Some melodic rockers may remember this Italian outfit, which released their debut “One” way back in 2001 on our own label. It took them seven years to come up with a follow up, but it was worth the wait, cause “Blue” not only continues the classic 80s AOR style of the debut, it also contains a much stronger songwriting. It really doesn’t matters if singer Angelo Grassi’s accent shines through, cause EVA has exactly this kind of polished and keyboard friendly AOR in the vein of JOURNEY, BAD ENGLISH and TOTO on offer, which most of the hardcore AOR junkies are listening to  all day and night. Walls of keyboards, radio friendly hooklines and plenty of melodies all over the place – what more do you want ?

The first two AVANTASIA records by Tobias Sammet (EDGUY) are modern classics of “Melodic Metal made in Germany”. Now he finally delivers a new album and one more time it kicks ass! “The Scarecrow” has nothing to do with the concept story the first two CDs and the music moves in a slightly different direction, but it's another great and interesting Melodic Metal album. The album features several guest singers (a. o. Alice Cooper, Jorn Lande, Bob Catley) and includes a tracklist ranging from epic tracks in the vein of MAGNUM (“Cry Just A Little”) to powerful Melodic Metal stuff (“Shelter From The Rain”) and a little more modern material (“Carry Me Over”). Let's cut it short, “The Scarecrow” is the next classic!

LEVERAGE's debut, “Tides”, was one of the most impressive releases in 2006. Among others, the album entered the Finnish charts and melodicrock.com named it the best Metal/Prog album of the year. With “Blind Fire” the guys around singer Pekka Heino (BROTHER FIRETRIBE) show that their debut was not a flash in the pan. The new record features another 10 great songs which live in particularly on atmospheric arrangements and strong vocal melodies. Frontiers Records describe the album rightly with the words “RAINBOW and MAGNUM sound meeting the power of STRATOVARIUS and MASTERPAN”. If you like one of the mentioned acts, then don't hesitate and order “Blind Fire”.

One year after the “Shake Your Soul” BATON ROUGE released their 2nd album, “Lights Out On The Playground”. Again the album was produced by Jack Ponti (a. o. BON JOVI, Alice Cooper) who also helped out with some songwriting contributions. Even though the record couldn't  keep up with the debut, it is still a tidbit for all lovers of bands like DAMN YANKEES, BANGALORE CHOIR and BABYLON A.D. The album's best songs are the opener “Slave To The Rhythm”, the groovy “Tie You Up” and the powerful ballad “Desperate”. Since all other songs are also pretty enjoyable, “Lights Out In The Playground” is almost another must-have for fans of classic US-Hard Rock.    MARCO SPÄTH

When BATON ROUGE released their debut, “Shake Your Soul”, in 1990 the best times for Hard Rock in the USA were already over. Never-theless the band was backed up by Atlantic Records and producer/co-songwriter Jack Ponti (a. o. BON JOVI, Alice Cooper). Commercially the album was not overly successful, but that doesn't say anything about its qualities. “Shake Your Soul” features 12 songs, ranging from highly melodic and powerful rockers (for example “Walks Like A Woman”, “Big Trouble”, “Bad Time Comin' Down”) to sensitive ballads (“It's About Time”; “There Was A Time”). If you like perfectly performed and produced US-Hard Rock, then “Shake Your Soul” is a must-have for you!

MARCO SPÄTH

For the most people ICON will always be remembered by their legendary “Night Of The Crime” album. However, “Right Between The Eyes” of the year 1989 shouldn't be underrated and in the last years it has become a real hot tip among fans. In view of great songs like “Right Between The Eyes”, “Two For The Road” (feat. Alice Cooper), “In Your Eyes” and “Running Under Fire” I can totally understand. Well, and with “A Far Cry” and “Holy Man's War” the album includes two of the best songs ICON have ever recorded! Not at least a merit of singer Jerry Harrison whose powerful and perfectly used voice adds something really special to these songs. No doubt, “Right Between The Eyes” is an essential re-release!

MARCO SPÄTH

When I put “In The Shadows Lost From The Brave” in my CD-player I had no idea what going to hit me. Judging from the boring cover artwork I expected a trivial True Metal-album that I would never listen to again. But then I heard the opener, “My Judas”, a massive Melodic Metal-anthem in the style of EDGUY, and everything changed. Some investigation unveil that SAINT DEAMON feature musicians who already co-wrote songs for renown acts like PRIMAL FEAR, SINNER and RIDE THE SKY. So it's no longer a mystery why their album is very much in the vein of these acts and can easily keep up with them. Go and check it out, I am sure that “in The Shadows...” will soon become a hot tip among Melodic Metal fans!                          MARCO SPÄTH

Heavy Metal without keyboards? Sure. Heavy Metal without vocals? Sometimes. Heavy Metal without guitars? Interesting question! Would be worth a try. I guess that were the thoghts of Markus Grosskopf (HELLOWEEN), Peavy Wagner (RAGE), Tom Angelripper (SODOM) and Schmier (DESTRUCTION) when they formed the BASSINVADERS project. The 14 songs on their album were recorded without any guitars. Instead, they and some guests let just vibrate their basses and their voices. It's really enjoyable to listen to two or three songs in that style, but over a whole album it quickly gets boring and monotonous. So after listening to this album, one thing is clear: Heavy Metal without guitars doesn't really work! 

MARCO SPÄTH

Long before Sweden ruled the metal market there were bands like OVERDRIVE which were the pioneers of the Scandi metal scene and the counterparts to SAXON / IRON MAIDEN. After a 24years hiatus (with just a handful of festival appearances inbetween) the mighty OVERDRIVE feat. ace guitarist JANNE STARK are back in the swim with a killer comeback which smells the classic 80s metal all the way, but due to the up to date production technic never sounds dated. “Let The Metal Do The Talking” is exactly the type of album which SAXON and IRON MAIDEN would love to release since a decade, but they fails as they can’t write such killer songs these days. Full marks for this cracking comeback !

One of Germany’s finest power metal outfits harks back with a great release. "Downburst" is a mix of Heavy and Power Metal that reminds me a lot of some of Primal Fear's material.  The album is very upbeat, pretty "positive sounding" overall, with only a few passages that sound a little bit darker, but not much - this is not music to get depressed to.  The vocal work is often not unlike what you'd hear from Halford or Scheepers when they're singing in lower keys and sometimes sounding more "sober", in a hard rock-ish kind of way (there's a little Dokken vibe from time to time).  I could almost go as far as to say that the vocals are the highlight of the album, as the singer Andy B. Franck does an excellent job here.

BENEDICTUM are San Diego latest and mightiest ambassadors to the world of heavy metal. Conjuring the power, mystique and grandeur of early Rainbow and classic Savatage yet forging a sound thats uniquely their own they took the metal world by storm with their cracking debut “Uncreation”. Two years later BENEDICTUM needs to proove that this great debut shot was not just an one off affair, but you can relax, cause even if you might think after the moody intro “Dawn Of Seasons” that the band has been wimped out you’ll get hit with a sledgehammer by the following “Shell Shock” and that is just the beginning. BENEDICTUM are back with a vengeance and makes no prisoners with “Seasons Of Tragedy”.

Here it is, the new release from AYREON. And even more than on the other albums it is very hard to explain what you will get. "01011001" includes more than 100 minutes of music, but it feels like you listen to 1000 minutes in the end. Just to give you an idea what you can expect, take RAMMSTEIN, GENESIS, PINK FLOYD and a bit BLACKMORE’S NIGHT and mix it together. But it`s way more than that. Of course there are again a lot of well known singers included in this project, like Steve Lee from GOTTHARD, Hansi Kürsch (BLIND GUARDIAN), Bob Catley or Simone Simons (EPICA), just to name a few. It takes some time to really get into the music and the story, but it`s worth the time for sure.

Escape Records are back in the game with a very recommendable rerelease of the first two ALLIANCE album. Behind the band name ALLIANCE there are 4 well known AOR cracks: David Lauser (Sammy Hagar), Alan Fitzgerald (Night Ranger), Gary Pihl (Boston) and singer Robert Berry. Both albums deliver first class AOR stuff in the vein of SIGNAL meets HEARTLAND, as you can hear on tracks like “Second Chance” or “Young Blood”, to name only two. Escape Records added 8 bonus tracks, remastert the sound of both albums and finished the package with a new artwork. A third album will be released later in 2007. Good news!

With a career that spans almost three decades already, SHY front man Tony Mills returns with the release of his latest solo project entitled “Freeway to the Afterlife”. The first thing I must say about “Freeway to the Afterlife” is that if you purchase this looking for material similar to what you are use to hearing from SHY, you’ll be in for a HUGE surprise. Tony has put together a nine-song collection which is very different from anything you have heard from him before. “Freeway to the Afterlife” is a mixture of various styles ranging from blues to soul to funk to jazz. All the tracks are very unique in their own right but Tony is able to maintain the overall feel and texture throughout the CD, which blends these varying influences into an absolute nuance that any true music lover can appreciate.

SANDALINAS is the new project of Spanish guitar virtuoso Jordi Sandalinas. Under the direction of producer Andy La Rocque (KING DIAMOND) and with the help of ex-MEDUZA singer Apollo, he has created a strong Hard Rock album that the friends of AXEL RUDI PELL, TEN and BRA-ZEN ABBOT will highly appreciate. The ten songs rock straight forward and get dominated by Sandalinas' powerful riffs and Apollo's strong vo-cals. To get an idea of what I mean, check out the anthemic title track, the fast-paced and very AXEL RUDI PELL-like “All Along The Everglades”, the dark “Follow Me” and the highly melodic “If It Wasn't For You”. SANDALINAS don't re-invent the genre, but they definitely know their biz.

MARCO SPÄTH