Nerve Star’s debut album ‘White Hot’ is out now on vinyl, CD, and digital, and it arrives with a genuinely unusual story behind it. The UK-based hard rock quintet built the 13-track record almost entirely from obscure covers, sourcing songs that never made it past local band demos or cassette tapes in the late 1970s and 1980s, tracks so buried that tracking down the original writers took real effort.
The payoff is an album that functions as a full-throttle rescue mission for lost hard rock material, delivered by a band with serious combined credentials. Guitarist Janne Stark has recorded and produced in metal, prog, and NWOBHM circles since the 1980s. Producer Mike Dixon toured with Thin Lizzy in 1975 and the Sensational Alex Harvey Band in 1976. The album was recorded and mixed by Rasmus Bom Andersen of Diamond Head at Raw Studios in England and mastered by Andy “Hippy” Baldwin, whose credits include Oasis and Blur, at Metropolis in London.
The album closes with “Richard III,” originally written by Tony Bourge of Welsh heavy metal legends Budgie, the riff architect behind tracks later covered by Metallica and Van Halen. Bourge recorded his guitar parts in Wales and sent them across, making the closing track a 3-guitar showcase featuring Stark, Chris Billinghurst, and Bourge himself.
The Astral DJ edit of “Space Ritual,” a shorter standalone version of the full album track originally recorded by Spanish band Warlock in 1987, is also out now. The band describes it as a fan favorite: “Starts off in a swirling riffing opening, that breaks into a deep Highway Star-type driving riff with some great wah solos and a spacey feedback finish.”
‘White Hot’ is out now on all formats, distributed in the UK by RSK Entertainment via Proper Distribution.