Million Suns

Eight years on from finishing runner-up to Guy Sebastian in the first series of Australian Idol and New South Wales rocker Shannon Noll has impressively managed to avoid the "here today, gone tomorrow" fate of most of the show's subsequent alumni, as evidenced by his fourth studio album, A Million Suns. Despite a label change from Sony to Universal and a four-year gap since 2007's Turn It Up, most of its 12 tracks stick to what he knows best, with only a slightly out-of-place faithful rendition of James Brown's "It's A Man's Man's Man's World" upsetting the Americanized soft rock apple cart. "My Place in the Line" and "Living in Stereo" are arena-sized anthems that might briefly satisfy those waiting impatiently for the next Bryan Adams record, the the impassioned melodies of the lead single, "Switch Me On," echo the radio-friendly AOR of Goo Goo Dolls rather than the pop-punk usually associated with its writer, Good Charlotte's Benji Madden, while "Til We Say So" and the title track a