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Album review : MATTADOR – III
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Album review: MY PET ROCKET – Last of the Analogue Superheroes
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Album review : LYNCH MOB – The Final Ride (Live)
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Album review : VANDEN PLAS – AcCult II
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Album review : THORBJORN RISAGER & THE BLACK TORNADO – Live At Hotel Cecil
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Album review : SPREAD EAGLE – The Brutal Divine
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Author Archives: brianmc
Album review : JOHNNY COUGAR (MELLENCAMP) – American Dream, The Mainman Recordings 1976-77 (2 CDs)
Cherry Red [Release date : 27.03.26] John Mellencamp, now an accomplished artist (visually as well as musically) and gallery owner, took the Cougar surname at his manager’s insistence. He thought the record buying public would find the Cougar name much … Continue reading
Album review : LOU GRAMM – Released
Cherry Red [Release date: 27.03.26] Foreigner’s Lou Gramm and Mick Jones were one of melodic rock’s divine pairings who eventually separated. 25 years, 10 band albums, 2 solo albums and 60 million sales later, Gramm has survived a life threatening … Continue reading
Posted in ALBUM REVIEWS, ALBUM REVIEWS (Mobile), ALL POSTS
Tagged AOR/Melodic Rock, Bruce Turgon, Cherry Red, Foreigner, Lou Gramm, Mick Jones, Peter Wolf, review
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Album review : THE LOVIN SPOONFUL – What A Day For A Daydream – The Complete Recordings 1965-69 (7CD Boxset)
Cherry Red [Release date: 27.03.26] The Lovin Spoonful lineup – John Sebastian, Zal Yanovsky, Joe Butler and Steve Boone – coalesced in New York’s folk music hub, Greenwich Village in 1964, honing their sound in the city’s nightclubs before they … Continue reading
Album review : IGNESCENT – Eternal
Frontiers Music [Release date : 20.03.26] Judge a hot band by the company they keep. Ignescent have opened for Flyleaf, Skillet, Stryper and many other headline metal/hard rock acts in recent years. You could hear the influences of these bands … Continue reading
Posted in ALBUM REVIEWS, ALBUM REVIEWS (Mobile), ALL POSTS
Tagged Eternal, Fight In Me, Flyleaf, Frontiers Music, Ignescent, Jennifer Benson, Lambretta, metal, review, Skillet, Stryper
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Album review : WHAT’S IT ALL ABOUT – Film and TV Music Of The Swinging Sixties (3 CDs)
Cherry Red [Release date 27.03.26] The label says : “An aural soundtrack for a generation who grew up listening, not only to great pop music, but a feast of TV and Film themes”. Indeed it is, for more than one … Continue reading
Posted in ALBUM REVIEWS, ALBUM REVIEWS (Mobile), ALL POSTS, Box sets
Tagged Big Bands, Danger Man, Fifties, James Bond, review, Swinging Sixties, The Avengers, The Saint
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Album review : BLODWYN PIG – The Recordings 1969-74 (3 CDs, Remastered and Expanded)
Cherry Red [Release date : 20.03.26] Blodwyn Pig had quite some pedigree. 1968: Founding member Mick Abrahams (guitar/vocals) came straight from Jethro Tull, after some conflicts with Ian Anderson over musical direction. Co-founder Jack Lancaster, sax and flute virtuoso, had … Continue reading
Posted in ALBUM REVIEWS, ALBUM REVIEWS (Mobile), ALL POSTS, Reissues
Tagged Andy Pyle, Blodwyn Pig, blues rock, Cherry Red, Jack Lancaster, jazz, Mick Abrahams, review, Ron Berg
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Album review : VENUS 5 – The March Of The Venus 5
Frontiers Music [Release date: 20.03.26] What’s so attractive about Venus 5’s second album is its refusal to choose one discrete genre, sub-genre, whatever. It dances around the fringes of pop metal, heavy metal and symphonic metal, all laced with tight … Continue reading
Album review : ASIA – Live In England
Frontiers Music [Release date : 13.03.26] Set in the heart of the East Sussex countryside, at night the Trading Boundaries Café transforms into an award winning live music venue, hosting concerts from world class artists in an intimate setting. Not … Continue reading
Album review : THE LONG RYDERS – High Noon Hymns
Cherry Red [Release date: 13.03.26] The Long Ryders are a band who’ve been long associated with the advent of the Paisley Underground movement in the early eighties. Also Punk, Country Rock, Clarence White, Gene Clark, Walter Hill and The Byrds. … Continue reading
Posted in ALBUM REVIEWS, ALBUM REVIEWS (Mobile), ALL POSTS
Tagged Cherry Red, High Noon Hymns, Lamb Of God, Limp Bizkit, Long Ryders, Punk. Country Rock, REM, review, The Byrds
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Album review : BLACK SWAN – Paralyzed
Frontiers Music [Release date : 27.02.26] Four years after Black Swan’s second album, Generation Mind, comes Paralyzed, with the four horsemen, Robin McAuley, Reb Beach, Jeff Pilson and Matt Starr riding quickly into view. So called “supergroups”, of which this … Continue reading
Posted in ALBUM REVIEWS, ALBUM REVIEWS (Mobile), ALL POSTS
Tagged Black Swan, Frontiers Music, hard rock, Jeff Pilson, Matt Starr, Paralyzed, Reb Beach, review, Robin McAuley
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Album review : MOUNTAIN – Don’t Look Around – The Recordings 1969-74 (7 CD boxset)
Cherry Red/Esoteric [Release date : 27.02.26] CD1: Leslie West – Mountain (1969) CD2: Mountain Live At Woodstock (1969) CD3: Climbing (1970) 2 bonus tracks CD4: Nantucket Sleighride (1971) CD5: Flowers Of Evil (1971) 2 bonus tracks CD6: Twin Peaks (1974) … Continue reading
Album review : MICHAEL MONROE – Outerstellar
Silver Lining Music [Release date: 20.02.26] Michael Monroe is on his 13th album now, with the same lineup as last half dozen or so, Steve Conte, Sam Yaffa, Rich Jones and Karl Rockvist, and so you expect more of the … Continue reading
Album review : GENE PARSONS – Kindling And Beyond, The Solo Recordings 1973-1986 (5 CD Boxset)
Cherry Red [Release date: 20.02.26] There can’t have been a music fan who lived through the sixties or the seventies who were unaware of The Byrds and/ or The Flying Burrito Brothers. And if they knew them, they would know … Continue reading
Album review : ROSE TATTOO – The albums 1981-84 (4 CD boxset)
Cherry Red [Release date : 20.02.26] Rose Tattoo. Now, there was a band. Still is, in fact. Fiftieth anniversary this year. Only man left standing from the original lineup is loud and fearless vocalist, Angry Anderson. When it all began … Continue reading
Posted in ALBUM REVIEWS, ALBUM REVIEWS (Mobile), ALL POSTS, Box sets, Reissues
Tagged AC/DC, Angry Anderson, Australia, boxset, Cherry Red, George Young, Harry Vanda, review, Rose Tattoo, The albums 1981-84
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Album review : TRANSATLANTIC RADIO – Midnight Transmission
Frontiers Music [Release date : 20.02.26] Swedish émigré and fully fledged Angeleno since the nineties, bass playing Victor Broden is a Grammy winning musician and producer. He moved to LA on a wing and prayer, with the echoes of the AOR … Continue reading
Posted in ALBUM REVIEWS, ALBUM REVIEWS (Mobile), ALL POSTS
Tagged AOR, Chris Reeve, Filter, Frontiers, melodic rock, review, Ricky Martin, RJ Ronquillo, Santana, Transatlantic Radio, Victor Broden
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Album review : TEMPLE BALLS – s/t
Frontiers Music [Release date : 13.02.26] Some of us have lived a sheltered life. Apparently “temple balls” are “one of the oldest varieties of medical marijuana”. Not a lot of people know that. And so a self titled release at … Continue reading
Posted in ALBUM REVIEWS, ALBUM REVIEWS (Mobile), ALL POSTS
Tagged Frontiers Music, Medical Marijuana, review, Temple Balls
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Album review : This Can’t Be Today – American Psychedelia and The Paisley Underground 1977-88
Cherry Red [Release date : 13.02.26] In the sixties, the term “Underground Music” bubbled up to the surface. It became associated with the counterculture and psychedelia, as teens and twenties began to find their voice, in life and in music, … Continue reading
Album review : AUSTEN STARR – I Am The Enemy
Frontiers Music [Release date : 13.02.26] The label have teamed new kid on the block, vocalist Austen Starr, with Joel (Revolution Saints/ Whitesnake) Hoekstra, and together they’ve written a bunch of edgy rock songs that allow both talents to shine. … Continue reading
Album review : WILD HORSES – Standing Our Ground (6 CD Boxset)
Cherry Red [Release date 13.02.26] The two Wild Horses’ studio albums were arguably the last gasp of seventies’ hard rock before it went under. Glaswegian forces of nature, Brian Robertson and Jimmy Bain, guitar and bass (and vocals), had jumped … Continue reading
Posted in ALBUM REVIEWS, ALBUM REVIEWS (Mobile), ALL POSTS, Reissues
Tagged boxset, Brian Robertson, hard rock, Jimmy Bain, Phil Lynott, Rainbow, review, Thin Lizzie, Wild Horses
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Album review : FREDDIE AND THE DREAMERS – You Were Made For Me, The Complete Recordings, 1963-70
Cherry Red [Release date: 30.01.26] The Complete Recordings’ Boxset is a feat of logistics and research in itself, for which it deserves 5 stars, never mind the music. 136 tracks, 5 CDs. In the “Swinging Sixties” Manchester band Freddie And … Continue reading
Album review : ANDREW GOLD – Lonely Boy – The Asylum Years Anthology (6 CDs + DVD)
Esoteric Recordings / Cherry Red [Release date : 30.01.26] Andrew Gold was one of the finest musicians and songwriters to emerge from the Los Angeles music scene in the mid 70s. Most will remember him as being one half of … Continue reading
Posted in ALBUM REVIEWS, ALBUM REVIEWS (Mobile), ALL POSTS
Tagged 10CC, Andrew Gold, boxset, Cherry Red, Graham Gouldman, Linda Ronstadt, Neil Sedaka, review, The Beatles, The Eagles, Wax
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Album review : MCAULEY SCHENKER GROUP – Bad Boys, The MSG Story 1987-92 (4 CD boxset)
Cherry Red [Release date 30.01.26] Axeman Michael Schenker’s considerable CV has been well documented over the years and it’s clearly delineated in these liner notes. Brief version: between 1972 and 1984 he cycled through The Scorpions, UFO and MSG Version … Continue reading
Posted in ALBUM REVIEWS, ALBUM REVIEWS (Mobile), ALL POSTS, Reissues
Tagged Cherry Red, Frank Filipetti, hard rock, Michael Schenker, MSG, Perfect Timing, review, Robin McAuley, Save Yourself, Scorpions, UFO
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Album review : FRANCIS ROSSI – The Accidental
earMUSIC [Release date : 30.1.26] Francis Rossi’s fifth solo album, The Accidental, sees him reconnecting with the bricks and mortar foundation that underpinned Quo’s music over the years. It’s a recording studio free-for-all eventually shaped by a longing for simple, … Continue reading
Album review : EDDIE AND THE HOT RODS – Teenage Depression & Life On The Line (2CD set)
Cherry Red [Release date 23.01.26] So much crammed into these “two CD” reissues from punk/ new wave/ R’n’B legends Eddie and The Hot Rods’. So much history here. Of the band, of the nascent sound of Punk. Of the talent … Continue reading
Album review : AUTUMN’S CHILD – Melody Lane
Pride & Joy Music [Release date 23.01.26] Mikael Erlandsson: 9 solo albums, 17 albums with Last Autumn’s Dream, 10 collaborations (with Tom Galley, Tommy Denander and others). Melody Lane is his 6th (since 2019) with Autumn’s Child, his fourth on … Continue reading
