'Firehouse's' follow up to the excellent self titled debut is often overlooked, more than likely due to the 'Grunge' movement of the early nineties that swept aside the 'Hair Metal' scene. This is a shame as it's a decent album and while it's not as slick as it's predecessor, it makes up for this with enthusiasm and a slightly heavier approach which I think suits them well.

First off is the hard rocking 'Reach for the Sky', a tougher tune than usual for 'Firehouse' and it's a great opener, full of precision fret work and upheld by a cracking sing-a-long chorus. 'Rock you Tonight' follows in strong fashion and despite the predictable lyrics and approach, it's still a decent effort with sweet harmonies and a nice melodic flow. The first ballad takes the shape of 'Sleeping with You', a fairly tame attempt that's just far too run of the mill, with trite lyrics and lacklustre melody. Much better is the gritty hard rocking 'You're too Bad', vocally 'C .J. Snare' sounds right at home and is supported wonderfully with a fabulous driving rhythm and heaps of sweet guitar licks. It's back to the ballads again with 'When I Look into your Eyes', a track which surprisingly made it into the UK charts, although it's better than 'Sleeping with You' mainly due to the all round commitment, it's still a light-weight affair. After a subtle intro the title track really gets going, with a quality melody and more excellent guitar work, lyrically it's simplistic yet enjoyable and one of the album highlights. Other tracks worth mentioning are 'Get in Touch' a decent mid tempo track, but nothing spectacular, while 'The Meaning of Love' plods along nicely, but is hardly memorable. The pace is picked up with 'Talk of the Town', here I get the impression they tried for a more sleazy sounding number and while that doesn't really come off, it's still an enjoyable track, with fair lyrics, solid chorus and more great harmonies. 'Life in the Real World' is a decent mid tempo journey, with a nice melodic flow but ultimately comes across a little predictable. Improvements are made with the pulsating 'Mama Didn't Raise no Fool', for me probably the second best cut with it's mean rhythm, cracking chorus and tough rocking approach. 'Hold your Fire' closes with the balladsy 'Hold the Dream' and while it fails to inspire me, it's my pick of the ballads, with quality vocals and strong instrumentation.

Not quite as good as the debut, but still a very good effort that will fail to disappoint 'Firehouse' fans. Personally I think 'Firehouse' come up with excellent rockers, but their balladsy material isn't really to my taste.