The second studio album by the heavy metal band Killers, led by Iron Maiden's ex-vocalist - Paul Di'Anno. Coming together in 1991, Killers was one of the first metal super groups to exist. Featuring members from bands including Iron Maiden, Tank, Raven and Battlezone, they were hailed by the press as the 'Natural successor to Judas Priest'. With their album ""Menace to Society"" awarded Metal Hammer's best new album of 1994 and a world tour which included headlining the famous Wacken Festival in Germany, Killers represent all that is British Metal at it's very best. After the great response from the 'Murder One' album and constant touring, the band returned to the UK to start work on the follow up studio album.

Judas Priest rebounded from the shaky Point of Entry with Screaming for Vengeance, arguably the strongest album of their early-'80s commercial period. Having moved a bit too far into simplistic hard rock, Vengeance found the band refocusing on heavy metal, and achieving a greater balance between commercialism and creativity. The results were catchy and accessible, yet harder-hitting, and without the awkwardly apparent calculation that informed the weakest moments of the album's two predecessors. Ultimately, Screaming for Vengeance hangs together better than even the undeniable landmark British Steel, both thematically and musically.

School's Out catapulted Alice Cooper into the hard rock stratosphere, largely due to its timeless, all-time classic title track. But while the song became Alice's highest-charting single ever (reaching number seven on the U.S. charts) and recalled the brash, three-and-a-half-minute garage rock of yore, the majority of the album signaled a more complex compositional directional for the band. Unlike Cooper's previous releases (Love It to Death, Killer), which contained several instantly identifiable hard rock classics, School's Out appears to be a concept album, and aside from the aforementioned title track anthem, few of the other tracks have ever popped up in concert.

Hans-Jürgen Fuchs, a multi-instrumentalist and producer from Stuttgart, Germany, has been involved in many different musical projects. In 2012 he recorded "Leaving Home", a concept album containing a lot of musical styles of the seventies (Peter Gabriel), the eighties (Simple Minds, U2, Martin Ansell) and the nineties (the late Kevin Gilbert). "The Unity Of Two", the 2014 album by Fuchs, is again a progressive rock concept album, this time telling the story of Aaron and Ray. Just like the book Narziss Und Goldmund, two characters from a book by the German author Herman Hesse, this story pulls at your heartstrings. It's dealing with friendship, devotion, the many layers of the human soul and different ways of life. In musical terms Fuchs has created his second album in a definitely more open and more varied style than on his debut album "Leaving Home"…

During her long career, every once in awhile Ella Fitzgerald would attempt to "get with it" and record contemporary pop tunes. In 1968 for a live concert with a big band and the Tommy Flanagan Trio, the First Lady of the American Song did what she could with such unsuitable material as "Hey Jude," "Sunshine of Your Love," "Watch What Happens" and "A House Is Not a Home." The results (despite her sincerity) sometime borders on the embarassing; there is no way anyone can swing "Hey Jude." A few of the other numbers (particularly "Give Me the Simple Life," "Old Devil Moon" and "Love You Madly") are of a higher quality but when Ella tries to turn "Alright, Okay, You Win" into funk, it is time to switch records.

The second true album from Germany’s Rage, “Execution Guaranteed,” is their final days in the speed metal territory they started but strangely is also one of their weaker overall efforts which is somewhat below the quality the band usually delivers in…

US project TELERGY is the creative vehicle for composer and musician Robert McClung. His aim is to create and release conceptual productions under this name, utilizing guest performers for various instrument and vocal roles, in some ways comparable to the Dutch project Ayreon…