My dislike for supergroups is fairly well-documented on this site, but I have made an exception for Black Swan since I first heard them. There are two important reasons for that. First off, guitarist Reb Beach and bassist Jeff Pilson tend to take songwriting and production very seriously, regardless of which project they are taking on – honestly, Beach’s projects may have been better than his main bands over the last few decades. Secondly, Black Swan is easily the best band that powerhouse singer Robin McAuley has been a part of. ‘Paralyzed’ is their third album, and it’s full of excellent songwriting and even better vocals.

Despite all three of their album being released on the label, there are a few things that keep Black Swan from being just another Frontiers supergroup. First of all, they are very expressly a guitar band first and foremost. There are no thick layers of keyboards slickening the sound to the point where the music loses all of its rock muscle, even though the production has audibly been put together with a lot of care. Because of this, McAuley is pushed to deliver his most powerful vocal performances in a way the more keyboard-heavy AOR of his solo albums doesn’t.

One thing that does make Black Swan an excellent fit for Frontiers is that the songs are clearly written to make the most out of the singer’s strengths. McAuley doesn’t sound anywhere near his 73 years of age – not even 37, I would say – and while a lot of that is his own almost supernatural talent, it does help that the compositions and the arrangements give him the space to excel, whether it’s the slightly metallic hard rock that characterizes most of the album or the surprisingly strong ballads, which avoid the overly schmaltzy character bands of this caliber often can’t shake off.

It does take ‘Paralyzed’ a little while to get going. None of the first three songs is bad or even mediocre, but they’re fairly standard melodic hard rock singles. With the fantastic modern hard rock crunch of ‘If I Was King’, the album really hits its stride, though. The swift, powerful ‘Carry On’ is another highlight, and the title track is a supreme catchy hardrocker. I also really like the Bad Company but heavier vibe of closing track ‘What the Future Holds’, while ‘The Fire and the Flame’ reminds me of Whitesnake’s criminally underrated ‘Wings of the Storm’ in how the uptempo riff and subdued verses enhance each other.

For those who already enjoyed the first two Black Swan albums, my advice is quite simple: you can blindly buy ‘Paralyzed’. Stylistically, it’s exactly the same type of energetic, yet very melodic hard rock with a subtle metallic edge to Reb Beach’s guitar playing as before. While it does take a little longer to get going, I would also say that the peaks on ‘Paralyzed’ are a bit higher than those on the first two albums. Really, I wish there were more supergroups that lived up to the “super” part of that moniker the way that Black Swan does.

Recommended tracks: ‘If I Was King’, ‘The Fire and the Flame’, ‘Carry On’