Category Cd Reviews

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Universal music will be releasing a limited edition Elton John box set, Classic Album Selection (1970-73), on July 9th comprising five classic Elton John albums recorded between 1970 and 1973.

The Box set contains five albums – ”Elton John”, ”Tumbleweed connection”, ”Madman across the water”, ”Honky chateau”, and ”Don’t shoot me I’m only the piano player”. These albums provided some of Eltons earliest hits and include some of his most popular songs of all time. With these albums Elton John became a massive success, particularly in the USA where he became the first artist since The Beatles to have four albums simultaneously in the Top Twenty.

”Elton John” was Elton’s second album, released in 1970 and contains the classic hit ”Your Song” which became Elton John’s first UK hit, reaching N...

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Universal Music have released a new Motorhead collection – this one though isnt a best of type compilation but is instead six of the bands albums released in a box set. The albums included are the six albums originally released on Bronze records between 1979 and 1983 – Overkill, Ace of spades, No sleep till Hammersmith, Bomber, Another perfect day, Iron Fist.

First up is ”Overkill” – the band’s second album. Released in March 1979, this was a great album – and still is. Title track, ”Overkill” is still an essential part of any Motorhead live show.

”Bomber” is the next album, which was released only seven months after Overkill – an amazingly short time period given that in those seven months the album had to be written and recorded and the band will have also been out on tour to promote ...

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Universal Music Catalogue’s new “Re-presents” label takes well known and loved albums from decades gone and releases them in a new form. This release is Swing Out Sister’s 1987 album ”It’s better to travel”. The album spent 21 weeks in the charts and reached the number one spot. The album contained two top ten hit singles – ”Breakout” which reached number 4 in the charts spending 14 weeks in the charts, and ”Surrender” which spent 8 weeks in the charts and reached number 7. The album achieved platinum sales status and earned the band two Grammy nominations (‘Best New Artist’ and ‘Best Pop Vocal Performance by a Group or Duo’ for Breakout.).
Despite the band’s subsequent releases failing to achieve much chart success, the band managed to release ten albums plus two live al...

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Ben Glover comes from Glenarm, Co Antrim, a small coastal village 30 miles from Belfast, Northern Ireland and splits him time between there and Nashville, Tennessee, where he recorded his latest album. This new album (his fourth) was originally planned to be a five song EP, but the sessions went so well that more tracks were written and recorded and a full length album created.
Ben Glover has toured or performed with artists including Vince Gill, Buddy Miller, Jim Lauderdale, Mary Gauthier, Jason Mraz and Tift Merritt. His songs have been used in feature films such as “Finding Joy,” hit webisode series “Adults Only,” and as the theme song for BBC N.Ireland sports programme ”The Championship”...

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Blackmore’s Night is the medieval folk rock band formed by guitarist Ritchie Blackmore and his singer wife, Candice Night. Playing folk rock and taking medieval influences such as stage outfits as well as traditional songs, the band blend these with an electric guitar based rock sound which gives the bands quite a distinct sound. Ritchie Blackmore plays the electric guitar, acoustic guitar, mandolin, mandola, and hurdy gurdy, while Candice Night is equally versatile, performing the vocals as well as plaing pennywhistles, tambourine, and Renaissance woodwind instruments. Along with the rest of the band they play Renaissance fairs in the US and also do their own tours...

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”The Kinks at the BBC” is as the name suggests, an album of material by The Kinks that has been primarily taken from the BBC archives. It’s a pretty impressive collection – Five CD’s, one DVD and a book, and at just under £40 is pretty good value when you look how much is included.

The collection was put together from the BBC archive material and also by inviting contributions from fans. The BBC often used to wipe tapes after they were broadcast which has meant that many classic programmes were lost for ever. However, thanks to fans recording broadcasts at home a lot of gems have been reclaimed here for this set.

The collection spans a long period of time – from 1964 to 1977 (plus a few bits from 1994) and includes interviews as well as live performances...

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Hard rock n’ roll, or American punk/pop-rock influence? Its not easy to exactly draw the line in the music of Solity.

Solity’s first album came out in this april, but despite the fact that its the debut disk of these guys, in the style there is an explicit feeling of determinism and professionalism.

Soft melodies for the hard music
Songs can not exactly classified- its a kind of nowadays really „in vogue” style, mixing the different melodies of eras and areas. Solity follows the trend pretty well, but they spread some extra spice by adding soft and hard effects as initial sounds inside the tracks. These are those sides, where blues, boogie, or different soft rock n’roll elements could appears, not only additional.
Basic is the American style with the Swedish feeling…

„Booze, b...

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Zahed Sultan is a music producer from Kuwait. He released his debut album, Hi Fear, Lo Love in 2011 and attained success with his single, I Want Her But I Don’t Want Her. Parisian DJ, Stephane Pompougnac, featured the single on the internationally acclaimed Hotel Costes 15 compilation. Prior to this, world-renowned house music label Global Underground and DJ Sasha awarded Zahed 3rd place for the Involver Remix Competition. Zahed’s Remix was later signed alongside DJ Sasha to America’s no.1 TV hit series CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.

Zahed has released the new EP in conjunction with an annual exposition he holds in Kuwait, entitled REUSE, to promote eco-friendly living via creative mediums...

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This self titled album is the debut UK album release from Russian Punks Biting Elbows. Citing influences including The Clash, The Misfits, Rancid and Violent Femmes they have a real punk sound and attitude. The album was recorded in five separate studios in Moscow as the band kept getting moved on from the places they were using. Their debut EP (Dope Fiend Massacre) was released last year, and has been quickly followed by this debut album.

The CD/DVD comes in a nice gatefold package with a poster sized sheet that unfolds to give the lyrics to all the songs on one side and various drawings on the other..

I’d definitely recommend that you watch the video for ”The Stampede” it’s a superb video with its escape from an office (trust me its a lot more exciting than it sounds).

The punk spirit...

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Gadi Caplan is an Israeli guitarist and composer based in Boston USA. He originally trained as a classical pianist from a young age, before switching to guitar where he devloped a love of Blues and Rock. He’s also studied the Sitar and Indian music, Jazz, fusion and funk, so has a very diverse musical background.

This album is an almost completely instrumental album with only one track (Nocturnal adventure) having any vocals. Instrumental albums often fall into the trap of being quite dull and uninsteresting – nice to have on in the background but not something you listen to by choice. Given this, I approached the album with some caution, but I’m happy to say that it has exceeded my expectations.

All the tracks have their own character and stand out from each other which makes this an ...