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Upcoming Gigs & Albums
Latest Album Reviews
Latest Gig Reviews
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Gig review: PAUL McCARTNEY- 02 Arena, London, 18 December 2024
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Gig review: BLACK EYED SONS- The Lexington, London, 16 December 2024
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Gig review: BRAVE RIVAL – Thames Side Brewery, Staines, 8 December 2024
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Gig review: STRAY – The Cavern, Raynes Park, London, 7 December 2024
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Gig review: THE SHEEPDOGS, THE COMMONERS – Islington Assembly Hall, London, 5 December 2024
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Gig review: GUN – Barrowlands, Glasgow, 14 December 2024
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Featured Album Reviews
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Author Archives: andynathan
Book review: Decades – FLEETWOOD MAC in the 1970s by Andrew Wild
SonicBond Publishing [Publication date 14.05.21] No band survived the seventies with a more spectacular transformation than Fleetwood Mac. They began it as a successful British blues band who were about to be left reeling by the departure of their founder … Continue reading
Posted in ALL POSTS, BOOK REVIEWS
Tagged Andrew Wild, book, Decades, Fleetwood Mac, review
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Gig review: SPIKE- The Cavern, Raynes Park, London, 15 July 2021
There can hardly be a rock fan who has not seen the Quireboys at some point in the last 35 years and whatever their view of the band, warmed to the bibulous, twinkly, laddish charms of singer Spike. The Quireboys’ … Continue reading
Posted in ALL POSTS, GIG REVIEWS
Tagged acoustic, Cavern, Christian Heilmann, gig, Quireboys, Spike
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Book review: Decades – URIAH HEEP in the 1970s by Steve Pilkington
Sonicbond Publishing (Release Date 28.03.21) Following the series of ‘On Track’ releases, reviewing a band’s back catalogue in comprehensive detail, Sonicbond have been moving onto a new ‘decades’ concept in which a band’s history is examined in more detail over … Continue reading
Album review: DENNIS DE YOUNG – 26 East, Volume 2
Frontiers Records (Release date 11.06.21) This is an album I’ve been looking forward to for 12 months since the release of Volume 1. That represented the former Styx singer’s return to his melodic rock roots in far better fashion than … Continue reading
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Tagged album, AOR, Dennis De Young, Jim Peterik, melodic rock, pomp rock, Styx
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Album review: ONE DESIRE – One Night Only- Live in Helsinki (CD/DVD)
Frontiers Records (Release Date 11.06.21) In normal times, it might seem vainglorious for a band to issue a live CD and DVD just two albums into their career. However, in these strange times it is easy to empathise with One … Continue reading
Posted in ALBUM REVIEWS, ALBUM REVIEWS (Mobile), ALL POSTS, DVD REVIEWS
Tagged album, AOR, live album, melodic rock, One Desire
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Album review: TOTO – With A Little Help From My Friends
The Players Club/Mascot Label Group (Release Date 25.06.21) Last November Toto broadcast a live stream from California, which in the absence of concerts was the only way to introduce to the wider world their new line up in which Steve … Continue reading
Posted in ALBUM REVIEWS, ALBUM REVIEWS (Mobile), ALL POSTS
Tagged album, AOR, Joseph Williams, live album, melodic rock, review, Steve Lukather, Toto
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Gig review: PAPA GEORGE AND VAL COWELL- Cabbage Patch, Twickenham, 28 May 2021
A return to normality for gigging is a long way off, just witness the continuing cancellation or postponements of shows into 2022. However at least lockdown has lifted enough for a few socially distanced shows to resume. Last autumn I … Continue reading
Posted in ALL POSTS, GIG REVIEWS
Tagged Bad Influence, blues, blues rock, gig, Papa George, Val Cowell
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Gig review: JIM KIRKPATRICK- The Cavern, Raynes Park, London, 20 May 2021
If 2020 was a desert for live music, the road out of lockdown in 2021 has been an even longer and gloomier slog. Down in South West London, Cavern owner Noel Nevin has been fighting the good fight to stay … Continue reading
Posted in ALL POSTS, GIG REVIEWS
Tagged blues rock, FM, gig, Jim Kirkpatrick, melodic rock, The Cavern
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Album review: MARK SPIRO- Traveling Cowboys
Frontiers Records (Release Date 07.05.21) Best known as a writer for Cheap Trick, Giant, Bad English and others, Mark Spiro’s career has significantly picked up after a dormant few years. Less than a year after the ’2+2= 5‘ triple anthology … Continue reading
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Tagged album, Julian Lennon, Mark Spiro, melodic rock, singer songwriter
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Album review: LEVARA – s/t
Mascot Records [Release Date 14.05.21] So there was an American, an Englishman and a Frenchman…. no, not a set up to one of the world’s oldest forms of joke, but the line up of hotly tipped new melodic rockers Levara. … Continue reading
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Tagged album, Josh Devine, Jules Galli, Levara, melodic rock, Trev Lukather
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Album review: ROBBIE LaBLANC – Double Trouble
Escape Music (Release date 16.04.21) Robbie LaBlanc is not only one of the melodic rock world’s most admired singers, but increasingly its most prolific. It’s only a few months since I reviewed the East Temple Avenue album he lent his … Continue reading
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Tagged album, AOR, melodic rock, Robbie LaBlanc, Steve Overland, Tommy Denander
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Album review: FM – Tough It Out Live
Frontiers Records (Release date 09.04.21) It already seems a long time ago but one of the gig highlights of the winter before the pandemic struck was the Big-Three-O tour in which FM, together with Dan Reed Network and Gun, celebrated … Continue reading
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Tagged album, AOR, FM, live album, melodic rock, Steve Overland, Tough It Out
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Album review: GARY HUGHES – Decades
Frontiers Records [Release Date 12.03.21] With Gary Hughes having just released his first solo album in a long while, the simultaneous release of this generous 29 track double compilation is very timely as an opportunity to discover (or rediscover) the … Continue reading
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Tagged album, AOR, compilation, Gary Hughes, melodic rock, TEN
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Album review: A RISING FORCE – Undertow
HighVolMusic [Release Date 07.05.21] A Rising Force brings together several seasoned Minnesota musicians in a new band. They include guitarist Leni DiMancari, who was an original member of Hericane Alice but is better known, at least to me, as the … Continue reading
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Tagged A Rising Force, album, Brian Lorenson, Lane Allen, Leni DiMancari, Mark Westlund, Undertow
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Album review: CHEZ KANE
Frontiers Records [Release Date 12.03.21] Chez Kane is one of three sisters fronting Kane’d, who have gained a reputation pre-pandemic as an enjoyable live act. This is her debut solo album, though equal uncredited billing goes to Danny Rexon, lead … Continue reading
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Tagged album, AOR, Chez Kane, Crazy Lixx, Danny Rexon, melodic rock
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Album review: GARY HUGHES – Waterside
Frontiers Records [Release Date 12.03.21] It’s been a relatively quiet period for Gary Hughes, the usually prolific Ten mainman- over two years since Ten’s last album but a whopping 14 since his last album under his own name. Now, on … Continue reading
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Tagged album, Dann Rosingana, Darrel Treece-Birch, Gary Hughes, melodic rock, TEN
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Album review: TOUCH – Tomorrow Never Comes
Escape Music [Release Date 26.03.21] Here’s a reunion few ever expected to see. Touch are most famous to the wider world as the band that opened the first ever Monsters of Rock at Download in 1980. Many years later I … Continue reading
Posted in ALBUM REVIEWS, ALBUM REVIEWS (Mobile), ALL POSTS
Tagged album, AOR, Craig Brooks, Doug Howard, Glenn Kitchart, Mark Mangold, melodic rock, pomp rock, Touch
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Album review: STEPHEN CRANE- Kicks
AOR Heaven (Release Date 26.03.21) The rock world is littered with hard luck stories of people failed by the record industry. One such is Stephen Crane. Already a seasoned figure on the Texas music scene, he was signed to MCA … Continue reading
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Tagged album, AOR, Jai Winding, Kicks, melodic rock, Richard Page, Stephen Crane, Steve Lukather, Tom Kelly
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Album review: PARIS- 50/50
AOR Heaven (Release Date 26.03.21) France is hardly a hotbed of melodic rock but Paris, essentially the duo of Frederic Dechevanne and Sebastien Montet with some guest musicians, have now released three albums. They follow in a distinguished line of … Continue reading
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Tagged AOR, Frederic Dechevanne, melodic rock, Paris, Sebastien Montet
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Album review: WINDING ROAD- s/t
AOR Heaven [Release Date 26.03.21] The thriving Scandinavian melodic rock scene is not just one for young bucks. Winding Road are a new band in which three musicians with a long list of credits in their native Sweden have come … Continue reading
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Tagged album, AOR, Jonas Tyskhagen, Magnus Akerlund, melodic rock, Winding Road
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Album review: INGLORIOUS- We Will Ride
Frontiers Records [Release Date 12.02.21] It has been a rocky road for Inglorious since they burst onto the scene as one of the great hopes of classic rock. For a while their huge potential, not least in the powerful vocals … Continue reading
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Tagged album, classic rock, Danny De La Cruz, hard rock, Inglorious, Nathan James, We Will Ride
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Album review: W.E.T. – Retransmission
Frontiers Records (Release Date 22.01.21) Of all the melodic rock supergroups assembled, usually on the Frontiers roster, W.E.T. have proved to have staying power. This fourth studio release comes a relatively recent three years after its predecessor ‘Earthrage’, which is … Continue reading
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Tagged album, Eclipse, Erik Martensson, Jeff Scott Soto, melodic rock, Robert Sall, W.E.T.
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Album review: PALACE- Rock And Roll Radio
Frontiers Records [Release date 04.12.20] Michael Palace, a man with multiple performing and writing credits to his name, is now onto the third album from his own project. 2016’s ‘Master of the Universe’ was mainstream melodic hard rock, but is … Continue reading
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Tagged album, AOR, melodic rock, Michael Palace, Palace, review
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Album review: EAST TEMPLE AVENUE – Both Sides of Midnight
AOR Heaven (Release Date 27.11.20) East Temple Avenue sees Australian songwriter Darren Phillips, whose project under his own name featured a star studded cast, join forces for a whole album with Robbie Le Blanc, the Blanc Faces singer whose combination … Continue reading
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Tagged album, AOR, Darren Phillips, melodic rock, Philip Lindstrand, Robbie Le Blanc
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Album review: JEFF SCOTT SOTO – Wide Awake (In My Dreamland)
Frontiers Records [Release Date 6.11.20] After going in a more modern metal direction with his Soto project and fronting prog rock supergroup Sons of Apollo, the latest album from the ever prolific Jeff Scott Soto sees him return to the … Continue reading
