The title reflects the fact that this was not a planned release. “I spend my life in and out of the studio,” Francis Rossi explains, “rehearsing, tinkering, but something happened, and before I knew it we had created something special.” He’s referring to early 2025 jams with Hiran Ilangantilike, a guitarist who he met as a school friend of one of Rossi’s children. One thing led to another, and became this: a fifth Rossi solo album, with 14 songs and seven Ilangantilike co-writer credits.
It follows hard on the heels of last year’s The Way We Were Vol. 1 (an engaging collection of demos assembled from his home studio vaults), but when he says: “It’s loud, the guitars are right to the fore”, it suggests many years might have passed since he last listened to Status Quo’s 1972 classic album Piledriver.
