Well, well, well we finally have a proper new NELSON album to listen to. “Lightning Strikes Twice” has certainly been a long time coming and it is being touted as the successor to the 1990 debut “After The Rain”. Well it certainly is close, but let’s see how close…

Opening with “Call Me”, you can almost immediately hear the comparisons to “After The Rain”. The production is crisp, clear & solid. The song itself is pure NELSON with its great harmonies, mix of acoustic & electric guitars and all-around melodic sound. The same can be said for “Day By Day”; the brothers’ vocals have never sounded better and there seems to be a newfound and fun attitude to the songs that truly does remind you of the debut. You really have to love when a band can come through with songs that are seamless successors some twenty years down the line!

“Ready, Willing And Able” has the attitude but falls a tad bit short in the originality department. It has a very much pseudo-bluesy “hair band” feel and although it’s not a total turn off it just doesn’t seem hold up to the quality of the first two tracks.

“How Can I Miss You?” opens with acoustics and a great electric lead-in reminiscent of something you’d hear from a band like Y&T. The song develops into a cool mid-paced rocker with a great arrangement.

The first single and video from the record is “You’re All I Need Tonight” and the song is a more than logical choice as it is a perfect example of the NELSON sound. The song could have easily been a hit single from “After The Rain”. In fact it was an original demo from back at that time. How it never made the debut record is a true mystery. Again, it has all the qualities that NELSON has built its name on; great intertwining of acoustic and electric guitars, awesome dual lead vocals and catchy as hell music.

The first ballad on “Lightning” is “To Get Back To You”. It’s a big piano-driven ballad with some orchestration thrown in for good measure. It’s just the brother’s vocals over the piano until the song kicks in with the drums and guitars to add to the overall grand effect. Guitars on this track are provided by the legendary Steve Lukather (TOTO) and it really bring things up a notch as Luke’s tone is second to none.

“When You’re Gone” is a mid-paced melodic rocker. Some big background harmonies lend to the melodic proceedings and the song sounds like something that would a good one to cruise to with the top down on the old convertible in the warm summer weather! The tune even has a bit of a “Bits and Pieces” (from the debut) vibe to it. Cool song.

“Take Me There” is another slow number but instead of piano, this time it’s an acoustic coupled with some orchestration. The song sort of has a sentimental vibe with nice harmony vocals in the chorus. The proceeding song “Come” fails to ever get going and seems a bit like filler to me. It’s a mid-paced acoustic-based rocker but just seems to be missing that certain special element. The following tune “In It For The Money” seems to suffer from the same fate. The song seems like it never reaches that special level and has the feeling of a “leftover” track. It has something of a honky-tonk, country vibe to it also.

The album closes out with the duo of “Change”, which again is a mid-paced AOR tune with a sentimental tone and “Kickin’ My Heart Around” which is yet another mid-paced rocker but this time with a bit of an edgy vibe that gets progressively harder as the songs wears on. It has some updated sounds and if the preceding three songs hadn’t followed it, it would probably have been a cool tune in its own right. It seems the second half of the record falls off a bit in terms of quality tunes but the production and performances never falter. “Lightning Strikes Twice” is a solid, if unspectacular, follow up to “After The Rain”. I thought the band was onto something in the first half of the record but it seems to fall a bit flat by the end. Still it is good to hear the NELSON brothers getting back to the melodic rock sound and vibe of the early days. Maybe the next album can take things a step further? “Only time will tell”… (direct pun intended!).