This section of the department focuses in on a selected range of titles that we feel should be considered as prospective purchases by music fans into the style of music that this department is promoting. We do this by providing you with detailed, accurate and entertaining reviews of the titles concerned, and make all of them readily available via our on-line store. The selection we offer will mix the new with the old – the known with the unknown and will normally be confined to quality releases. However, just to show that we don’t just say everything is good regardless, and to keep the entertainment levels up, we’ll redress the balance and make the odd exception to the rule by dropping the odd turkey into this part of the shop, giving it a good old dressing down and plucking, just to lighten things up a bit!

Please note: When we feel it necessary, we will compare the music to names that you might be more familiar with. This is done just to help point you in the right direction, but usually we differentiate between the music actually sounding like that other artist or band’s work or just being influenced by it.

Some titles will be given extended reviews with much more in-depth & detailed track-by-track information.

This version can be selected by clicking the ‘more product information’ link at bottom right of first review.

‘Featured Titles’ files will remain in the CD Services on-line shop as long as we feel necessary, or for a period that has been agreed with the musicians concerned. Average ‘up’ time will be 4–6 weeks, then the reviews will be archived in a ‘Reference Library’ partition in the same department, and there they will be accessible to anyone caring to browse, until such a time as they are deleted. The ‘Feature’ can be resurrected for the available titles at any time.

Four-piece rock band from Austria with 9 anthemic, keyboard laden, guitar soaring tracks that span nearly fifty-three minutes playing time. The track vary from four to ten minutes a-piece - Some feature scorching, but tuneful guitar solos and all feature the sweet sounds of a female vocalist with a really pure singing voice. From out and out speed metal rockers to more gentle acoustic led pieces, there is always a strong sense of melody present on this album. The voice of Sabine Edelsbacher is stand-out point to note, as she deals with the powerful to the softer ballad style tracks with ease, as is Lanvall’s excellent guitar work, which is also well worth a mention, as he comfortably moves from electric to acoustic without even flinching. The album was recorded in Gandalf’s studio in Austria, and the man himself makes a guest appearance on the album’s ten-minute closing track (‘My Last Step Beyond’) playing Sitar during an instrumental passage at the centre of the lengthy piece. If you like rock with a strong sense of melody and possibly leaning more toward the symphonic end of metal, then this is definitely for you.

366708
Weight: 150.00 g

This is barnstorming stuff – a fantastic album of steaming rock with female vocals - The sort of thing that, while being melodic, well produced and fresh sounding, has a huge panorama of sound to offer. The electric guitars, bass & drums take you over in a swirling sound that is pleasant but never overpowering. The female vocalist has a rich voice that is often multi-tracked for greater effect, while the arrangements bring out the blazing supernova of guitars to equally great effect. But dynamics display a crucial role too, as the songs twist and turn – One moment, it’s a sea of stirring electric guitars, rhythm section and vocals, the next it takes off into the heavens, then it will drop down to a more haunting mood, before erupting into driving rock once more. The 12 songs are of absolute quality and incredibly addictive, but it’s that ocean of guitars, allied to rock solid work in the rhythm dept, that brings the whole thing to life on the perfectly played, produced and sung mix of rock, spiralling AOR with just a few touches of goth heaven in there too

997320
Weight: 150.00 g

It's been a long time since a new UK rock band exploded out of nowhere to potential world-wide success but, on the evidence of this album, this lot could well be next in line. Stick it on the player and  - WHAP!!!! - What an amazing album! Very much AOR in its approach, dominated by a set of songs that the likes of Bad English and Giant would have killed for, this is one stunning debut album. First off, the vocalist is sensational - one of the finest AOR vocalists I've heard from the UK in ages, and his delivery of the songs is worthy of some of the finest AOR/rock vocalists of the past. Add to that smoking leads and fiery riffs from an electric guitarist who plays like ten of them and gives an equally impassioned delivery that ranges from on-fire and rising to delicate and dynamic, a rhythm section that pins it all down and drives a full head of steam, and you have a band that is more than up to the task of ensuring every one of these 11 songs is a bona-fide gem. The electric guitar textures are really full sounding and flowing to the extent that in no way do you miss the absence of keyboards in the mix. As an ensemble performance, it's amazingly well produced, with songs that are both instant and easily repeatable. Yes, this is an album that you will want to revisit time and time again, and it surely must be a band that just has to hit the heights if there is any justice in this world. Easily one of the best rock 'song' albums to come out of the UK for a long, long time - You will not be disappointed!

981622
Weight: 150.00 g

The 2^nd album from this South African rock band, and it’s a vast improvement on the debut, in every way. For a start, the 13 songs are a step up from the material on the ‘Just Another Band’ album – A sixty-minute set of female-vocal led anthemic compositions that will have you joining in the choruses after just a play or two, and with the inclusion of several corking instrumentals along the way. This really is a most satisfying album, that has as one of it’s many highlights, an emotion filled and heartfelt homage to the events of Sept 11^th 2001 - A superbly sung, powerful AOR ballad where the band and vocalists soar majestically through a brilliantly composed song that is guaranteed to bring a tear to the eye and a lump in the throat as you listen and remember.

940299
Weight: 150.00 g

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As far as symphonic, gothic metal goes, this is about as heavy as it gets. It’s like a death metal version of Devin Townsend, and these 8 tracks have that same massive wall-to-wall sound from a cauldron of keyboards, guitars, bass, drums and vocals, all careering unstoppably onwards as one united musical maelstrom. The lyrics are virtually indistinguishable above the incredibly hypnotic musical mayhem that crackles from the speakers like a raging fire. The guitars are just unbelievable; the production awesome, and the whole sonic soup that comes from it all is a monster mix of industrial symphonic metal that’ll bring many a grown man to their knees. Bow down ye non-believers and kneel at the shrine of god-like metal at it’s most powerful – Definitely not one for the faint-hearted, that’s for sure!

578380
Weight: 150.00 g

The moment you put this album on you get one dynamite band delivering one smoking gun of an album that greets you with a whacking great right hook served up right between the eyes. Prepare to be assaulted and knocked senseless by the remarkable, double rifle power guitars of not only David T Chastain but also Michael Harris, because this is one sizzling, riff-laden, guitar-driven metal-fest from a band and vocalist that give it all they’ve got and deliver it to perfection. If this band boxed, they’d be world champions in the blink of an eye, for not only do they have musical fire, they have lyrical bite and attack as well. The 11 songs that develop are more than a cut above your average metal subject matter, with lyrics to make you think as well as rock. The vocalist has a sort of semi-sung/hollered style, but the slightly gravely tones fit the compositional mood like a glove, as guitars blaze, rhythms pound and solos soar and burn all around it. A corking album and no mistake, with a range of paced tracks from metallic blues through to double-drum-driven metal monsters. A class and quality rock act, and an album that will really fire you up.

153502
Weight: 150.00 g