Monthly Archives april 2012

Posted in Cd Reviews

German metal band At Vance are back with their new album, ”Facing your enemy”. Formed in 1998 this is their tenth album, and guitarist Olaf Lenk is now the only remaining founding member.

Comments on a few tracks..

Opening track ”Heaven is calling” is great hard rock – plenty of guitars, pounding drums and lots of power.

Facing your enemy is a slower less powerful mid-paced rock track.

Really those first two tracks sum up the album – it alternates between mid-paced rock and heavy rock, with a couple of ballads thrown in for good measure.

The album includes a cover of the hit by German band Tokyo – the self titled song ”Tokyo”...

Posted in Cd Reviews

Bangalore Choir were formed over 20 years ago by former Accept frontman David Reece. After releasing just one album, the band split. After an 18 year gap though they reformed to release the album ”Cadence” in 2010. Now in April 2012 they’re back with their third album, Metaphor.

The album was recorded in a way that has only become possible in recent years with the spread of high speed internet access. Andy Susemihl recorded all his guitar parts at his home studio in Germany and then sent them to Minnesota for David Reece to record his vocals. After that they were sent to Carson city, Nevada for Curtis Mitchell to add his guitar parts and Danny Greenberg to add the bass...

Posted in Cd Reviews

According to the press release, Universal Music Catalogues new ”Re-presents” label takes well known and loved albums from decades gone and re-releases them in a fresh new form.
My first reaction on hearing that they have chosen to re-release ”Writing on the wall” the fifth and final album from Bucks Fizz was – Why? On its original release just over 25 years ago, the album was hardly a success, reaching number 89 in the album charts and crashing out of the chart altogether after just one week. Given that its hardly well known and surely it’s not well loved either?

After listening to the album though, I can totally understand why they’ve chosen to re-release this album...

Posted in Cd Reviews

On the 7th May, Universal is re-issuing 4 classic albums from The Small Faces which were originally released btween 1965 and 1969 – Small Faces, Immediate, From the beginning & Ogdens nut gone flake. The albums are being released as deluxe editions, and as with the other albums Universal have released as deluxe editions recently then there are plenty of extras.

Surviving Small Faces members Kenney Jones and Ian “Mac” McLagan have been involved in overseing and approving these new editions, including the re-mastering and artwork. All related non-album singles and alternate versions of the album session recordings, many of which are previously unreleased or released for the first time on CD, have also been added...

Posted in Cd Reviews

The compilation album Northern soul: 20 Original Classics, was released in July 2010, and now the team behind it are back with a second volume of Northern soul classics.

The tracks have been compiled by Johnny Chandler, with sleevenotes by Paolo Hewitt author of books on Oasis, The Jam, Small Faces and The Beatles.

The album is slightly surprising – but in a good way. While there are some household names included – The Supremes, Dusty Springfield, Ray Charles & The Temptations, the tracks chosen arent the ones you’d expect. Usually you’d expect a bunch of their hit singles but instead the album opts for lesser known gems from the back catalogue of these artists...

Posted in Cd Reviews

The Cult are due to release their new album ”Choice of Weapon” on 21st May. The album is being produced by Bob Rock who produced previous albums by The Cult – Sonic Temple, The Cult and Beyond Good and Evil.

Ahead of the album release, the band have released two singles so far – ”Lucifer” and ”For the animals”.

As a fan of The Cult since the ”Love” album then I’ve been looking forward to the new album, but also wondering if it will live up to hopes and expectations. Well after listening to these two singles I can definitely say that I really can’t wait for the album.

Both the songs are excellent – The Cult on top form...

Posted in Cd Reviews

American rock band Counting Crows have sold over twenty million albums in their twenty year career, and are about to release their first album for over four years – ”Underwater sunshine”. The album is their first independant release, and they’ve chosen to do something a little bit different. Rather than just writing a new album, they’ve decided to let their love of music loose and have chosen to release an album of cover versions of songs they love. Singer /songwriter Adam Duritz says ”If you wonder why we didnt just write our own record, it’s simply because we wanted to do THIS one. We now have the creative freedom to release albums like this and offer our fans more music than ever”

The songs come from a very diverse range of bands both young and old, well known and obscure...

Posted in Cd Reviews

The band name Luley may not be familiar, but it is the band of a man with a great track record – Klaus Luley. In the early 80s he was the front man of German melodic rock band Tokya. Following the demise of Tokyo he formed the band Craaft and again enjoyed considerable success in the melodic rock field, including touring with bands including Queen, Bon Jovi, Meat Loaf, Level 42 and Rod Stewart. As a songwriter he’s written songs for a number of artists including Meat loaf and has been found in sudio vocal sessions with artists including Donna Summer and Jennifer Rush.

His new album includes ten new songs as well as a remake of a song by his old band Tokyo, their hit single and self titled song, Tokyo.

There’s plenty of of great guitar work on the album, particularly on ”Take me today”, ...

Posted in Interviews

Festivalphoto: Your debut album, Many Fish To Fry, is due out at the beginning of April. Can you tell us a bit about the album?

Jake: First albums are a bit like the first question of an interview or the first time you meet someone. You don’t know each other yet and just want to introduce yourself and hopefully make a connection. If you get a little space and encouragement you splurge out every corner of your brain with each other, and that’s kind of what I’ve done with Many Fish To Fry. I’m pleased it’s made so many connections cos it’s allowed me to meet so many people, do so many gigs and generally make the world feel a little smaller for me. That was probably the biggest reason I wanted to make it in the first place so…. result.

Festivalphoto: Was making the album a long...

Posted in Cd Reviews

This DVD/Blu-ray release is a live concert. Filmed at the historic Genessee theatre in Waukegan, Illinois the concert includes songs from Ringo’s solo career as well as hits from The Beatles. 

The first thing to strike me is how young Ringo looks – he certainly doesn’t look anywhere near his real age, and is in great shape. 

For his cover of the Men at work hit ”who can it be now” Ringo takes to the drums and vocals are handled by Men at work singer Colin Hay. It’s a great performance and with Ringo on one drunkit and his drummer on another drumkit I’m amazed how well it works.

Ringo is great in concert – I must admit to being pleasntly surprised how much I enjoyed this, even though I dont know much of his solo work...