Limited Edition. Special Edition. 3 CDs packaged in a cardboard box. Disc 1 (SP 70 - original album with restored version of track 1-1) packaged in blister pack. 2 discs of additional unreleased material (SP 50 and SP 60) presented in a paper folder. Discs are black. Includes "Patient Product Information" leaflet with credits - presented in the style of medicinal packaging. SP 50 and SP 60 mastered at Metropolis.

By the early '90s, it was quite apparent just how far-reaching Kraftwerk's influence had been. From techno to hip-hop to industrial music to house, numerous others were undeniably indebted to the group. Dance clubs had long been a key part of Kraftwerk's following, and the dance market was the obvious target of The Mix – a collection of highly enjoyable, often clever remixes. While novices would do better to start out with Trans-Europe Express or The Man-Machine, hardcore Kraftwerk followers shouldn't pass up these remixes of such classics as "Trans-Europe Express," "The Robots," "Autobahn," and "Radioactivity." One could nitpick about the absence of "Neon Lights" and "Europe Endless," but the bottom line is that this CD was a welcome addition to the Kraftwerk catalog.

This is an operetta more in the vein of Offenbach's than in the later waltz-wallowing ones of Lehár. It has a wide variety of rhythms, all well paraded by Michail Jurowski. The Overture and the ensemble which Suppé called 'Orgy' have liveliness, verve and zest, and if that is tautological, they deserve the nouns…All is well recorded and very enjoyable.

Arriving between the implosion of the Style Council and the commercial comeback of Wild Wood, Paul Weller’s eponymous 1992 debut is sometimes overlooked, but it’s one of his finest records, a smooth, soulful excursion pitched precisely between the sophisticated swing of the Style Council and the rustic rock of Wild Wood. In the wake of the disastrous unreleased house album from Style Council, Weller chose to dig into his roots, relying heavily on Curtis Mayfield records and a dash of Traffic’s jazz lilt, creating a cool groove of an album, one that warmed well to light elements of acid house, whether it’s the extended coda of “Kosmos” or the many remixes of the album’s singles (all collected on Universal’s 2009 double-disc deluxe edition). As pure sound, Paul Weller is seductive – it’s supple and relaxed, easing into its vamps and rhythms, maintaining its tone through shifts of tempos – but it sticks because its Weller’s best set of songs in years, anchored by the tight opening rocker “Uh-Huh Oh Yeh,” the soulful lament “I Didn’t Mean to Hurt You,” the insistent pulse of “Bull Rush,” the gorgeous shimmer of “Bitterness Rising,” and the revitalizing rush of “Into Tomorrow.”

The latest in a long line of Queen compilations stretching back to 1981's Greatest Hits, 2009's Absolute Greatest runs a generous 20 tracks yet still manages to miss several classic Queen songs, such as "Fat Bottomed Girls," "Bicycle Race," "Good Old-Fashioned Lover Boy," "Flash's Theme," and "Tie Your Mother Down." In their place are several latter-day singles that were hits in Europe but not America ("The Show Must Go On," "Who Wants to Live Forever," "These Are the Days of Our Lives"), so it makes sense that this compilation in its various formats – a single-disc set, a double-disc where the second CD contains commentary by Brian May and Roger Taylor, one with a hardcover book, one with LPs – appeared in the U.K. and Europe first, because it was tailored for this market.

15th Anniversary Deluxe Limited Edition of Mastodon's fourth studio album, Crack the Skye, on 2CD. Disc 1 is the original album remastered while Disc 2, Crack the Skye: The Score, features instrumental versions of each track.
First off, a warning: the best way to encounter Mastodon's Crack the Skye for the first time is with headphones. Reported to be a mystical - if crunchy - concept record about Tsarist Russia, this is actually the most involved set of tracks, both in terms of music and production, the band has ever recorded. "Ambitious" is a word that regularly greets Mastodon - after all, they did an entire album based on Moby Dick - but until now, that adjective may have been an understatement. There is so much going on in these seven tracks that it's difficult to get it all in a listen or two (one of the reasons that close encounters of the headphone kind are recommended)…

Out of Ashes is the debut and only studio album by American rock band Dead by Sunrise, which consisted of Linkin Park lead vocalist Chester Bennington and Amir Derakh, Ryan Shuck, Anthony 'Fu' Valcic, Brandon Belsky, and Elias Andra of Julien-K. It was released on October 13, 2009 through Warner Bros. Records, to mixed to positive reception. The album was produced by Howard Benson. The album charted on the Billboard 200, peaking at No. 29. The album spawned three singles, "Crawl Back In", "Fire", and "Let Down". The album achieved moderate success in the US charts. Songs on the album contain many personal experiences by Bennington in the previous years before the album's production. It was described as "really dark" and "much more of a rock album" than the works of Linkin Park.

Ries’s aptitude for Beethovenian sturm und drang is phenomenal. The impression is inescapable in the Overture from “Die Räuberbraut” where it is moderated by the Schumann of the Fourth Symphony. That particular flavour is varied with a touch of storminess redolent of Berlioz’s Le Corsair towards the end. The Overture from “Liska oder Die Hexe von Gyllensteen” is a shade more balletic, with a dash of Weber’s Oberon and Euryanthe and even a foreshadowing of Tchaikovsky.

"The Twilight Conjunction" is the 2009 album by Belgian electronic musician Danny Budts, aka Syndromeda. "The Twilight Conjunction" is a beautiful opus of Berlin School EM which oscillates between the universes of Klaus Schulze long synthesized solos and sequences animated of mephistophelic heaviness of Tangerine Dream and Redshift. The whole thing heightened by sound effects as iridescent as music on progressive structures.

Johann Philipp Kirnberger is not one of the great composers in the history of music, but he has a secure spot in musical history as a prominent theorist. His main work Die Kunst des reinen Satzes in der Musik is well known among music historians. As a composer he was forgotten for a long time, undeservedly so, as some of his compositions which are played today and the present recording of six of his trio sonatas may prove. Like most of Kirnberger’s compositions, these trios were not printed during his lifetime, but exist in manuscript form as part of Princess Anna Amalia of Prussia’s musical collection, the so-called Amalia Library which is preserved in the Staatsbibliothek (State Library) in Berlin. It is not possible to date the origin of these trio sonatas.

Last time around, Shakira touched upon so many styles she couldn’t be contained on one album, splitting Oral Fixation in two. This time, she focuses on one sound only: a pulsating electro-disco that crosses all boundaries and welcomes all nationalities. Such concentration behooves Shakira, freeing her to release her inner She Wolf, a wild wacko who’s as cuckoo as she is carnal. And for as sexy as Shakira is – crucially, her music is sexy too – what really gives She Wolf its bite is her inspired nuttiness, how she laments that Matt Damon’s not meant for her, and wishes her ex-lover and his new girl a horrible vacation where the room smells and the toilet doesn’t flush. “Darling, it is no joke, this is lycanthropy,” she sings on the title track with no small trace of humor, and this blend of cheerful weirdness and sick beats – often supplied by the Neptunes, delivering tough, sensual rhythms in a way they haven’t in a long time, but also John Hill and Wyclef Jean – is giddily addicting, a celebration of all the strange sensuality that comes out at night.

Few young singer/songwriters have quite so quickly won the sort of acclaim that Idaho-born Josh Ritter gained with his first self-released album, which won rave reviews, earned him slots opening for Bob Dylan, and made him a minor celebrity in Ireland, where he's already headlined several tours. Ritter's second disc (and first nationally released album), Golden Age of Radio, makes it clear that his sudden success is well deserved, and based on genuine talent. Ritter's moody, evocative songs seem to reside in a middle ground between Richard Buckner and Ryan Adams, but without suggesting he's lifted anything from either of those performers.

At this show the ABB once again paid tribute to Duane Allman by playing with some of his closest musical companions, John Hammond and Bonnie Bramlett. Veteran bluesman Hammond adds lots of grit and soul to his mini-set of blues tunes, including a spectacular version of "Shake For Me" that surely had Duane smiling down from the heavens! Other first set highlights included the first "Desdemona" of the run, with Gregg delivering an amazing vocal performance, and a tight, powerful "Hot'Lanta."

5 disc box set includes the albums: Me And Bobby McGee (aka Kristofferson), Jesus Was a Capricorn (out-of-print in the US), Spooky Lady's Sideshow, Shake Hands With the Devil and The Silver Tongued Devil and I. The albums are packaged in mini-LP sleeves.

You know what lays ahead whenever you embark on listening to a new Kreator studio album, and 2009's Hordes of Chaos is certainly no different. And that isn't meant as a knock on the band - heck, Kreator should be commended for sticking to their guns and continuing on in the same "thrash-happy" style since pretty much their inception (without bowing down to musical trends). So, that said, you can make up your own "Kreator checklist": growled vocals and intense riffing (the album-opening title track), lightning-fast tempos ("Warcurse"), tasty dual-guitar work ("Destroy What Destroys You") - it's all represented here, folks. It's been nearly four long years since Mille Petrozza and friends issued an all-new studio album, and Hordes of Chaos should most definitely meet the needs of Kreator diehards worldwide.