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GLENN HUGHES
Chosen

Frontiers (2025)
Rating: 8/10

Described as a “personal work, with lyrics about love, hope, faith and the human condition”, Chosen is the brand new and potentially last opus from legendary UK vocalist Glenn Hughes.

One might be lead into thinking that due to its emotional nature that Chosen would veer towards the fluffy side, but you’d be mistaken. There’s hardly a ballad in sight here as Chosen comes equipped with driving riffs, punchy drums and a sizzling vocal power. The flavours from Glenn’s last solo album, Resonate (2016), are gone, there’s no sass or funkiness (okay, maybe with patches of ‘Hot Damn Thing’ and ‘Black Cat Moan’) or hint of Hammond flush, but instead straight up rockin’ where axe man Soren Andersen delivers in spades.

Considering this album seems like a reflective process, there’s so much vigour, suggesting that Glenn could easily spit out another batch of albums after this. Chosen kicks in with ‘Voice In My Head’, and Andersen is immediately wired in, providing the punchy lick like a cocksure veteran. ‘Voice In My Head’ isn’t just one of those misleading escapades, hell no, a majority of the record grooves with such delicious weight akin to a solo project of Tony Iommi (Black Sabbath). The behemoths strut and stomp like a herd of elephants in single file doing the Macarena!

‘My Alibi’, ‘Heal’ and the title track all unravel like serpent coils, getting darker with each roll. It’s not that this is a record of ominous tone but there are plenty of moodier shades within its contours, particularly as the album gets heavier with songs such as the thunderous doom of ‘The Lost Parade’ and the literal grunge hammering of ‘In The Golden’.

There’s certainly a mid-90s density about some of these songs, especially with the shuddering bass lines. Closer ‘Into The Fade’ is a sumptuous mid-paced rocker with a spine of steel, while ‘Come And Go’ brings subtlety as Glenn returns to a softer plateau of sensitivity and majesty amidst melancholy.

Hughes, to use the exhausted adage, has got better with age, soulfully crooning with a bluesy smoulder, but as he approaches his mid-seventies one can naturally wonder how much more he’s got left in the tank. However, with Chosen it would suggest that Glenn still has a heart full of soul and rock n’ rol.

Neil Arnold

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