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Upcoming Gigs & Albums
Latest Album Reviews
Latest Gig Reviews
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Gig review: ANTHRAX – Hammersmith Apollo, London, 23 November 2024
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Gig review: BLACK STONE CHERRY – Wembley Arena, London, 23 November 2024
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Gig review: SQUEEZE – Roundhouse, London, 22 November 2024
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Gig review: CARDINAL BLACK – Sub 89, Reading, 15 November 2024
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Gig review: SUZI QUATRO – London Palladium, 13 November 2024
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Gig review: HRH XVII, Great Yarmouth, 7-9 November 2024
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Featured Album Reviews
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Album review: SARI SCHORR – A Force Of Nature
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Album review: WHITESNAKE – Live In ’84 Back To The Bone
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Album review: JOANNE SHAW TAYLOR – Nobody’s Fool
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Album review: BITERS – The Future Ain’t What It Used To Be
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Album review: FOCUS – Focus 12
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Album review: NEONFLY – Strangers In Paradise plus interview with Frederick Thunder
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Features
Single & EP Reviews
DVD Reviews
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Category Archives: ALBUM REVIEWS
Album review: FORTUNE- The Gun’s Still Smoking Live (CD/DVD)
Frontiers Records (Release Date 07.08.20) One of the most heart-warming and unexpected comebacks of the last few years has been that of cult eighties AOR sters Fortune. It’s fair to say their comeback in 2016 at Rockingham Festival stole the … Continue reading
Posted in ALBUM REVIEWS, ALBUM REVIEWS (Mobile), ALL POSTS, DVD REVIEWS
Tagged album, AOR, Fortune. live album, Larry Greene, Mark Nilan, melodic rock, Richard Fortune, Ricky Rat
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Album review: ELIAS T. HOTH – Metastatic Syndrome
CD Baby [Release date 15.09.20] Elias T. Hoth’s ‘Metastatic Syndrome’ is full of all the road-tested elements with which he’s made his name in the last few years. There’s the unsettling title to start with, then there’s the balanced mix … Continue reading
Album review: ADAM SWEET – Sink Or Swim
Adam Sweet Music [Release date 11.09.20] Although credited as an Adam Sweet solo album, the conceptually titled ‘Sink or Swim’ is very much a band effort. Singer songwriter Adam Sweet has taken a step up by working with an A-team … Continue reading
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Tagged ADAM SWEET, album, Americana, blues, funk, Garry Kroll, Ian Jennings, Jackson Brown, Josiah J. Manning, Kris Barras, review, rock, roots, Sink Or Swim, Steve Black, Storyville
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Album review: VICIOUS RUMORS – Celebration Decay
SPV Records [Release date 21.08.20] Vicious Rumors found a home at Germany’s SPV Records four albums ago. In fact, Europe’s always offered a warm welcome to the band, right from the start, back in 1985. Now, everything has changed. But … Continue reading
Album review: ONSLAUGHT – Generation Antichrist
AFM Records [Release date 07.08.20] When, on the 29th of April this year, the British Thrash metallers Onslaught announced that singer Sy Keeler had decided to once more part ways with the band, I felt pretty sad indeed. The band … Continue reading
Album review: KATRINA – Hearts, Loves & Babys
Independent [Release date 28.08.20] Now a solo artist, Katrina, ex of The Waves, will always be known for her monster, worldwide hit, ‘Walking On Sunshine’. It can be an albatross as much as it can be a permanent passport to … Continue reading
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Tagged album, country pop, Darren Loveday, Hearts Loves & Babys, Katrina, Katrina & the Waves, Kimberly Rew, melodic, pop, pop rock, review
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Album review: DEE SNIDER – For The Love Of Metal Live!
Napalm Records [Release date 31.07.20] To front a rock band takes a few special ingredients. The candidate should be larger than life, outspoken, overblown, like the sound of their own voice, have massive self-confidence and not give a flying f**k for … Continue reading
Album review: LEE ABRAHAM – Harmony/Synchronicity
F2 Music/Festival Music [Release date 04.09.20] ‘Harmony/Synchronicity’ was written and recorded during an intense 8 week period between April and early June 2020, and follows less than a year after Lee’s highly recommended ‘Comatose’ album. Lee is joined Gerald Mulligan … Continue reading
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Tagged album, Credo, F2 Music, Galahad, Harmony/Synchronicity, Lee Abraham, melodic, prog rock, progressive, review, rock
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Album review: BLACK ROSE MAZE
Frontiers Records [Release date 07.08.20] Black Rose Maze is Quebecois singer, Rosa Larichiutta. She comes to us via a major Canadian song contest, by way of The Trans Siberian Orchestra. So if you’re immediately imagining rock opera, and you’d be … Continue reading
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Tagged album, Alessandro Del Vecchio, Black Rose Maze, melodic, review, rock, Rosa Larichiutta, symphonic rock
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Album review: BLUE OYSTER CULT – 45th Anniversary Live In London
Frontiers Records [Release date 07.08.20] In 2017, to celebrate the 45th anniversary of Blue Oyster Cult’s debut release, a string of dates across Europe – festivals, stand alone headline gigs – was put in place, culminating in this concert at … Continue reading
Album review: FLYING COLORS – Third Stage Live In London
Music Theories Recordings [Release date 07.08.20] Filmed during Flying Colors’ 2019 US and European tour on the 14 December at Shepherd’s Bush Empire on the final night of that tour. They had only played nine shows on the tour, which … Continue reading
Album review: RAVEN – Metal City
SPV/Steamhammer [Release date 18.09.20] Athletic Rock legends Raven, long associated with the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal, issue their new album (their fourteenth) and what a blistering revelation it is too. While 2015’s Extermination was universally well received, a … Continue reading
Album review: DUKES OF THE ORIENT – Freakshow
Frontiers [Release date 07.08.20] Dukes Of The Orient – vocalist John Payne (ex-Asia, GPS) and keyboardist Erik Norlander (Last In Line, Lana Lane, Rocket Scientists) – return with their second album. Dukes Of The Orient has more of a band … Continue reading
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Tagged album, Asia, Dukes of the Orient, Erik Norlander, Frontiers, John Payne, melodic rock, pomp rock, prog rock, review
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Album review: ARCTIC RAIN – The One
Frontiers [Release date 07.08.20] Arctic Rain’s music is gloriously reminiscent of the melodic rock genre’s more hypnotic moments. On most tracks, you can tell that they have been thumbing through a dog eared copy of the Eighties’ AOR Blueprint. Doesn’t … Continue reading
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Tagged album, AOR, Arctic Rain, Frontiers, HEAT, melodic rock, review, rock, Survivor, The One, Treat
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Album review: ALAN HULL – Alright On The Night (Live At Clifton Poly 1975)
Singsong Music [Release date 18.05.20] This digital reissue from Singsong Music features an Alan Hull solo concert, originally recorded for Radio Trent at Nottingham’s Clifton Poly on 17th November 1975. It has been mastered from the original tapes and sounds … Continue reading
Album review: JOE BONAMASSA – A New Day Now (20th Anniversary Edition)
Provogue [Release date 07.08.20] While it’s hard not to be sceptical about a project like this – Joe Bonamassa’s relentless marketing campaign has now come full circle with this special 20th anniversary release – this remixed and re-recorded version of … Continue reading
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Tagged Al Cooper, album, Black County Communion, blues, Bob Dylan, Creamo Liss, Free, Glenn Hughes, Ian Anderson, Jethro Tull, Joe Bonamassa, Kevin Shirley, Led Zeppelin, New Day Now, review, Robert Plant, rock, Rory Gallagher, Steven Van Zandt, Tom Dowd, Tony Cintron, Warren Haynes
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Album review: ROD CLEMENTS – Stamping Ground
Singsong Music [Release date 28.08.20] To mark the 20th anniversary of Lindisfarne founder member Rod Clements’s solo album “Stamping Ground”, Singsong Music are making it available again on digital platforms. The album is entirely self-penned (or co-written) and begins with … Continue reading
Album review: JOSH TURNER – Country State Of Mind
Snakefarm Records [Release date 21.08.20] In the world of country music, an album of duets is definitely not a lonesome trail! Nor in fact is an album of country standards – in fact they are well worn trails. However, that’s … Continue reading
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Tagged album, country, Country State Of Mind, Josh Turner, Randy Travis, review
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Album review: LEGACY PILOTS – Aviation
Laterne [Release date 23.07.20] I do find in these strange days of Lockdown I am automatically drawn to the unusual and the previously unknown in terms of bands and albums. Maybe even the underdog. And especially those that don’t necessarily … Continue reading
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Tagged album, Aviation, John Mitchell, Jordan Rudess, Legacy Pilots, Marco Minnemann, Pete Trevawas, pop, prog, Progressive Rock, review, Steve Morse
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Album review: STARING INTO NOTHING – Love
Antares Records [Release date 13.03.20] Southern California based Staring Into Nothing – Steve Rogers (keys/vocals) and Kurt Barabas (bass/vocals/guitars) – are a highly melodic, mildly proggy, rock combo, who bring a wide range of guest musicians into the studio to … Continue reading
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Tagged album, Gregg Bissonette, Love, Mike Keneally, progressive, review, rock, Staring Into Nothing
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Album review: NEAL SMITH – Pop 85/95
Kachina Records [Release date 01.06.20] OK, hands up – greatest ‘garage’ band of all time? Easy – the ‘original’ Alice Cooper band. Under the tutelage of Bob Ezrin, they produced one of the finest rock albums of the 1970′s in … Continue reading
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Album review: BEN REEL – The Nashville Calling
Ceol Music [Release date 03.03.20] Recorded in Nashville, produced by Will Kimbrough and Tommy Womack, and featuring E Street Band’s Garry W Tallent on bass, Ben Reel’s 9th studio album finds him paying homage to The Boss. At least, in … Continue reading
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Tagged album, Americana, Ben Reel, blues, review, roots, singer, songwriter, The Nashville Calling
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Album review: LIONHEART – The Reality Of Miracles
Metalville Records [Release date 31.07.20] Lionheart’s second album since returning in 2016 and big expectations from this reviewer as their 2017 release ‘Second Nature’ was a classy piece of melodic hard rock. Lionheart have done it again, quite possibly pipping … Continue reading
Album review: ALCATRAZZ – Born Innocent
Silver Lining [Release date 31.07.20] There’s still heavy traffic on the rock’n’roll road back from obscurity, with Alcatrazz among an elite few jockeying for position in the fast lane. The band threatened to break through several times in the eighties, … Continue reading
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Tagged album, Alcatrazz, Born Innocent, Graham Bonnet, hard rock, Joe Stump, melodic, Rainbow, review, rock
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Album review: THE MIGHTY BOSSCATS – Ticket to Memphis
Self Release [Release date 24.04.20] Richard Townsend’s ‘Ticket To Memphis’ is another impressive release from a singer song writer and band leader with a world view. That said, ‘Ticket To Memphis’ isn’t quite what it appears to be. Firstly, it’s … Continue reading
