The NWOBHM movement spawned a plethora of bands ranging from the essential to the interesting but never, ever was there a bad band and you have to remember that we rock fans were fed up of the airwaves being full of punk and disco so every new metal band was something to revel and delight..
Hit The Ground Runnin’ – Control Yourself (reissue) (Pride & Joy Music)
Several other Hit The Ground Runnin' albums are already reviewed elsewhere on the Velvet Thunder website and these show the band to be an AOR outfit originally out of Canadian but subsequently relocated to Philadelphia. The band began life in 1985 with the name Free Delivery which was changed to Hit The Ground Runnin' the..
Lugnet – Tales From The Great Beyond (Pride & Joy Music)
Lugnet is a retro hard rock band from Sweden with the portentous and hard hitting Tales From The Great Beyond being their third album to date which has seen the group develop and expand their doom meets classic metal to near perfection. Formed in Sweden in 2012, the band has changed considerably from the original..
Bad Baron – Ace Of Hearts (Pride & Joy Music)
Bad Baron is a new hard rock/sleaze band out of Finland with Ace Of Hearts being the debut album which delivers a tried and tested upbeat rock/sleaze crossover in a jaunty fashion but it has all been done before and much better by the giants of the sleaze genre but that is perhaps no real..
Dreamtide – Drama Dust Dream (Pride & Joy Music)
The German hard rock/heavy metal band Dreamtide was formed in Hannover in 2000 by the Fair Warning guitarist Helge Engelke and he brought in a talented team of musicians to bring the project to life with vocalist Olaf Senkbeil (ex-Jacks Hammer), drummer CC Behrens (Fair Warning/Silent Circle), keyboard player Torsten Luederwaldt and bassist Ole Hempelmann..
Mentalist – Empires Falling (Mentalist Records/Pride & Joy Music)
Mentalist is a heavy melodic rock band from Saarbrücken, Germany having formed in 2018 with Empires Falling now being the band's third album to date following on from the very impressive A Journey Into The Unknown which came out in 2021. All three albums show a fine, composed and mature band playing a fast and aggressive..
Fatal Vision – Once (Pride & Joy Music)
This 'new' album by the Canadian band Fatal Vision is something of a curiosity given that the group came together in the '80s when AOR/Melodic rock/hair metal was in its prime with bands like Journey, Asia, Foreigner and Europe ruling the airwaves. It was a love of all things AOR that brought together the similar..
Scar For Life – Sociophobia (Pride & Joy Music)
Scar For Life is a Portuguese hard rock formed in 2008 by the guitarist Alexandre Santos with Sociophobia being the group's 5th album. Santos is the only remaining original member and it appears that he has been more than happy to change personnel in search of the sound that he is looking for. The current..
Lazarus Dream – Lifeline (Pride & Joy Music)
Lazarus Dream is a hard rock band that is the product of a collaboration between the German musicians Markus Pfeffer and Carsten Schulz with Lifeline being the bands second album following on from Alive which came out in 2020. I mentioned in the review for Alive that the band delivered a superior hard rock similar..
Drive At Night – Echoes Of An Era (Pride & Joy Music)
Drive at Night is a new project put together in 2021 by the Swedish musicians Joachim Nordlund, the guitarist with Astral Doors, and Johan Lindstedt, the drummer with SunStroke. The two musicians have known each other for quite some time and it has long been their intention to put an album together built around 1980s..