Virtual Summer

Picture a time when you could have a good time all the time. It was an era when fast cars rolled under neon lights, yachts were a sensible housing decision and fighting for your right to party was a full time occupation. This mythical age had an equally flamboyant soundtrack to match, and it blared from boomboxes and dashboards in every time zone. It was the 1980s, and bands like Van Halen, Toto and Def Leppard personified a summertime sound built on big beats, bigger melodies and choruses so epic that singing along was the law, and places like Vegas, Hollywood, and Miami Beach became hedonistic epicenters of a global, sonic heatwave.

Cruelly overlooked among these hard-partying capitals is the little town of Wigan, just outside of Manchester – average annual rainfall: lots. It was there that multi-talented musician Sam Millar was born, and where that 80s vibe has found new life in the form of his debut solo record. It’s called Virtual Summer, and it’s 14 slabs of the slickest sounds this side of a hot pink Mustang with the top down and the stereo way, way up.

Raised on a parental diet of Slade, Springsteen and Sabbath, it wasn’t long before Millar soon discovered his own hard rocking obsessions, and if there’s a familiar ring to any of Virtual Summer’s dopamine cannon blasts then it’s because it’s the culmination of the guitar-slinging maverick’s lifelong adoration for the finely honed melodic perfection of the giants of AOR, and Toto in particular.

From the Van Halen-loving fireworks of album-opener The Killing Floor to the synth-laden slickness of Deja Vu, it’s an album that wears its heart on its sleeve, and it makes no apology for where it comes from.