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The Circle

• Bon Jovi
• Universal Music

Given the surprising success of Bon Jovi's 2007 cowboy dalliance Lost Highway , a revisit to the O.K. Corral would not have been out of the question. It doesn't happen, though. The Circle is a generally satisfactory return to the things the New Jersey quartet does best – over-the-top, faux-epic hair metal, with the occasional power ballad tossed in to lighten the load.

In fact, a better title for this release would have been Big! It's a conscious effort to produce big anthem choruses for big songs, big vocals, big solos and even big ideas, all leading up to the big 2010 tour of big arenas – the dates for which have already been put into place (with Toronto pencilled in for July 20).

So not surprisingly, the opening number (and debut single release), We Weren't Born to Follow , is a determined throwback to the band's biggest hits of the past decade, using the formula that graced most of Have a Nice Day – clean vocals, tight melodic hooks and crisp but controlled guitar soloing from Richie Sambora. That its structure is as familiar as the smell of morning coffee must be considered by the Bon Jovi brain trust to be a good thing.

Seemingly big ideas surface in songs such as Work for the Working Man , wherein Jon Bon Jovi and Sambora tread the well-worn path of nineties voice of the proletariat John Mellencamp, and Bullet , an awkward and simplistic analogy comparing street crime and international warfare, which concludes that it's all bad.

Elsewhere, attempts are made to broaden the band's signature sound with varying degrees of success. Thorn in My Side is a good song, but it was also a good song when the Smashing Pumpkins called it Disarm . Brokenpromiseland (yup! all one word) continues the long-standing Springsteen Lite motif, Fast Cars metaphorically mines the classic rock stars and cars archetype, and Love's the Only Rule echoes – believe it or not – Neil Diamond.

But above all else, it must also be noted that the album as a whole is eminently listenable, with credit going to the workmanlike and unobtrusive production job done by John Shanks. And the craft evident in both the songwriting and the execution surely displays the experience that 26 years in the Big Leagues of Rock provide.

The Circle will certainly not bring many new fans on board. It's an album that Bon Jovi could have made at any point in the second half of their career. But for the legions of fans that have made the band one of the most successful of the past 20 years, it will probably be seen as a welcome return to form.