Bob Catley. Middle Earth
With Gary Hughes at the steering wheel things can't go wrong and Middle Earth is indeed a fine, epic and harmonious slice of great music with delicate vocals all the way through.

Coldplay. X&Y
Comforting and atmospheric Rock with great harmonies and tender vocals. A really cool album to crash out too after a stressful day. Fix You is simply painfully beautiful.

Forty Deuce. Nothing To Lose
A Richie Kotzen project going for an unpolished and raw Rock sound, cool stuff.

Harem Scarem. Mood Swings
Going into Harem Scarem mood lately. Catchy Melodic Hard Rock of high class. Stranger Than Love is a monster track.

Jaded Heart. Slaves And Masters
Good old fashioned Hard Rock with bite and striking hooks, solid without being fantastic.

Leverage. Tides
A quite enjoyable round of slightly Progressive Symphonic Heavy Metal with Hard Rock and Power Metal tendencies.hmm they do cover a lot of ground actually.
A varied bunch of well crafted songs even though there's some way up to a real revelation.

Masterplan. MK II
The downhill ride since the amazing debut continues but that doesn't mean this isn't good, just don't expect more than that.

Morgana Lefay. Sanctified
Power Metal with a rough edge and a forceful rhythm section, unfortunately sporadically monotone.

Pain Of Salvation. Scarsick
It's their least successful album but still pretty good. Spitfall, Cribcaged and Kingdom Of Loss are exciting tracks, but I don't know what they where thinking with Disco Queen and it seems like the album looses some momentum towards the end. I was hoping for a lot more.

Spock's Beard. Spock's Beard
It's groovy, experimenting and well played.but not really able to keep my attention as fixed as on Octane.

Symphorce. Become Death
Dark pretty much summarizes the essence of another strong and powerful disc from the Germans.

Therion. Gothic Kabbalah
A theatrical, bombastic and by all means Progressive piece of music roaming in a world completely of its own, quite fascinating stuff.

Threshold. Dead Reckoning
Oh yeah.they have done it again. Brilliant effort with a tightness and vigour that's bound to leave a lasting impression. Definitely one of the top releases of 2007.

Tony O'Hora. Escape Into The Sun
Great melodic Hard Rock from Magnus Carlson matching the vivid vocals finely. It's a step behind the Allen/Lande disc but that's also almost out of reach, impatiently awaiting the sequel on that front.

Umphrey's McGee. Anchor Drops
Exploring jam sections and a completely unique kind of Progressive Rock is what to be found on this highly unpredictable jazzy, groovy and meaty piece of music. It's not equally well written and you have to be in a special state of mind but it's quite refreshing once in a while with something to stir things up a bit.

Zero Hour. Specs Of Pictures Burnt Beyond
Decent Progressive Metal with some technical structures and advanced rhythm passages.

Written by Tommy
Thursday, March 29, 2007