Cristiano Filippini is an Italian composer, producer and guitarist and he seems to have had a most interesting and diverse musical career as a rock guitarists, pianist, classical composer and musician. It looks like he is one of those gifted multi-talented people who can turn their hands to just about any instrument and is blessed..
AnthenorA – Mirrors And Screens (Punishment 18 Records)
This is my first experience with the Italian band, the curiously named AnthenorA, a classic heavy rock band with a long but quite fragmented career behind them. Formed in 1989, the band appears to have operated as an Iron Maiden covers band and even managed to tour with Nico McBrain on his drum clinic road..
Hellsmoke – 2020 (Pride & Joy Music)
Hellsmoke is a new hard rock band from Helsingborg in Southern Sweden with 2020 being the band's heavy, incendiary and very hard hitting debut. The band began life when guitarist Christofer Dahlman (ex-Alyson Avenue, Bai Bang) and songwriter Torbjörn Månsson' joined forces with drummer Roger Landin (ex-Cloudscape) and their proto-metal built around snarling guitars and..
Squealer – Insanity (Pride & Joy Music)
The German power/thrash metal band Squealer has long been a guaranteed supplier of hard and very heavy metal ever since its inception in the mid '80s with each of their albums being greeted with equal delight by its quite devoted fan base. However, the recorded output is hardly prolific with the publicity stating that this..
Shadow Tribe – Reality Unveiled (Pride & Joy Music)
Shadow Tribe' is a new Finnish power metal band put together by the well established bass player Marko Pukkila (Altaria, Stargazery) and vocalist Kimmo Perämäk (ex-'Celesty', 'Spiritus Mortis', 'Masquerage') with guitarist 'Simo Pirttimaa' and drummer 'Petri Heinonen' ('King Satan') coming in to complete the team. 'Reality Unveiled' is an album two years in the making..
Cormac Neesson – White Feather (Deluxe Edition) (Social Family Records)
Cormac Neeson is the vocalist with blues infused hard rock band The Answer from Northern Ireland. Neeson released his White Feather debut solo album in 2018 but it seems only to have received only a limited release and it has now been re-issued in expanded format. The plan was for this release to be backed..
Brad Brooks – God Save The City (Mouth Magic Music)
This is my first taste of Brad Brooks a singer songwriter from the San Francisco Bay Area and it is nice to hear an old school artist performing almost in the troubadour style of old who delights in telling tales and singing songs about real life. Most modern singer of his ilk seem to be..
Starbynary – Divina Commedia: Paradiso (Art Gates Records)
Starbynary is an Italian progressive metal band but one with a definite neo-progressive rock flavour to it and what a delicious and intriguing combination this makes. The band formed in 2013 with the debut Dark Passenger coming out in 2014 but then a quantum leap was taken as the band decided to produce a most..
Lazarus Dream – Alive (Pride & Joy Music)
Lazarus Dream Lazarus Dream is a new hard rock project put together by the German pairing of Markus Pfeffer and Carsten Schulz with Alive. Being the debut release featuring thirteen tracks for 72-minutes of superior hard rock very much in Whitesnake's Slip Of The Tongue territory. Markus Pfeffer is a well established multi-instrumentalist and was..
East Temple Avenue – Both Sides Of Midnight (AOR Heaven)
East Temple Avenue is a new project put together by the Australian guitarist, songwriter and producer Darren Phillips and he also hosts a melodic rock radio show back in his native Sydney. He has built up a wealth of contacts due to the show and this has already led to an album of collaborations being..