It would be tempting to think that Richie Sambora’s first solo endeavor outside of Bon Jovi would be a guitar-heavy rock affair. However, thinking so would overlook two of Sambora’s best qualities. First of all, he is a guitarist who always plays in service of the song and secondly, he is objectively a far better singer than Jon Bon Jovi. Sambora’s voice and guitar are front and center on ‘Stranger In This Town’, but not in the usual “guitar hero who grabs the chance to do his own thing” way. Instead, it is a romantic-sounding rock record with lots of bluesy guitar playing.

Anyone hoping for a record highlighting the rawer qualities of half of Bon Jovi’s songwriting duo will likely be disappointed. ‘Stranger In This Town’ is frontloaded with softer tracks and the production is quite glossy, though nowhere near as drowning in reverb as Bon Jovi’s eighties hit records. There are some genuinely rocking moments on the album – most notably ‘Rosie’, which was intended for inclusion on Bon Jovi’s 1988 ‘New Jersey’ album – but the emphasis on ‘Stranger In This Town’ is on bright-sounding clean guitars, subtle orchestrations (real or from David Bryan’s keyboards) and a particularly heartfelt vocal delivery by Sambora himself.

What sold me on ‘Stranger In This Town’ was the opening ten minutes. The album starts with an almost four minute long intro called ‘Rest In Peace’, in which Sambora’s vocals and abstract washes of guitar fade in and out of the track. After this track has set the mood, ‘Church Of Desire’ does a great job introducing the general style of the album. Despite being built on clean electric guitars and punchy lead guitar fills, it’s not exactly blues, too atmospheric to be hardrock, but too driven and rhythmically forward to be considered a ballad as well. A flawless song with a perfect production to match.

That does not mean there aren’t any full-on ballads on ‘Stranger In This Town’. The bluesy soul of the title track fits the cover art perfectly and is enhanced by its stingy, almost Clapton-esque guitar playing. Clapton himself guests on the dreamy ‘Mr. Bluesman’, while the relatively experimental ‘One Light Burning’ and the particularly heartfelt, epic ‘Father Time’ sound like they have Sambora begging on his knees. ‘Ballad Of Youth’, ironically, is one of the harder rocking songs on the album, alongside the Badlands-esque ‘River Of Love’ and the aforementioned ‘Rosie’.

Despite some songs being a decent fit for the Bon Jovi albums released around the same time, not in the last place because David Bryan and Tico Torres are playing on the material, it’s a good thing that Sambora went ahead and released this album under his own name. His voice is perfect for the romantic rock sound on the record and the album really shows that he has songwriting skills beyond what he could show in his main band. It’s still difficult to categorize this amalgamation of eighties hardrock, blues and AOR-ish touches, but that may just be the main reason why ‘Stranger In This Town’ is so unbelievably compelling.

Recommended tracks: ‘Church Of Desire’, ‘Father Time’, ‘Ballad Of Youth’