As most of you will probably know, American Tony Harnell was the vocalist with the brilliant Norwegian melodic rock band TNT and he had several stints with them before leaving for the last time (possibly... but you never quite know) in 2017. TNT have survived numerous line-up changes over the years with guitarist Ronni Le..
The Murder Of My Sweet – Brave Tin World (Frontiers Music)
The Murder Of My Sweet is a symphonic rock band formed in Sweden in 2006 by drummer and producer Daniel Flores with the name being taken from the film noir Murder, My Sweet. Their naming is somewhat significant in that the project was formed to produce music that is designed to match the dynamic of..
Additional material from Caroline Battenburg
Sweet – Islington Assembly Hall, 18/12/2019
Andy Scott swaps his red Strat for a gold one which he plays with an (empty) baked bean can for some reason... When I was a kid in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s, one of the upsides of catching some flu bug was getting to bunk off school, and another was special radio privileges...
Praying Mantis – Keep It Alive (Frontiers Music)
The roots of Praying Mantis go back to the early '70s when the Troy brothers, Tino and Chris, put the band together but it was the burgeoning NWOBHM movement that saw them come to prominence with their first recordings and some high calibre tour slots. They have had a most interesting career since those early..
Heavy Pettin – Lettin Loose/Rock Ain’t Dead/The Big Bang – Reissues (Burnt Out Wrecklords/Cherry Red)
Those of a certain age should remember this hard working Scottish rock band formed in Glasgow in 1981 and when you name your band after an album by the sublime UFO then you have made a statement of intent about the style of rock you are going to trade in. Formed by guitarist Gordon Bonnar,..
MANTRA – MEDIUM (FINISTERIAN DEAD END)
It is a joy to see that progressive music is alive and well and there are bands like Mantra that are pushing the progressive boundaries rather than settling for rehashing the past. Let me start with a very minor gripe: the band’s name. Spotify identifies 35 bands/artists with this name and that’s excluding dozens of..
STEELWINGS – BACK (SLIPTRICK RECORDS)
If you like an hour of good honest rock and roll then you won’t go wrong listening to this one. It really is extraordinary how Sweden seems to be churning out quality rock bands like hot cakes these days. Here is yet another one although they are not actually that new. Back in the late..
GIANT DWARF (SOUND EFFECT RECORDS)
This band could go a long long way.... Giant Dwarf are a new band from Perth, Australia, and this their eponymous debut album is an absolute gem. Musically, they plant their flag firmly in stoner territory with the stars of that genre (Kyuss, Queens of the Stone Age) being a visible influence along with the..
SAMANTHA MARTIN & DELTA SUGAR – Run To Me (Delta Soul)
Run to Me is the follow-up album to Send the Nightingale, the debut album from Samantha Martin and Delta Sugar, who are an eleven piece Blues / Soul band from Canada. For a woman marketed as a blues vocalist, and who’s been nominated for awards in various blues categories, she has a voice ideally suited..
IAN ANDERSON
I think you can look at many, if not most of the Jethro Tull albums, as containing elements of progressive rock - not necessarily prog, which is a bit more fanciful, but progressive rock. In November 2019, Ian Anderson announced that in September and October 2020, he’d be playing a series of eleven dates across..