Back in the post Thin Lizzy days, Laurence Archer wrote and performed with Phil Lynott as Grand Slam. Sadly, Grand Slam was cut short in its prime, with Phil Lynott's untimely death leaving a hole in the fabric of rock music to this day.

Laurence went on to make his name playing with UFO but always nurtured a long-term plan to rebuild the Grand Slam machine. And here it is — primed and ready.

The new band (Laurence alongside Mike Dyer, Benjy Reid and Dave Boyce) honours the traditions of the band's history whilst also looking to the future on their debut album Hit The Ground. Classic tracks co-written by Lynott and Archer sit alongside a set of brand new songs that embody the same ethos of freedom, positivity and adrenaline that ran through Grand Slam in 1984.

"I've been thinking about this moment for many years", Laurence Archer says, "and I'm so proud of what we, the new Grand Slam, have achieved. 'Gone Are The Days' is the most obvious choice for the first release - it's a song I originally wrote in the late '80s but with the band we have captured all the new and the heritage elements of Grand Slam and my writing. Grand Slam are back and here to stay. Obviously at times like this, Phil is never far from my thoughts, a friend and a mentor and a hero always."

Vocalist Mike Dyer adds, "Grand Slam is very much a new beast with a love and respect from where the beast was born. I think it's fair to say that the five old and five new compositions are honest and true. When we heard some very rough recordings you could hear the potential. We went on to discover our very own sound and wrote a plethora of new material that had the essence of the legacy yet sounded fresh and exciting and most importantly really kicks
ass."

Check out Grand Slam's debut studio album Hit The Ground below: