''The Killer Instinct'' is the second

studio album An album is a collection of audio recordings issued on compact disc (CD), Phonograph record, vinyl, audio tape, or another medium such as Digital distribution#Music, digital distribution. Albums of recorded sound were developed in the early ...

hard rock Hard rock or heavy rock is a loosely defined subgenre of rock music typified by aggressive vocals and distorted electric guitars. Hard rock began in the mid-1960s with the garage, psychedelic and blues rock movements. Some of the earliest hard ...

band

Black Star Riders Black Star Riders is a hard rock band formed in December 2012. The band began when members of the most recent line-up of Thin Lizzy decided to record new material, but chose not to release it under the Thin Lizzy name. While Thin Lizzy continues ...

, released on February 20, 2015. Black Star Riders evolved from the touring version of

Thin Lizzy Thin Lizzy are an Irish hard rock band formed in Dublin in 1969. Their music reflects a wide range of influences, including blues, soul music, psychedelic rock and traditional Irish folk music, but is generally classified as hard rock or some ...

, assembled by guitarist

Scott Gorham William Scott Gorham (born March 17, 1951) is an American guitarist and songwriter who is one of the "twin lead guitarists" for the Irish rock band Thin Lizzy. Although not a founding member of Thin Lizzy, he served a continuous membership after ...

after the death of Thin Lizzy's leader

Phil Lynott Philip Parris Lynott (, ; 20 August 1949 – 4 January 1986) was an Irish singer, bassist, and songwriter. His most commercially successful group was Thin Lizzy, of which he was a founding member, the principal songwriter, lead vocalist and ba ...

. The band's first album, '' All Hell Breaks Loose'', was released in 2013.

Recording

Recording for the band's follow-up to ''All Hell Breaks Loose'' was first announced during late 2013, and on 27 January 2014, it was announced the band's second album would be recorded in Dublin in October, and would be produced by

Def Leppard Def Leppard are an English rock band formed in 1976 in Sheffield. Since 1992, the band has consisted of Rick Savage (bass, backing vocals), Joe Elliott (lead vocals), Rick Allen (drums, backing vocals), Phil Collen (guitar, backing vocals), a ...

vocalist

Joe Elliott Joseph Thomas "Joe" Elliott (born 1 August 1959) is an English–Irish rock singer, best known as the lead singer and one of the founding members of the hard rock band Def Leppard. He has also been the lead singer of the David Bowie tribute ba ...

. Elliott had previously worked on vocalist

Ricky Warwick Ricky Warwick (born 11 July 1966) is a Northern Irish musician and the lead singer of the rock bands Black Star Riders and Thin Lizzy. He is also the frontman for the Scottish hard rock band The Almighty, with whom he achieved chart success in ...

's solo albums, and also with Scott Gorham on archival Thin Lizzy releases. However, Elliott pulled out of the project in August 2014 due to conflicts with Def Leppard's schedule. He was quickly replaced by

Nick Raskulinecz Nick Raskulinecz () (born February 4, 1970) is an American record producer. He resides in Nashville, Tennessee. Production career Raskulinecz is from the Bearden area of Knoxville, Tennessee. He first produced and recorded bands in Knoxville ...

, and recording took place in

Nashville, Tennessee Nashville is the capital city of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the county seat, seat of Davidson County, Tennessee, Davidson County. With a population of 689,447 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 U.S. census, Nashville is the List of muni ...

in September. ''The Killer Instinct'' is the first Black Star Riders album to feature former

Ratt Ratt is an American glam metal band formed in San Diego, California, in the 1970s, that had significant commercial success in the 1980s, with their albums having been certified as gold, platinum, and multi-platinum by the RIAA. The group is bes ...

and Lynch Mob bass guitarist Robbie Crane, who replaced founder member

Marco Mendoza Marco Mendoza is an American rock musician who has worked in diverse genres. He became a professional rock musician in 1989 and debuted on Black Sabbath drummer Bill Ward's solo album '' Along the Way''. He has performed on a number of nota ...

in June 2014. When the album title was announced on 21 November 2014, Warwick explained the name: "Life's not fair. Never has been, never will be. Sometimes you have to live with a killer instinct just to survive in the pursuit of happiness. Nobody can do for you what you should be doing for yourself." Guitarist

Damon Johnson Damon Rogers Johnson (born July 13, 1964) is an American guitarist, vocalist, and songwriter, currently a solo artist and member of Thin Lizzy. In the 1990s he co-founded Brother Cane, and later joined Alice Cooper's band as lead guitarist. He w ...

praised the album's producer Nick Raskulinecz, stating, "He patiently walked through the full song list with the entire band, and made sure we focused on the material to best represent Black Star Riders in 2015."

Singles

The first single from the album was the title track, which received its first airplay on 15 December 2014, on

Ken Bruce Kenneth Robertson Bruce (born 2 February 1951) is a British broadcaster who is best known for hosting his long-running weekday mid-morning show on BBC Radio 2 from 1986 to 1990, and then again since 1992. Early life and career Bruce was born a ...

's mid-morning show on

BBC Radio 2 BBC Radio 2 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. It is the most popular station in the United Kingdom with over 15 million weekly listeners. Since launching in 1967, the station broadcasts a wide range of content. ...

in the UK. On the same day, a lyric video was released, and the single was released the following day. The follow-up single was "Finest Hour", which was again given its first UK radio airplay by Ken Bruce on BBC Radio 2, and which subsequently became the station's "Record of the Week".

Track listing

Bonus tracks

Personnel

–

vocals Singing is the act of creating musical sounds with the voice. A person who sings is called a singer, artist or vocalist (in jazz and/or popular music). Singers perform music (arias, recitatives, songs, etc.) that can be sung with or without ...

guitar The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected stri ...

–

lead guitar Lead guitar (also known as solo guitar) is a musical part for a guitar in which the guitarist plays melody lines, instrumental fill passages, guitar solos, and occasionally, some riffs and chords within a song structure. The lead is the featur ...

rhythm guitar In music performances, rhythm guitar is a technique and role that performs a combination of two functions: to provide all or part of the rhythmic pulse in conjunction with other instruments from the rhythm section (e.g., drum kit, bass guitar ...

– lead guitar, rhythm guitar,

lap steel guitar The lap steel guitar, also known as a Hawaiian guitar, is a type of steel guitar without pedals that is typically played with the instrument in a horizontal position across the performer's lap. Unlike the usual manner of playing a traditional ...

on "Finest Hour" and "The Reckoning Day" * Robbie Crane –

bass guitar The bass guitar, electric bass or simply bass (), is the lowest-pitched member of the string family. It is a plucked string instrument similar in appearance and construction to an electric or an acoustic guitar, but with a longer neck and ...

Jimmy DeGrasso Jimmy DeGrasso (born March 16, 1963) is an American heavy metal drummer. DeGrasso played with Mama's Boys and Lita Ford before eventually working with Y&T and Megadeth and as a session or touring musician for Ozzy Osbourne (1986), White Lion ...

–

drums A drum kit (also called a drum set, trap set, or simply drums) is a collection of drums, cymbals, and other Percussion instrument, auxiliary percussion instruments set up to be played by one person. The player (drummer) typically holds a pair o ...

percussion A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a beater including attached or enclosed beaters or rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or struck against another similar instrument. Exc ...

with *

–

mellotron The Mellotron is an electro-mechanical musical instrument developed in Birmingham, England, in 1963. It is played by pressing its keys, each of which pushes a length of magnetic tape against a capstan, which pulls it across a playback head. A ...

and Taurus pedals on "Blindsided" and "You Little Liar" * Mark Gemini Thwaite – strings on "Blindsided" (acoustic) *Recorded at Rock Falcon Studio, Franklin, Tennessee *Engineered by Nathan Yarborough; 2nd engineer: John Albritton *Mixed by Jay Ruston at TRS West, Sherman Oaks, California *Assistant mixer: James Ingram *Mastered by Paul Logus for PLX Mastering, Yonkers, New York *Acoustic bonus tracks produced by Damon Johnson and Ricky Warwick *Engineered and mixed by Mark Gemini Thwaite

Charts

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Killer Instinct 2015 albums Black Star Riders albums Nuclear Blast albums Albums produced by Nick Raskulinecz