Arkado is a melodic rock band from Ödåkra, Helsingborg, Sweden. They were founded as far back as 1983 and were originally known as BB2 (Better Be Together) and - interesting fact alert - they recorded a single that the local football club, Ödåkra IF, still play at every match to this day. It takes me..
Return – V (AOR Heaven)
Another quick jump in the time machine takes us back to the '80s when several fledgling Norwegian bands were just starting out with bands like TNT and Stage Dolls gaining international recognition but it just did not seem to happen for Return, a melodic rock band out of Stange, Hedmark. Whilst not gaining the recognition..
DeadRisen – DeadRisen (AFM Records)
Deadrisen is a new band put together by old stagers Mike LePond and Rod Rivera and they have brought in a talented and intriguing team of musicians with vocalist Will Shaw (Heir Apparent), keyboardist Tony Stahl (Livesay) and drummer Dan Prestup (Midnight Eternal) joining guitarist Rivera (Christian rock band Rivera Bomma) and the ever busy..
Lord Of Light – Morningstar (No Remorse Records)
Lord Of Light is a band created by Swedish composer and multi instrumentalist Nicklas Kirkeval and he supplied vocals, guitar and keyboards for the album with Alfred Andersson on bass guitar and Jesper Sunnhagen on drums. Kirkeval originally put this album out on digital platform only in 2019 as he did not have a label..
Khymera- Master Of Illusions (Frontiers Music)
Khymera initially began life as a project put together by Italian producer/musician Daniele Liverani and the Kansas vocalist Steve Walsh but it became more of a fully functioning band when bassist Dennis Ward (Pink Cream 69/Unisonic and now Magnum) came on board as vocalist for the second album. Although only the backing vocalist in Pink..
Allen/Olzon – Worlds Apart (Frontiers Music)
I guess we all know that this project features Russell Allen, the vocalist of immense US rockers Symphony X and Anette Olzon formerly of Nightwish (what a great job she did in replacing the irreplaceable Tarja Turunen) and The Dark Element with Sonata Arctica guitarist Jani Liimatainen? Effectively, this is a continuation of the project..
NOVENA – Eleventh Hour (Frontiers)
Mark the name, as these guys are going to be huge in the progressive rock universe! This is the debut album by this UK progressive metal band formed in 2013 and they already have an outstanding EP in their locker with the quite staggering 32-minute Secondary Genesis featuring three lengthy prog metal tracks - and..
Harem Scarem – Change The World (Frontiers Music)
Formed in 1987 and still going strong, the melodic rock band Harem Scarem is one of Canada’s greatest exports with their superior and ever pleasing brand of AOR. They have a couple of blips behind them especially when they changed their name to Rubber for a couple of albums around the millennium but this was..
Semblant – Obscura (Frontiers Music)
I just knew that this was going to be a difficult album for me to review when I looked at the album publicity and saw the three words that were never meant to go together, melodic death metal! I’m quite a simple person and to me, there is quite a gulf between melodic metal and..
THE RAGGED SAINTS – Sonic Playground Revisited (AOR Heaven)
The Ragged Saints is a hard, driving rock band from Finland and was formed in 2011 by guitarists Tomi Julkunen and Toni Bite and, very quickly, they brought onboard vocalist Markku Kuikka, bass player Jukka Hoffrén and drummer Miikki Kunttu. Together, they released their debut, The Sound Of Breaking Free, in 2013 which established them..