northern Lights

Pride & Joy Music (February 28^th, 2025)

Reviewer: Jason Hopper

‘Northern Lights‘ is the debut album from UK’s Heaven’s Reign, a band comprised of members from various regional bands that decided that their universal love for 80s hard rock should bring them together to try and capture what made that era special…a what a collaboration it is! This album is overflowing with so many melodic anthems that it comes across like a Best of…album from a band you never heard before.

I heard that band’s first two singles and knew they would be worth checking out, but I was not ready for it to be THIS good. The opening track ‘City Sights’ threw me for a loop. Sirens, a strong bass line, and guitar arpeggios reminiscent of Harem Scarem lead you to a chorus that conveys old school 80s Journey. A Top 10 track of the year for sure…and we’re just getting started.

The rock keeps rolling with Track 2’s ‘Here We Go Again’, a mid-tempo blast with a touch of a blues/funk mixed in with the soaring key changes. The song hits hard and fast and then quickly exits (more on that later). ‘Fire in My Blood’ is up next and despite the title indicating a fast tempo track, this continues the same tempo pace and complements the previous track very well, once again adding a tinge of Talisman-type funk in parts. Gang vocals back up lead singer Rik Cayton in the chorus and we are three for three in the strong songs department.

Although I did not notice it earlier, when I got to Track 5’s ‘Born to Fly’, I noticed how similar Rik Cayton sounded to Danny Vaughn. In fact, this track could have easily come off Tyketto’s debut.  From that point forward, it is all I noticed.  It sounded like Danny just took over the album.  ‘Born to Fly’ is an acoustic based track not dissimilar to the Tyketto track ‘Wings’, and just like that song, Rik gives a phenomenal vocal performance.

The title track opens the second half of the album. It’s the single that made me want to take on this review. The chorus is absolute bliss, sounding more like Journey that Journey does these days. The type of soaring chorus that defines melodic hard rock. ‘Listen to Your Heart’ follows and absolutely floors me. A song that has both an incredible bridge and chorus that both soar into the stratosphere. A mid-tempo, anthemic, and inspirational powerhouse of a track.  Another Top 10 of the year song within the melodic rock circles.

I have to give a special shout out to bassist Ricky Moss. Most reviews I write do not usually mention bassists, but his rhythms remind me of the type that the late great Marcel Jacob would construct and it’s the glue that holds all this melodicism together.

With all these compliments, I do have to give one critique to the album. Four of the ten tracks are under three minutes long, and only one is over four minutes long. A few of the songs end abruptly, in a jarring way. It feels as if the band did not know how to end some of the melodies, so they decided to end it immediately after the final chorus. With the album clocking in at 33 minutes long, the band could have expanded some of these songs by changing around some arrangements or adding outros.

That is the only issue I have with an album that is chock full of melodic greatness. I hear bits of Journey, Tyketto, Whitesnake, and Harem Scarem throughout this album and if you dig those bands the way that I do, then this needs to be your next album purchase. This band is going places and the journey to greatness begins right here, so hop on board.

Tracklist:

1. City Sights
2. Here We Go Again
3. Fire In My Blood
4. Lady of the Night
5. Born to Fly
6. Northern Lights
7. Listen to Your Heart
8. Bad Boys
9. The Good Die Young
10. Never Again

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