Long Way Home

Long Way Home is a fulfilling work on which Dokken again carefully pulled together sorrowful, beautiful vocal melody, soaring choruses and neat guitar work. Though the sound is modernly arranged, at the songs’ core the sure dignity of melodic hard rock continuing from the 1980s is firmly held. A calmer, more mature record. Don Dokken’s slightly shaded singing powerfully drives that world. From the opener “Sunless Days” and the drama of “Little Girl” to a cut like “Everybody Needs (To Be With Someone),” every song is engaging, while cuts like “Goodbye My Friend” and “Magic Road” convey the work’s fullness. Don Dokken’s sorrow-tinged singing is beautifully in sharp form throughout. A record on which Don Dokken’s slightly shaded singing and the guitar’s fine, beautiful phrases powerfully give the songs a calm, sure heat. Rather than flashiness, it is refined content of the type that carefully savors mature, beautiful melody. An engaging record showing the sure dignity of Dokken in its mature period — a record where the band’s maturity shines.