When you think about it, all mainstream trends in music and elsewhere must have had small beginnings – each journey starts with a single step, as they say. It’s strange to think that the ‘70s megastars of rock and prog, bands like Yes, Genesis, Deep Purple and Procol Harum, were considered ‘underground’ when they emerged...
TOYAH – The Blue Meaning: Expanded Edition (Cherry Red)
With the context of the passing of time, this is all brilliantly boundary-pushing music, and The Blue Meaning is an album which could astound the unprepared. Pure gold. The Cherry Red Toyah reissue programme continues with the second album, 1980's The Blue Meaning, following on from the excellent reissue of the Sheep Farming In Barnet..
OBERON – A Midsummer’s Night Dream (Grapefruit / Cherry Red)
...Oberon, a prog-folk-cum-jazz-cum-rock band which was formed by its members while still at school, played a handful of local gigs, and released only 99 copies of their sole studio album, because to release 100 would incur purchase tax! Intriguing enough for you? Me too! Under the Cherry Red umbrella, the Esoteric label has a tremendous..
Riding The Rock Machine: British Seventies Classic Rock (Cherry Red / Grapefruit)
As regular readers of these pages will know, The Cherry Red label have been hard at work in recent times, compiling and releasing a host of 3-CD boxed sets, chronicling the development of various genres or bands. The great thing about these compilations is that they never resort to the trite or hackneyed. It’s easy..
Ken Hensley – My Book Of Answers (Cherry Red Records)
We know that 2020 was a bad year for many reasons but in the music world it was certainly an annus horribilis for Uriah Heep fans. The sad deaths of Lee Kerslake and Ken Hensley within a couple of months of each other left Mick Box as the last man standing from the classic line-up...
Lee Kerslake – Eleventeen (Cherry Red Records)
We are used to pampered artists complaining about taking a long time to write an album due to writer’s block, tiring tours, and myriad other narcissistic excuses, and so the naked honesty from Kerslake in the sleeve notes of this album is startling: ‘It’s been a little over three years to record and finish it,..
Fraternity (featuring Bon Scott) – Seasons Of Change – The Complete Recordings 1970-1974 (Cherry Red)
Fraternity are best remembered in the UK as the band Bon Scott fronted after leaving 1960s band The Valentines, and before joining AC/DC. Which is all very well, but it doesn’t do Fraternity anything like justice. For one thing, they were nothing like AC/DC in sound or content, being much more melodically ambitious, and also,..
Manowar – Black Wind Fire And Steel: The Atlantic Albums 1987-1992 (Cherry Red Records)
All three albums contain classic metal material and show the band’s uncanny and unique ability to effortlessly switch between light and shade, and between anger and pathos. Manowar burst onto the scene in 1982 with their brand of powerful heavy metal. If anything set them apart from other bands it was their lyrics which focused..
Oh! You Pretty Things: Glam Queens And Street Urchins (1970-76) (Cherry Red)
Prolific label Cherry Red Records are currently outdoing themselves with their output of classic and rare vintage boxed sets – search for the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal, Pub-Rock, Back Street Crawler and Fraternity reviews on this website for starters. This latest 3-CD boxed set, complete with 40-page booklet insert, strives to document the..
Death Angel – The Enigma Years (1987 – 1990) (Cherry Red Records/HNE Recordings)
The San Francisco Bay Area thrash scene from the 1980s remains one of the most colourful and potent genres in metal history. Naturally, it was fuelled by the music but was also driven by fan tape trading and a brotherhood between the bands and a united relationship between musicians and fans. Even now during its..