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| The keyboardplayer from Spocks Beard has done a soloalbum that sounds very familiar to Spocks sound and it?s not so strange either because a couple of the songs are cowritten with the head of Spocks Beard namely Neal Morse,who recently decided to put the music life behind him! Drummer Nick D?virgilio from Spocks Beard plays on a few songs and sing on one track too. On the other songs Simon Phillips handles the drums and this album is also recorded at his home studio. Among the vocalists we can hear Bobby Kimball and Glenn Hughes. This is progressive music with a little bit of funk at some moments. Ofcourse there are parts that feels truely amazing like the calm and beautiful title track. Also the long pomp anthem "Close enough" is a masterpiece but except from those the rest aren?t in anyway exciting like I hoped! The best days of Spocks Beard are over and that has made an impact on the members,looking at this record that barely hold the cd length. This is only for die hard Beard fans,everybody else can spend heir money on the new Threshold album to get some serious pomp in their lives. |
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I went to see Pablo Francisco perform here in Sweden a couple of weeks ago. During one sketch he talked about Slayer and their music. He said that all songs sounded just like da-da-da-dada-da-da-DEATH!! over and over again. I cannot help but to think about that whenever I hear a Slayer song now. Well, on this album it would be da-da-da-dada-da-da-BLOOD!! instead. No. but seriously, Slayer returns with a brand new album and this one is more melodic than previous effort Christ Illusion. I quite liked their album God Hates Us All before that but Christ Illusion was no big hit for me. This album comes in close to GHUA in my book. I like how Tom Araya sings more cleanly on some songs. I do wonder how the hardcore fans will like that though. Altogether I get the feeling that this album is business as usual for Slayer. There are no super songs here but at the same time there are no real bad ones. I like the title track as well as Unit731. Playing with Dolls is another song worth checking out. This is a competent record and I am sure the Slayer fans will appreciate this. It will not stand up against their classic albums but for me it will do just fine for now.
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There are a lot of fine musicians playing on Stacie Rose?s new album "Shadow and splendour",on guitar David Patterson (Shawn Mullins) and James Mastro (Ian Hunter),on bass Jeff Allen (Duncan Sheik) and it?s produced by Robert L.Smith (David Bowie).
Stacie?s music lies somewhere between Sheryl Crow and Lisa Loeb,this is not a bad album at all - in fact Stace has a trustworthy voice when she sings about broken hearts and deceit but also fast as a U-turn she brings sunshine and hope!
Her Norah Jones interpretation of the U2 cover "New years day" is odd but nice.
The album definitely grows after a few spins,what I don?t like though is the The Bold and The Beautiful-ish soap opera cover....yeuch!
Stace is a pretty girl but wouldn?t it be enough with just a pic of her instead of these colors and text format? |
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| Stacie have nice company on the album. Shawn Mullins is helping her out on a tune and that is the best tune on this album that musically is somewhere between Shawn Colvin and Sheryl Crow. It´s nice, but it´s nothing that grabs me either. Good solid stuff without getting exceptional. |
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Here we have another Idol competitor. Yes, 22 year old and vocal extraordinaire Suzi Rawn was Season 3 top four finisher in Canadian Idol.
Her solo debut "Naked" is a very typical Idol sounding album that makes you think of artist?s like Ashlee Simpson, Avril Lavigne and Kelly Clarkson.
The album has been produced by the Harem Scarem boys Harry Hess and Pete Lesperance so you can imagine that there are lots of melodies and HS vibes in her sound.
They have also played on the album and co-written 6 out of the 11 tracks on the album - 2 of the songs "Don?t Come Easy" and "Understand You" are taken from the Harem Scarem album "Overload" (2005). This is damn fine female modern rock with strong songs.
Highlights except the old Harem Scarem tracks are the fantastic "Broken" with a catchy up-tempo chorus that will hook you up right away and "Sorry For You" which is a wonderful guitar driven rocker with attitude, plenty of strong hooks and melodies.
The Avril smelling "Don?t Leave Me" is a nice rocker but "It Was You" is the song that should make it big from the album because it?s handmade for the radio, give it some airplay and it will be huge.
This is a very even album and you won?t find many weak moments on Naked, it?s a hectic year for the Harem Scarem guys with this release together with a brand new Harem album on the way.
This is a must for fans of the mentioned artists and even some HS fans will enjoy this for sure. Suzi has a strong and powerful voice that reminds very much of Ashlee Simpson and YES, she has the looks as well. Great album with great songs. It has been released in Canada at the moment and will hopefully see the day of light in Europe next year. |
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| Who on earth could believe that The Reggie Knighton Band´s second album would see the light of day in 2010! This disc, released in 1978 is unknown to many and Rock Candy makes you all a service by releasing the disc, for it is really good, as usual with the Rock Candy releases. The album was released three years after the band´s debut 1975 and 1978 was the year when the big pompous AOR was at its peak with all the great releases. Now some of us who knows about this disc and we know that this album isn´t pure pomp-aor. The album also has another site where an almost quirky kind of rock meets the classic sound. The meeting is very exciting and you can thank the producer Roy Thomas Baker for that. It is clear that he was working a lot with Queen at this time when you hear the sound of the album. An example of this is the brilliant "Highway Patrol". There is also a cool part of The Cars influences on the disc, something you also can thank Roy Thomas Baker of which also worked with the band. These different styles made the band´s sound unique, but unfortunately the band split up when they were tired when the band failed on the charts and that because of something called "the punk and new wave"-era. Who needed this sort of huge sounding rock if you like The Pistols. Not many. Happily enough I did and finally I have it on CD. |
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One part of The Royal Concept has toured with the Swedish pop icon Robyn. Guess it inspired Frans Povel and his men that now have this charming EP "The Royal Concept Ep" out on the market. Musically speaking, the band in is not far from Passion Pit, The Naked And Famous and Limousines, ie. electro pop in a neat indie package. Do, however think that the band have out classic Swedish pop stamp on the songs, which means that there’s a bit different style than the bands I compared them with.
Check out if you like electro pop!
Highlights: "World On Fire", "Gimme Twice", "D-D-Dance"
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| The former drummer from The Jayhawks - Tim O Reagan did a soloalbum two years ago and I realized that I forgot to review it - so here is just a few words about it.. It´s a cool album he´ve done and it ones again proofs what a band The Jayhawks was. Here comes the drummer (nothing bad about drummers but you don´t think of them as the musical leaders of a band) and deliver such a good album. This album is a must if you like The Jayhawks (Mark Olson plays some of the guitars btw). It is as simple as that. He continues in their footsteps and he is doing it mighty fine. Best songs? Well the opening "These Things" and the softer "Highway Flowers" are two ones. |
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| Quality. That is the first word that enters my mind when I hear the new album from Tokyo Rosenthal. Musically we're talkin about a guy who're in the land of americana but who's also flirting with the early westcoastscene (James Taylor/Jackson Browne)and the songwriting and not least his lyrics are small stories all of them. Best songs on the album are "Black To Blue" and "San Antone" which both are storytelling americana music on a very high level. An honest and besutiful album. |
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| The last album with Tokyo was a nice album in the same vein as James Taylor and Jackson Browne but with a nice touch of alt country. On the new album he left the westcoastsound and just concentrates on the americana sound and it's a pity cause this album doesn't give me that much to be honest. It'sunfait to say that it's bad. It's not. It's just another album in a genre where guys like Gram Parsons and John Prine is som much better. Boring. |
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