Album Reviews

2017 has certainly been a fine year for finding new talent and my first experience of Wakefield based The Sourheads was at Rockwich Festival in August this year. Frontman Jake Coxon is a bona fide rock star in the making. Bare footed and bare chested he oozed Jim Morrison like …

Hot on the heels of her album “Chills & Fever”, released earlier this year, Samantha Fish has another new album – “Belle of the west”. It’s rare for an artist to release albums just a few months apart, but Samantha Fish has done just that. My initial expectation was more …

There are some musical ideas that could be a total disaster or a roaring success. One such idea is to cover Pink Floyd. We saw Scissor Sisters butchering “Comfortably numb” as a perfect example of why it’s a bad idea to cover Pink Floyd, but now Kyle Shutt has put …

They say all good things must come to an end, and with Black Sabbath that time has finally come with the band having retired following their farewell tour. It’s an odd time to do it – a year short of their 50th anniversary, but sadly they’re not young any more …

Electric ducks are a French band, but unlike say Trust, they choose to sing in English which immediately makes their music more accessible to an international audience. Formed in 2004 they released their debut album (Rock your fashion) in 2008, and followed that with two more albums (“Back’n’Forth” and “We …

Kiss the gun are a rock band from Salisbury. Their singer though comes from Georgia (the country not the US state) where she appeared on TV shows “Talented” and “The voice of Georgia” where she reached the semi-finals. The band only formed in 2016 and “Nightmares” is their debut album. …

This EP by Liverpool’s Black Cat Bones is not actually as new as it pretends to be. It was recorded last year and this is a re-release; this edition is being marketed, distributed and managed by the band themselves. I first encountered Black Cat Bones last year when I wandered …

Milton-Keynes based pop punksters All Tied Up have recently signed to a new label. Stack-in-a-box Records is an new kid on the Indie scene and this 5-track EP is scheduled to be one of their first releases. So what do All Tied Up actually sound like? Well they are pretty …

Finland’s Von Hertzen Brothers are back with a new album, “War is over”, their seventh studio album. They’ve been making a name for themselves over the last few years in particular, not just in the Prog world, but also in the wider rock world. For this album the three brothers …

Iron Maiden singer Bruce Dickinson has released several solo albums over the years, starting with “Tattooed Millionaire” in 1995, and following that up with “Balls To Picasso” (1994), “Skunkworks” (1996) “Accident Of Birth” (1997) “The Chemical Wedding” (1998) and his final solo album to date, “Tyranny Of Souls” (2005). These …

Christmas albums (or even songs) from rock or metal acts are generally pretty awful with just a few songs becoming much loved classics. Tarja Turunen though is both a rock artist and a classical artist, so her Christmas album has the potential to be a success, especially as classical Christmas …

It took a few spins of Hands Of Fate, the fourth studio album by Savage Messiah to get around their new change of direction, but it has still blown me away. Their heads down thrash metal has been honed down to a heavy metal groove with no loss of power …

Black Aces a young hard rocking four piece from sunny Australia release their second album Anywhere But Here via Off Yer Rocka Recordings today followed by an appearance on the main stage at Hard Rock Hell XI tomorrow. Anywhere But Here is the follow up to their debut album Shot In The …

Ian Gillan has long been the voice of Deep Purple. While the band has had other singers over the years, Ian Gillan has been the vocalist for 34 years in total – the vast majority of the band’s life. Deep Purple are currently on their long goodbye tour so assuming …

In the world of rock the name Appice is well known as brothers Carmine and Vinny have between them played drums for bands including Vanilla fudge, Beck, Ozzy Osbourne, Ted Nugent, Rod Stewart, Dio, Black Sabbath, Heaven and Hell, and Last in line. They played together for the 2014 album …

At the end of November, BMG will be releasing “Blues and beyond”, a new collection of songs from Gary Moore. It’s being released following a Pledgemusic campaign and comes in several versions. The most basic is a 2 CD package which contains a selection of songs from his career and …

When you think of all the rock and metal bands you listen to, a large amount will be from the US or UK, but when you look away from the English speaking countries then Finland, Sweden and Germany probably make up a large proportion. One country that is strangely under-represented …

Jared James Nichols releases his new album, Black magic, on 27th October. The follow up to his 2015 album, “Old glory & the wild revival”, it’s an album that’s eagerly awaited by the fans. In the last few years Jared James Nichols has toured relentlessly, sharing stages with the likes …

To celebrate the 40th anniversary of their 1976 album “Leftoverture”, Kansas planned a 10 date tour that eventually extended to an 80 date tour. For the tour the band changed up their usual setlist and did a set that consisted of a hits type portion followed by playing Leftoverture in …

Year Of The Tiger is the new album from Buckcherry front man Josh Todd under the guise of Josh Todd & The Conflict.  Joining Josh are the Los Angeles trio of Steve Dacanay, Sean Winchester and Gregg Cash.  This album is rock and roll, hardcore, a bit punk but overall …