Virtual Summer: Vinyl LP

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. Its called Virtual Summer, and its 14 slabs of the slickest sounds this side of a hot pink Mustang with the top down and the stereo way, way up.

Wigans just a little town, its not the nicest place I know you dont expect this sort of thing to come out of here, but thats why it did, says Millar. Half the time its raining and miserable, so Virtual Summer is like tapping into summer whenever you need to, just put it on and its always there for you.

Raised on a parental diet of Slade, Springsteen and Sabbath, it wasnt long before Millar soon discovered his own hard rocking obsessions, and if theres a familiar ring to any of Virtual Summers dopamine cannon blasts then its because its the culmination of the guitar-slinging mavericks lifelong adoration for the finely honed melodic perfection of the giants of AOR, and Toto in particular.

I guess you could call it cheesy, but theres something about being able to sing a song after youve heard one chorus, the feeling it gives you its just so positive, he says.