A boy from Kingston, Ontario, Bryan Adams has done good. Having sold over 75 million records and picked up a host of awards along the way, he’d be forgiven for kicking back and taking things easy. Yet his restless spirit has found new peaks to climb and with his latest album being the first for his own independent label Bad Records, he’s taken the fight on once again. His sixteenth studio album, Roll With The Punches finds Bryan going the distance over ten rumbustious tracks, trading blows to deliver a hard, but melodic, album that stands as a career best.
If ever a song (and, indeed, an album) was aptly-titled then it’s undoubtedly Roll With The Punches’ eponymous title-track. With guitar and drums combining to deliver a riff that perfectly replicates the sound of two heavyweight boxers slugging it out. It’s an arresting opener and one that immediately throws down the gauntlet; this isn’t going to be a run of the mill affair and ‘Roll With The Punches’ bottles some of that excitement found on early releases such as Cuts Like A Knife and Reckless, and when Bryan cuts loose at the songs finale and sets sparks flying with some gnarly soloing, there’s no signs of playing it safe on his new label, rather it’s the sound of an artist relishing the fight. So don’t be surprised to hear ‘Roll With The Punches’ as the walk-in music at a prize fight sometime soon.
Roll With The Punches is a riff-centric album and one which overflows with the good stuff; the circular one that propels ‘Make Up Your Mind’ was surely a gift from air guitar heaven, whilst that found on ‘A Little More Understanding’ could easily swing with anything The Stones released (and possibly win). While I’ve found certain Bryan Adams albums uneven affairs that are skewed either in favour of rockers or ballads, his latest effort walks a line right down the middle. His trademark lighter-in-the-air moments are still very much in evidence and create a nice foil for the up-to-eleven boisterousness, and the result is an album that ululates like an old school long player, ebbing and flowing between his two strengths. This is best exemplified by the closing couplet: ‘Be The Reason’ is the kind of high-octane rocker that made me fall in love with Bryan’s music whilst the walk-into-the-sunset nature of ‘Will We Ever Be Friends Again’ ensures the album ends on a suitably sombre tone and poses as many questions as it answers.
Hard to believe that Bryan is rapidly approaching pension age but as Roll With The Punches proves, there’s plenty of fight left in him.
- Roll With The Punches is released via Bad Records on 29th August 2025.
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Track List:
- Roll With The Punches
- Make Up Your Mind
- Never Ever Let You Go
- A Little More Understanding
- Life Is Beautiful
- Love Is Stronger Than Hate
- How’s That Working For Ya?
- Two Arms To Hold You
- Be The Reason
- Will We Ever Be Friends Again?
