Coming from New Zealand to the UK, one thing I quickly became used to was being asked by the person who’d just discovered I was a Kiwi that they had heard New Zealand was like this country was fifty years…
View More Grumblewood – Stories Of Strangers
Marillion band members have a well-documented history of extensive solo and side projects, all except Mark Kelly… until now. He has been thinking of releasing his own solo project for quite some time and with some unexpected downtime in 2020…
View More Marathon – Mark Kelly’s Marathon
I came to this album with some reservations. Pharaoh Overlord have a larger discography than the title of their latest release might suggest, and that discography is quite varied. The band is one of Jussi Lehtisalo’s many offshoots of Finnish…
View More Pharaoh Overlord – 6
The music industry is fickle, the charts like production-line models, endlessly similar until the next relaunch, Mark II, Mark III etc. Then there is Jump! This is the fourteenth studio album in a career of over 25 years; I’ve had…
View More Jump – Breaking Point
I’m well aware that the appropriateness of genre labels can be quite subjective, and yet I have to wonder just what is played on Norwegian radio for Kalandra to be “pop sensations”, even when the adjective “alternative” is sometimes added…
View More Kalandra – The Line
A new album from Mike Vennart is certainly something to get excited about, and an unexpected one released with little build up – only a week after it was announced – is even more of a treat. In the Dead,…
View More Vennart – In The Dead, Dead Wood
‘Compassion’ sounds like a warm and fuzzy word. And yet, when you think about it, it is almost the opposite. Compassion is essentially the sympathetic consciousness of and concern for the suffering, distress and misfortunes of others. Its Latin roots…
View More Compassionizer – Caress of Compassion
In the year that will always be known for a disastrous pandemic, it has become increasingly noticeable how music has responded intuitively with releases redolent with both negative and positive perspectives on these strange and stressful times. In Singularity, Rain…
View More Rain – Singularity
I admit it. I was ready to be underwhelmed by Powerclashing Maximalism. It might be the third album from the band, but I’d never heard of Autocatalytica, so had no idea about the diversity of their sound, and though I…
View More Autocatalytica – Powerclashing Maximalism
After the huge success of their US tour in 2019, Yes has just released The Royal Affair Tour: Live From Las Vegas. The album comes in three formats: a CD digi-pack with a 12-page booklet, as a double LP with…
View More Yes – The Royal Affair Tour: Live From Las Vegas