Album Reviews

The greatest selection of albums, reviewed and rated

Ayreon – Ayreon universe

For over 20 years, Arjen Lucassen’s band Ayreon has existed purely as a studio project with no live shows. The reason for that is because he always thought a live show would be impossible to do – the albums typically have a dozen or so singers, who generally have their …

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Myles Kennedy – Year of the tiger

Alter Bridge singer Myles Kennedy has a new solo album – Year of the Tiger. If you’re hoping for something similar to Alter Bridge then you may be disappointed – this is very different – it’s a solo acoustic album. Check out the video for the title track, Year of …

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Burden Of Grief – Eye Of The Storm

Burden Of Grief return after a four year wait with their thunder charged new album ‘Eye Of The Storm’ Great to have these guys back armed with new material, ‘Eye Of The Storm’ being their first offering since 2014’s ‘Unchained’. Obviously re invigorated and fully charged, this album certainly knows …

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Jesus Jones – Passages

Jesus Jones – there’s a blast from the past. Big in the early 90s, they pretty much disappeared at the end of the 90s, with their final album, “London” failing to sell well in 2001. They’ve done a few shows since then but had really disappeared off the radar for …

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Danny Bryant – Revelation

Blues guitarist/singer Danny Bryant releases his new studio album, Revelation, on 20th April through Jazzhaus records. It’s his fourth studio album, and based on his two previous studio albums (“Blood money” and “Temperature rising”) I was expecting a lot from this album. Despite me having high expectations, this album surpassed …

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The Kris Barras band – The divine and dirty

Kris Barras is a former MMA fighter with a 10 year career while at the same time being a guitarist. Now though he’s retired from Mixed Martial Arts so there’s no danger of him injuring his hands and being unable to play, although he still trains MMA fighters when not …

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The Rocket Dolls – DeaDHeaD

DeadHead - The Rocket Dolls (Cover)

The Rocket Dolls, a three piece heavy rock band, from Brighton self release their second full length studio album on 6th April 2018. DeaDHeaD was recorded at British Grove Studios and produced and mixed by Mark Roberts. Since forming in 2008 The Rocket Dolls won the best new band at the Pure …

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Et Moriemur – Epigrammata

Et Moriemur  break the mould with this stunning collection of tracks that together form the album ‘Epigrammata’ For those of us not previously overly familiar with the Czech Republic Doom scene, this is as good a way as any to get your feet wet. Drawing from the rich and plentiful …

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Born To Destruct – God Of Destruction

Born to Destruct - God of Destruction

Born to Destruct (BTD) a four piece Punk band from the University City of Cambridge released their ninth studio album God Of Destruction via Punkbob Recordz on 1st February 2018.  This follows 2016 release Devasteight With Destruction. Read a detailed bio here. I like the way they cleverly work the word destruction into many of …

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Nightwish – Decades

Ahead of their world tour, Nightwish are releasing a compilation album, Decades. Existing Nightwish fans are likely to have all their albums, which begs the question – who is going to buy this album? Existing fans who are completists and have to have everything the band has ever released will …

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Rick Springfield – The Snake King

Has Rick Springfield gone all snake on us, meandering his followers down his blues infused rocky road of life? The intro to the opening track “In the land of the blind”, seems to have a familiar sound, maybe this as on purpose but there’s definitely a similarity to Bon Jovi’s …

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Falling red – Lost souls

Falling Red are back with their latest album, Lost Souls. Once again they’ve funed it with a successful pledge campaign, but have recorded differently to their previous releases, working with different studios and producers. While they may be referred to as a Sleaze band, Falling red are far more than …

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Will Wilde – Bring it on home

Sometimes it’s a really bad idea to read a press release before listening to an album. The one for this album starts with “Hard rock harmonica hero”. My immediate reaction was “What the f**k? Harmonica? I’m not feeling optimistic about this one”. It’s also a covers album, so I was …

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Salem – Attrition.

To say the least, Attrition is a major step forward for Hull based NWOBHM band Salem! Released on Dissonance Productions on February 23rd, this could be their Pyromania such is the quality of songwriting on display here. Kicking off with the title track ‘Attrition’, its hard hitting riffs from guitarists …

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Michael Landau – Rock Bottom

Guitarist and producer Michael Landau has over the years had a very impressive career. As a solo musician he’s released a number of albums as well as more with various bands, but as a session musician he’s worked with a string of artists. The list of artists he’s worked with …

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The Mission – Bending the arc

When is a live album, not really a live album? That sounds a strange question to open a review of The Mission’s new Live album with until you look at where it was recorded. Generally a live album is recorded at one concert or more often, a run of concerts …

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Tribulation – Down below

With their last album, 2015’s “Children of the night” having received so much critical acclaim, Swedish band Tribulation had their work cut out with the new album to try and match the success of that album. When you listen to “Down below” it quickly becomes obvious that they rose to …

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