Of course it helps when your band's been rocking for the best part of thirty years, but it's time for the old chestnut to be trotted out when singer Bill Byford declares this to be "the most powerful album we've ever recorded!"

That's not to dismiss Byford as an old chestnut, mind... nor to dispute his point, for this is a record that doesn't exactly dress itself in comfy slippers and put its feet up in front of the fire. But The Inner Sanctum, aside from its superbly pompous rock title, explores the sort of sound Saxon fans will be oh so familiar with - and, of course, love.

Chief culprit is the frankly laughable I've Got To Rock (To Stay Alive), where Byford finds himself adopting a husky Bryan Adams tone in the song's bridge passage, before hauling himself from the wreckage with a full-throated bellow. It's too late by then though.

Red Star Falling, meanwhile, is the power ballad of the record, flirting with fantasy in its subject matter, the obsession with the line 'the beast is slain' wearing a little thin. And if it wasn't slain by the song, it was certainly beyond recovery by the end of Doug Scarratt's mighty guitar solo!

No-one could possibly accuse them in lacking energy though, from the moment Nigel Glockler's drums gallop in to the semi-mysterious male chorus that begins State Of Grace, or the impressive outburst of folksy riffing that kicks off Need For Speed.

And throughout, the band give it their all, meaning that while rock clichés abound, they do so in a more passionate way than you might expect. Lyrically there's not much to be said though, and Going Nowhere Fast sums it up as Byford sings "I look to the left of me, I look to the right, there's nothing here around me, no exit in sight".

You'll have gathered from this that there's nothing new to report from planet Saxon. But then if you’re a fan, you'd have the right to enquire why there should be. Their established fan base have followed their band right from the beginning, when they rode in on the crest of the 'new wave' of British heavy metal, so they don't need to take too much of a risk these days. And with the potential of a post-Darkness fallout still a possibility, there remains the chance that a few stray souls may be captured.

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