You would think that I have a membership for reviewing albums where Ronnie Romero is the singer. But I haven’t, it just turns out that he is singing on a lot of albums that I consider interesting. The same goes for this SUNSTORM album. I hadn’t followed the band for some years, but still class their 2006 self-titled debut album as one of the Melodic Metal albums of all time. I therefore didn’t realise that “Restless Fight” was already the third with Ronnie Romero behind the microphone. The first one and sixth overall, “Afterlife”, was released in early 2021, followed in 2022 by “Brothers In Arms”. Now it is time for number eight “Restless Fight”. Let’s see what we have got.

What comes to mind immediately is that music as well as vocals have been done and completed to quite a good standard, although I have to admit that it took me several listening sessions before I reached that decision. My first impression of this SUNSTORM album was a lot less favourable. I felt that there were songs and parts that were done on automatic pilot. And yes, that goes for the instrumental side of it as well as the vocal one. And that is something I was not expecting. But, after several counts, I have to revise that. It just took time for me to ‘feel’ the music. What I really don’t feel at all is the SUNSTORM rendition of “Shot In The Dark”. It just falls flat in comparison to the original. Even OZZY’s vocals sound more convincing than how Ronnie Romero is singing this. And musically they are not even close to the emotional intensity that the original houses.

I think that is where I feel that “Restless Fight” is letting SUNSTORM down. There is no real emotion. Only in the songs “Without You” and the title song “Restless Fight” you hear all the members of the band go at it full force. Yes, the first one mentioned is a Power Ballad, but it has that kind of depth that draws you in. The latter is a little bit faster, and here the band members all go like the clappers. It makes for the best two songs on the whole album. The rest is just below those, resulting in an album that just doesn’t cut the mustard as far as I’m concerned. Somehow, I expected more from SUNSTORM on “Restless Fight”.