Wayward Sons step up a level on Even Up The Score

Toby Jepson's Wayward Sons come of age on album number three, Even Up The Score

By Malcolm Dome
( Classic Rock )
published
Wayward Sons: Even Up The Score cover art
(Image: © Frontiers Records)

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It’s taken time, but at last Wayward Sons have hit their mark – and in a significant manner. Frontman Toby Jepson has assembled the strongest line-up to date, and Even Up The Score is 11 energetic, pulsating and dynamic tracks. 

Blasting off in anthemic fashion on the title track, the album races along with Jepson and guitarist San Wood feeding off each other ravenously, and drummer Phil Martini delivers a stirring groove. 

There’s a full-blooded sense of British attitude, bringing to mind The Temperance Movement, with the added punch of The Almighty. 

The best moments come on the melodic yet intense Faith In Fools (a dictat about politicians?) and the heavy bounce of Fake, but nothing lets down the overall quality. Wayward Sons have stepped up a level. Their next album could be sensational.

Malcolm Dome
Malcolm Dome

Malcolm Dome had an illustrious and celebrated career which stretched back to working for Record Mirror magazine in the late 70s and Metal Fury in the early 80s before joining Kerrang! at its launch in 1981. His first book, Encyclopedia Metallica, published in 1981, may have been the inspiration for the name of a certain band formed that same year. Dome is also credited with inventing the term "thrash metal" while writing about the Anthrax song Metal Thrashing Mad in 1984. With the launch of Classic Rock magazine in 1998 he became involved with that title, sister magazine Metal Hammer, and was a contributor to Prog magazine since its inception in 2009. He died in 2021.