Artist: Tygers Of Pan Tang 
   Title: Animal Instinct
   Label: Cargo Records

Out of the ashes comes the Phoenix and out of the darkness comes the Tiger, both come to pass when the original Bay Area band (that’s Whitley Bay) adopt a never give up attitude. Robb Weir is one of the stalwart stars of the 80’s British Rock scene and has seen his band The Tygers Of Pan Tang rise to world stardom and crash into the depths obscurity as Grunge and the fall of the pure bred Rock Stars has inflicted its disease on the British Rock and Metal scene over the past 20 or so years.

But Robb has never been a quitter and has always sought out to bring the Tygers back into the spotlight and with various singers in the past few years, Rob has struck gold with an Italian Jeff Scott Soto in the form of Jacopo Meille, (can this boy wail!).

I’ve followed the Tygers for many years and seen them grow over recent years with Meille as frontman, along with Weir the now stable line-up of Dean Robertson (guitar), Brian West (bass) and Craig Ellis (drums), the band are set to take the world by storm with their new album ‘Animal Instinct’.

The album gets underway in emphatic style with ‘Rock Candy’ and it's plain for all to hear that the Tygers are back and ready to rock like never before.  With the guitars of Weir and Roberson powering through and the magnificent vocals of Meille, the tiger has its roar back.

The album continues its impressive path with ‘Cry Sweet Freedom’, this is Hard Rock at its finest, with Roberson just ripping up a storm on lead guitar and with Meille’s great vocals, this is one of the many highlights of the album for me.

‘Live For The Day’ has featured as part of the bands live set the past few times I’ve seen them and has always been a great live song.  I’m glad to see its inclusion on the album as the mix between the hard rock aspects of the band and the more mellow moments are just superb.

It's rockin' all the way once more with ‘Let It Burn’ where Roberson and Weir share solos on this pure slice of British Hard Rock.  But don't be mistaken, the band aren’t relying on the old school sound, this is a modern Tygers as they bring their sound into the now with the excellent ‘If You See Kay’ and the equally superb hard rocking ‘Hot Blooded’.  This is definitely a band on the move forward.

The album gets a little bluesy with ‘Devils Find A Fool’.  This one reminds me very much of the Little Angels before hitting the rockin' groove once more with another of my favourite tracks ‘Winners And Losers’.  Again Meille shows why he’s such a find as he once again reigns supreme and is truly one of the finest vocalists around today.

It's back to the modern sounding Tygers with ‘Cruisin’, a mid tempo rocker that reminds me very much of INXS in parts, then it's back to another song that has featured in the bands live set ‘Bury The Hatchet’, which also appeared on the bands Back and Beyond EP last year and is probably the track that is most like the Tygers of old.  This song could very easily have featured on 'The Cage' or 'Spellbound' albums and wouldn’t have been out of place.

The album comes to a close with last of my personal favourites ‘Dark Rider’, again with Weir and Roberson trading solo’s on this song.  Again it showcases this is a whole new Tyger with a mighty roar that will silence those critics who thought the band were dead and buried.  There’s an old Chinese Proverb that states a tiger is made up of three men, I’d like this opportunity to update that saying by noting that a Tyger is actually made up of five men who remain true to their roots but who also welcome change. 

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