BLUE ÖYSTER CULT Chase Spectres With Ghostly Tales

February 8, 2024

With rumors abound about BLUE ÖYSTER CULT being reluctant to concoct a new album – as opposed to concert recordings, of which a few are forthcoming as follow-ups to "50th Anniversary Live - First Night" – the band come up with an interesting solution for their final chapter: a string of previously unissued cuts laid down between 1978 and 1983, during work on the ensemble’s classic platters and live rehearsals, plus a piece titled “If I Fell” that was done in 2016. While the latter didn’t need a lot of fresh studio wizardry, the rest had to be de-mixed to separate the various parts, and remixed to create a great listening experience and make four surviving members of the collective’s original line-up proud.

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DEEP PURPLE’s “Machine Head” Heads For The Ultimate Reissue

February 7, 2024

Perhaps, it’s because of their last albums’ success and still being an active concert ensemble that DEEP PURPLE seemed to have missed out on properly celebrating the fiftieth anniversaries of the band’s classic achievements, yet eventually, on the way to their next platter, the veterans remembered about “Machine Head”: the record which crystallized and embodies the very idea of hard rock. Hard to believe but the last truly revelatory reissue of this milestone appeared in 1997, to mark its 25th year around the sun, with 2012’s arrival of the 40-years edition not adding anything worthy of a fan’s worry, and its forthcoming re-release, scheduled for March 29th, will be basically an expansion of what’s been out before – only the expansion looks rather alluring.

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STATUS QUO Dig Into Their Beginnings

February 6, 2024

It may be nigh on impossible to pinpoint when exactly STATUS QUO acquired the “one-hit wonder” tag that go against the grain of their track record charts-wise, yet it’s not too difficult to understand why this happened. When the band began, they were a psychedelic outfit, and quite a few people would refuse to align the fanciful “Pictures Of Matchstick Men” creators with the well-oiled riff-machine which rolled through the ’70s and ’80s and had the likes of “Down Down” rock all over the world. And now, those naysayers can get their hands on the riches of the collective’s paisley period – collected in a box set and set to hit the shelves on March 15th.

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HAWKWIND Alumnus Ade Shaw Issues A New Reflection

February 4, 2024

Adrian Shaw may have laid down only two platters with HAWKWIND, yet both “Quark, Strangeness And Charm” and “PXR5” were marked by the bassist’s glam leanings, which would land him the job with T.REX if Marc Bolan stayed alive, as his credentials, earned by tenures with the likes of Arthur Brown seemed impeccable. Instead, the veteran’s next long-term, three-decades-strong, stint found him in THE BEVIS FROND whom Ade left, as he decided to stop touring, fairly recently, but remained fast friends with guitar player Nick Saloman, whom he previously worked outside of the band, and that’s why the latter helped the former record his latest studio album.

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Michael Chapman’s Classic Concert Uncovered

February 2, 2024

It would be an underestimation to state that Michael Chapman was one of the most prolific singer-songwriters to have ever emerge from England, and yet the number of his onstage recordings doesn’t correlate with the number of studio albums the veteran released over the course of five decades. The Yorkshire artist simply didn’t value his concert performances too much, despite his ability to mesmerize audiences with tuneful stories and stunning guitar delivery. Chapman’s first live album, titled “Pleasures Of The Street” issued in 1975, captured him play with a full band – so Michael’s forthcoming archive recording couldn’t be more different from it.

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