LAST TEMPTATION’s “Better Late Than Never” is one of those lost albums that is just now seeing the light of day many years after it was created. The band is fronted by singer Frank Vestry of MARCELLO/VESTRY fame, of which their album was reviewed right here on www.rockeyez.com last year. Vestry and company recorded this gem back in 1991 and if this had been recorded just a couple years earlier than that it might have taken the hair scene by storm!

The record opens with “Break It” and its acoustic introduction that makes way for the killer vocals of Vestry before kicking into a WHITESNAKE meets KEEL meets DOKKEN rocker. It has all the emotion of the late 80’s and is dripping with that killer hair metal sound that we all know and love.

Title track “Last Temptation” brings a hard rock swagger along accompanied by some cool underlying keyboards (courtesy of Allan Gabay) and killer guitar work by Arnie Miot.

“Catch Me Now I’m Falling” is another smoldering rocker with top-notch musicianship and it surprising how competent the sound is on the record for what must have been little more than an indie release at the time it was recorded. I can easily envision with major label production this would be a near classic of the genre. “Without Love” brings that fun-time vibe from the hair days and with stabbing keyboards playing a big part it brings back the memory of great pomp acts like the classic WHITE SISTER or even a little bit of HOUSE OF LORDS.

Eddie Van Halen and Vito Bratta (depending on which coast you’re from!) have nothing on Arnie Miot as he opens “Oh So Easy” with his impressive fretwork. It leads into another fun-time rocker and even sounds a bit like TESLA at times, mainly thanks to Vestry’s throaty vocals.

The sound on “Emotions” seems to be missing the keyboard fills that made the previous tracks so full sounding. The keys are there but they seem to be more an afterthought than main part of the song. Sound-wise I’d compare the track to something you would have heard off the “Slip Of The Tongue” record from WHITESNAKE or maybe even a more raw sounding BONHAM.

Subsequent tracks like “Sailin’ Away (Northern Winds)”, “Save Me” and “Next To You” seem to have a more raw feel too, making the second half of the record seem as maybe it was recorded in a different session to the first half? The songs have the same vibe but just seem a shade below the first half of the record in terms of sound.

I was going to give “Better Late Than Never” a solid 4 stars based on the first half of the album but because of the slight dip in quality from the first half to the second I dropped it a half point to 3.5. Still it’s a solid 3.5 and if we had a more expanded rating system here at RockEyez it might have fallen somewhere in between. But maybe that’s nitpicking; bottom line is if you are a fan of the late 80’s hard rock/hair rock sound you should eat this one up. Go to the bands website (www.lasttemptation.org) to order your copy.