Given the name of the band and the album title I was all prepared for a bit of power metal but, oh boy, was I surprised. The actual album cover is the first hint that this was not what I expected and when the first track kicked in with an up-tempo new wave-ish indie rocker..
Sunrise – Equilibria (Independent Release)
Sunrise is a power metal band from the Ukraine with Equilibria being the fourth full length release from them and this is the first time that I have heard anything of their work but this album definitely shows that much closer examination of the earlier music is well overdue. It's quite obvious that the band..
Hammer King – Hammer King (Napalm Records)
Power metal, don't you just love it? In nearly all other forms of art the key word tends to be restraint but the world is turned upside down when it comes to the semantics of power metal as this music demands, in true Spinal Tap fashion - everything is louder than everything else. Taste goes..
Nitrate – Renegade (AOR Heaven)
Nitrate is a band I have not come across before with Renegade being the third album to date. The group was formed in 2015 in Nottingham, England by guitarist and keyboard player Nick Hogg to play melodic hard rock that was mainly '80s inspired with a lead taken from the likes of Def Leppard, Europe..
Stephen Crane & Duane Sciacqua – Big Guns (AOR Heaven)
Stephen Crane is an American musician with Kicks (reviewed on Velvet Thunder in April 2021) initially being released in the '80s and despite some most excellent musicians involved it received little or indeed no help from the record label and subsequently passed into history as little more than a curio. However, AOR Heaven has rescued..
Stefan Berggren – These Are The Times (Grandjam Production)
Stefan Berggren is yet another in a seemingly endless list of quality Swedish rock vocalists with These Are The Times being his second solo release and a most excellent classic rock album it is too. His name may not be that familiar to you but he is another of those singers with an amazing voice..
Strÿkenine – Strÿkenine I (Pride & Joy Music)
I have this constant worry that somewhere in Sweden there is a guy with a beer in his hand sat in a lonely bar just wondering why he is the only man in that country not in a rock band! For a nation with around 10 million inhabitants Sweden has certainly punched above its weight..
Human Failure – Urchin EP (Riot Records)
Human Nature is a hardcore rock band from Newcastle in Australia and it delivers short, sharps stabs of anger, pain and vitriol with a typical punk in your face attitude and all to a grinding, churning riff heavy hardcore backing. There are just the five tracks here with Urchin being the lead single but all..
The Grafenberg Disciples – Johnny On The Spot (The Highlander Company Records)
The rather curiously titled Grafenberg Disciples is a new band from California made up by bassist, songwriter and producer Bob Madsen and the singer Hans Eberbach who comes from a soul and funk background. Some of you may already know Madsen as the co-founder of the American progressive rock bands 41Point9 (with Brian Cline) and..
H2S04 – Love And Death (LO-TEK Music)
Now this is a most interesting release from a band that made something of a stir back in 1998 as producers of indie electro most suitable for the dance floor utilising the remix route. The band passed me by but their songs were picked up by the likes of Pete Tong, Bob Geldof and John..