Quick plays: JENN BUTTERWORTH, PHIL VINCENT

JENN BUTTERWORTH Her By Design Self-released [Release date 28.02.25]

Debut album from Scottish musician Jenn Butterworth where the lyrical themes focus on women’s stories and their strength and struggles. Mention must be made of the beautifully illustrated CD booklet with blueprint technical drawings drawn by artist Somhairle MacDonald. Each one links into a song’s theme and the details on them is amazing.

Opening with a Sandy Denny cover – ‘All Our Days’ – is a brave move by any artist. Jenn Butterworth sings it like it was her own and really gets into the song. ‘Fair Maids of February’ is simply stunning on the listener’s ears, whilst ‘The Housewife’s Lament’ gets the listener thinking, being about the unpaid, and more often than not underappreciated, labour women do in a household.

Her reworking of the traditional tune ‘Annachie Gordon’, which is retitled ‘Jeannie’ to reflect the women at the centre of the song, is one of the stand outs on the album. Her vocal is both wistful and melodic, making for a captivating listen.

With a debut this strong you do wonder if Jenn Butterworth could top this but given her undoubted talent it would be foolish to think otherwise. In a word, stunning. ****

Review by Jason Ritchie

PHIL VINCENT Backstabber Rock Company Records [Release date 26.02.25]

Phil Vincent is back again with another hard rockin’ album! Vince O’Regan (guitar solos) and Jacob Hansen (mastering) are helping out as usual.

Personal loss and experiences helped shape this album, with the album’s sleeve notes dedications including one to Phil’s later father. The cover of Tygers of Pan Tang’s ‘Do it Good’ is also a fitting choice as the original featured the late John Sykes. It is a good cover, staying true to the original’s metallic bite. The other cover is the instrumental ‘Theme From a Summer Place’, written by Max Steiner, from the 1959 film of the same name.

Elsewhere, the rifftastic ‘New Light’ hits the spot nicely, whilst ‘Betrayer’ rocks hard too and the lyrics pull no punches. The ballads are here too as you’d expect, with ‘Miss You Everyday’ a heartfelt song and quite possibly written with his dad in mind?

Classy hard rocking music again from Phil Vincent with a couple of musical twists to keep things fresh. ***1/2

Review by Jason Ritchie

Featured Artist: JOSH TAERK

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David Randall presents a weekly show on Get Ready to ROCK! Radio, Sundays at 22:00 GMT, repeated on Mondays and Fridays), when he invites listeners to ‘Assume The Position’. The show signposts forthcoming gigs and tours and latest additions at getreadytorock.com. First broadcast 26 April 2026.

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Power Plays w/c 11 May 2026

BREITLER Sentinel (El Puerto Records)
FIRE IN HER EYES Too Late To Change (indie)
KING FALCON Wait (indie)
BEAUTIFUL SKELETONS Come What May (indie)
KARIN PARK Shadow (Size Records)
HARSH Don’t Mess With Me (indie)

Featured Albums w/c 11 May 2026

09:00-12:00 The Best of 2003 – 2025 (Melodic Rock)
12:00-13:00 The Best of 2003 – 2025 (Melodic Hard Rock)
14:00-16:00 The Best of 2003 – 2025 (Singer Songwriter)

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Gig review: H.E.A.T- Islington Assembly Hall, London, 31 January 2025

Photo: Les Linyard

Nights like this do not come often enough in the UK for us lovers of melodic rock, with a touring triple bill of a newer generation of acts creating a fresh take on those sounds of the eighties that they are too young to remember first time round. It was headlined by H.E.A.T, though it is easy to forget the youthful Swedes have been around since 2008. Indeed, by my reckoning this was the 21^st time I’d seen them, though the last time in the summer at Chepstow Castle, illness and sound issues made for a rather underwhelming display which I was hoping was just a one off.

There was already a good crowd in place for the domestic representative in Wales’s Chez Kane. Opening with ‘Too Late for Love’ it was already encouraging that several fans were punching the air to the chorus. If ‘All Of It’ owed much to Def Leppard, Poison and Warrant, the big hooks and melodies of ‘I Just Want You’ were straight out of the Diane Warren playbook as mined by the likes of Bonnie Tyler, Cher and Robin Beck in the late eighties.

The title of ‘Nationwide’ meanwhile had me and a friend of similar vintage digressing on the TV programme of the same name with Frank Bough, Michael Barratt and the skateboarding duck. Anyway, back to the music and the petite frontwoman impressively belted out the massive hooks of ‘Ball and Chain’, the best song Desmond Child never wrote, and ‘Love Gone Wild’. ‘Get It On’ had a more danceable groove and ‘Rocket on the Radio’ was another impressive anthem albeit rather too close to Blue Tears similarly titled classic for comfort.

The material was a little rawer than on album and though the energy levels did not quite match their stunning display last year at Malmo Melodic, Harry Scott Elliott and the hyperactive, shape pulling James Ready unleashed one riff and solo after another. It was fitting then that the set ended with the two playing ever faster individually and then together on the galloping title track of second album ‘Powerzone’. An exhausting 45 minutes had flown by and I just wish she and her band would tur more often in the UK.

The middle band Art Nation were as far as I know on their debut UK tour, though singer Alexander Strandell fronted Nitrate at last year’s Tower of Fire festival and they played Rockingham festival back in 2016. Since then, over a four album career they have evolved away from a straight ahead melodic rock not unlike the headliners to a heavier sound with elements of symphonic metal and goth, all wrapped in a modern sounding sheen.

It wasn’t really my scene but went down extremely well with others. Alexander had an impressive range and they had a good stage presence with his arms around bassist Richard Svard and guitarist Kristoffer Borg, all sporting striking uniforms of shoulder padded long leather coats.

The latter’s neo-classical style particularly impressed on his solo on ‘Echo’: however, after one of their better numbers from a yet to be released fifth album in ‘Halo’, I was shocked when Alexander said their next song would be their last. It happened to be their best known and most conventionally melodic in ‘Need You To Understand’ from the debut, one of my favourite songs from the last decade, but it left me puzzled how nominally the main support act had been given less time than the opener and short of half an hour.

Photo: Digital Island

After a quick turnaround H.E.A.T came on to the usual intro tune of ‘The Heat Is On’. They are in the slightly odd position of touring shortly before the release of a new album, but single ‘Disaster’ had newly dropped a week or two earlier and was a perfect hard charging opener that people were instantly familiar with, before the first trip back to the Erik Gronwall era in ‘Emergency’ which took a while to come to the boil.

During the fast and furious ‘Dangerous Ground’ my usual thought that they can sound a little thin since they went down to only one guitar reared its ugly head, but for the only time in the evening, and ‘Hollywood’ already got people bouncing. The good news was that this time around Kenny Leckremo’s voice was strong and on point throughout and even when his mike failed him the backing vocals of Jona Tee (whose keys are somewhat more low profile in the sound these days) filled in seamlessly.

Photo: Digital Island

What did surprise people on his return was quite how heavy Kenny’s vocal style can be and a superb ‘Rise’ proved the point- he sounded like a cross between Ronnie James Dio and Jorn Lande, while visually his moves, stage clothes and long flowing hair looked remarkably like 1980’s Bruce Dickinson, a point only emphasised when he returned from a mid set change wearing a denim cut off.

After the second ‘Nationwide’ of an evening whose set listing was beginning to resemble a 1970’s Radio Times, both the stately yet heavy ‘Harder To Breathe’ and ‘In and Out of Trouble’, devoid of the original’s sax solo but with a superbly elegant guitar solo from Dave Dalone were illustrations there is more depth to HEAT than some of their more superficial songs might suggest.

Photo: Digital Island

The usual singalong ‘Beg Beg Beg’ was notably more concise than usual though proof of their increased heaviness was the way ‘War Pigs’ was slipped in before Don Crash’s drum solo, based around the ‘Flash Gordon’ theme. When the band returned it was almost as if the energy levels both on and off stage had gone up a notch and ‘Back To the Rhythm’ worked perfectly as a live track, before what for me will always be HEAT’s crowning glory in the huge hooks of ‘Living on the Run’, which was varied with a Kenny vocal coda at the end as he crouched down on the stage.

He then semi apologised for slipping in a new song but ‘Bad Time For Love’ made a very favourable first impression and was a step back towards the earlier and more AOR-flavoured version of the band. Talking of which, ‘1000 Miles’ had people bouncing and ‘One by One’ was equally rapturously received.

Photo: Digital Island

However the gig ended rather abruptly and without an encore. Interestingly, after the pace had been hitherto unrelenting they finished with a relatively mid tempo song in ‘Tearing Down the Walls’, but it was the most impressive version of the song I have heard and aided by the excellent sound they enjoyed all night, an anthem of almost Queen-esque proportions as we all swayed to the chorus.

It was a great end to certainly the best H.E.A.T show I have seen since Kenny returned to the fold. Although there were many unexpected omissions like ‘Rock Your Body’ and ‘A Shot at Redemption’, perhaps that illustrates the depth of material they now have to choose from after so long. The title of the new album ‘Welcome To The Future’ could well be an apposite one.

Review by Andy Nathan

H.E.A.T Pictures by Les Linyard and Digital Island (as credited)

Support band pictures by Andy Nathan

Featured Artist: JOSH TAERK

Since early 2020 Josh has been entertaining us with exclusive monthly live sessions,

Check out videos here: https://www.facebook.com/getreadytorockradio

How to Listen Live?

More information and links at our radio website where you can listen live or listen again to shows via the presenter pages: getreadytorockradio.com

Featured Albums w/c 11 May 2026

09:00-12:00 The Best of 2003 – 2025 (Melodic Rock)
12:00-13:00 The Best of 2003 – 2025 (Melodic Hard Rock)
14:00-16:00 The Best of 2003 – 2025 (Singer Songwriter)

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