An intermittently resuscitated effigy to die-hard blasphemic German thrash metal traditions, Mainz-entrenched quartet Nocturnal were giving us the ’85-’88 witching metal experience long before the craft would become a too-public habit among also-ran revivalist thrash metal sect across the globe…

Full credit to Martin Mendez. Best known as bassist with OPETH since 1997, the Barcelona-based Uruguayan could conceivably have swerved the side-project route altogether and been content with membership in one of the most revered bands on the planet. Instead, he launched WHITE STONES with excellent debut album 2020's "Kuarahy", establishing a crystal-clear blueprint for gnarly, old-school death metal with a pronounced, and perhaps inevitable, progressive streak. The latter does, of course, lead to certain moments on "Dancing Into Oblivion" faintly echoing the early works of Mendez's alma mater, but the band's second observation is distinctive enough in its own right to briskly club those comparisons away…

The new album not only presents a methodical and premeditated next step in the band’s already imposing career, but moreover, it mirrors the personal adversities they’ve faced due to the worldwide events over the last year…

To Chi Ka is a fusion album by Kazumi Watanabe. It was recorded and mixed in March 1980 during a very prolific period for Watanabe and then released in May 1980. The album features some of the most acclaimed jazz and rock musicians; part of them will follow Watanabe in other projects, too…

This compilation of 20 classic songs includes the best of Compay Segundo, the artist that the rest of the world discovered in 1997 through teh Buena Vista Social Club project, 50 years after startin his brilliant career. Compay is definitely THE voice of cuban music thanks to such emblematics songs as “Chan Chan”, “El Cuarto de Tula”, and so many more…

This gritty vocalist gained early experience as a member of the Shadettes, a mid-60s beat group based in Dunfermline, Scotland. By 1968, the act had evolved into Nazareth, which grew from provincial origins into a leading international attraction…

Billy Joel teamed with Phil Ramone, a famed engineer who had just scored his first producing hits with Art Garfunkel's Breakaway and Paul Simon's Still Crazy After All These Years for The Stranger, his follow-up to Turnstiles. Joel still favored big, sweeping melodies, but Ramone convinced him to streamline his arrangements and clean up the production. The results aren't necessarily revelatory, since he covered so much ground on Turnstiles, but the commercialism of The Stranger is a bit of a surprise…

With over a lifetime of work put in, yet recorded in a night, It’s Just Wind took both forever and an instant to create. In itself, it is exactly what you would expect… it is something else entirely…

A quaking bass-line and a wall of guitar melody open “Buschleague”, the first track off Cold Fronts first LP, Forever Whatever. The track that follows is brash, colorful rock n’ roll at its finest. Full of hooks and punching power-chord rhythms, the sound Cold Fronts displays here is not quite pop-punk, not quite power-pop, but keeps two of the key ingredients of those genres: energy and melody…

An artist steeped in Southern roots music of all sorts, Jimbo Mathus first earned attention as one of the founders of the Squirrel Nut Zippers, who became an unlikely success when their skewed take on vintage hot jazz, "Hell," became a modern rock hit in 1996…

TuneWood – two charming musicians sharing their deep love of Irish and Scottish traditional folk music. With vivid jigs and reels, happy polkas and gloomy ballads they present the wide range of traditional tunes. With harp (Milena) and Flute (Steffi) they entertain the audience with their own arrangements of the beautiful melodies – influenced by their personal musical backgrounds…

The cracked window through which Stackridge gazed upon the pop scene of the mid-'70s offered one of the most idiosyncratic vistas enjoyed by any British band of the age, a blending of the softer rock moods that were then so thoroughly endemic, and a light orchestral gentility that would not truly find a commercial home for another two decades. Listening to Pinafore Days, in particular, one can see the infant High Llamas (to name but one) peeping out all over the place…

Bent Arcana is the product of five days' worth of improvised sessions which took place at John Dwyer's home studio in December of 2019. Aside from Dwyer and fellow Oh Sees family members such as saxophonist Brad Caulkins and keyboard player Tom Dolas, other participants included TV on the Radio's Kyp Malone on modular synthesizer, Sunwatchers bassist Peter Kerlin, violinist Laena "Geronimo" Myers-Ionita, and percussionists Andres Renteria and Ryan Sawyer. The music collected here ends up drifting in a few different directions, but they all share the free-form, cosmic music of the '70s as their starting point…

Pianist Joe Sample is a pioneer at creating melodic and accessible pop-jazz. His recordings of the 1970s and '80s were consistently popular, especially this best-seller. Sample is joined on most selections by fellow Crusader Stix Hooper on drums, electric bassist Abraham Laboriel, percussionist Paulinho Da Costa, and, often, guitarist Dean Parks…