The summer of 2020 marks the release of The Absence of Presence, Kansas’s sixteenth studio album. The wide-ranging progressive rock album, released by InsideOut Music, follows-up 2016’s The Prelude Implicit, which debuted at number 14 on Billboard’s Top 200 Albums chart.

Emotions in Motion, the excellent follow-up to Billy Squier's sophomore outing Don't Say No, saw Squier rise from theater headliner to bona fide arena rock sensation by delivering his most consistent solo record to date…

Similar to AOR rockers Styx, Journey, and REO Speedwagon, Night Ranger yielded the same electric guitar wallop via Jeff Watson and Brad Gillis and sported a high-powered lead singer in the likes of Jack Blades. Since their albums only contained a small amount of strong material, Night Ranger's Greatest Hits is the essential one-stop for all of this band's best work…

American pop/jazz-rock group. One of the biggest-selling bands in U.S. history, hailing from the Windy City (Chicago, Illinois). Formed in 1967 as "The Big Thing", they were one of the first groups to successfully fuse rock with a horn section…

Many of you should remember the late 80s group Bonham and their hit single “Wait For You”, what you may not remember is that Daniel MacMaster was their frontman. After several years out of the spotlight Daniel has returned to bring some new (and old) music to fans of hard rock…

Foreigner's most lucrative years came during their first four albums, with their guitar-driven arena rock flair settling in nicely with the rest of the late-'70s music scene. Twelve of Foreigner's 16 Top 40 singles are from a six year span, between 1977 and 1982, which is why Records makes for such an entertaining collection of the band's early work. With cuts stemming from Foreigner, Double Vision, Head Games, and 4, Records lines up ten of their first 11 hit singles, somehow leaving out 1979's "Blue Morning, Blue Day." But even with this minor deletion, the album is agreeably brief, and it's the most opportune route in exploring Foreigner's best material. Both "Cold As Ice" and "Double Vision" are stellar examples of Lou Gramm's vocal gusto and Mick Jones' bang-on guitar playing, while favorites like "Urgent" (with Junior Walker on sax ), "Head Games," and "Feels Like the First Time," with its shiny keyboard segments, are unblemished radio-rock standards.

Rock group that was started in Seattle, in 1967, as "The Army" by bassist Steve Fossen, along with Roger Fisher on guitar, Don Wilhelm on guitar, keyboards and lead vocals, and Ray Schaefer on drums…

John Elefante, who had joined Kansas for 1982's Vinyl Confessions, dominated their next album, Drastic Measures, writing six of nine songs. Elefante seemed a little unnerved by the new attention ("Everybody's My Friend"), while bandleader Kerry Livgren seemed burned out by the pressure to sell records ("Mainstream"). In that attempt, Kansas turned toward more of a hard rock/heavy metal sound…

With Rick Willis on bass, Dennis Elliot playing drums, Mick Jones on guitar/keyboards, and the debut of Johnny Edwards from King Kobra and Buster Brown on vocals, the 1991 version of Foreigner actually was better than one would expect. Ten of the 11 songs on the Unusual Heat CD were written by co-producer Terry Thomas, new singer Johnny Edwards, and band mainstay Mick Jones, and they still had that bombast and brash appeal of the group which once featured so many textures brought to life by the voice of Lou Gramm. The unusual thing about Unusual Heat is that it is actually a good product and quite listenable.

Styx was one of the titans of the hugely popular AOR movement – along with Boston, Foreigner, Journey, and REO Speedwagon – embraced by the U.S. mainstream in the late '70s and early '80s. The end of the Chicago-based band's peak period coincided with one of the most ambitious and notorious projects of the time, the 1983 concept album Kilroy Was Here…

2020 release from the AOR supergroup. Champlin Williams Friestedt consists of renowned Toto singer Joseph Williams, composer of film and drama scores and can also be heard in Disney's animated feature film The Lion King as the singing voice of adult Simba. Teaming up with none other than Bill Champlin formerly of the legendary band Chicago and critically acclaimed guitarist, producer and recording artist Peter Friestedt, the album II also includes contributions from vocalist, Michael McDonald, drummer John JR Robinson (Michael Jackson, Quincy Jones), Randy Goodrum (Toto, Chicago), Tamara Champlin and Polar price 2020 winner Diane Warren among many others.

By this release, Kansas had pretty much exhausted every aspect of their musical style. There is some fine playing here, but the band's success seemed to be having an effect on their integrity and judgment, given the penchant for pop songs and juvenile lyrics…

Their just appeared debut CD “Light From A Dying Star” was written and recorded over 3 years but never formally released until now, you’ll find here elaborated pieces of classic melodic hard rockers in the British mould, delivered with amazing musicianship and prog leanings but never forgetting catchiness…

One of the best know and best loved progressive rock groups appear on this compilation with a host of fellow prog rockers to create a uniquely compelling listening experience…

On Beautiful Broken, Heart decide to tread a path well worn by vintage rockers: revisiting their catalog. This is an exercise often fraught with peril. That said, while Ann and Nancy Wilson do stumble, they've learned from predecessors' mistakes. Seven of these ten cuts were previously recorded, but none are considered Heart standard…