Upon first spin, Trouble Will Find Me, the warm, wistful, and weary sixth long-player from The National, sounds a lot like 2010's warm, wistful, and weary High Violet, but where the former was built on a foundation of suburban despondency and casual, middle class self-destruction (and skillfully juggled melodrama and dark comedy), the latter feels mired in regret, seeking refuge in the arms of old friends and lost lovers, sounding for all the world like a single cube of ice lazily swirling about a recently drained tumbler of single malt scotch, a notion best intoned on early album standout "Demons," which casually announces "I am secretly in love with everyone I grew up with."

The last Artillery album My Blood was lacking to say the least, so it was with a little trepidation that I approached their latest opus. A slight shift in personnel would see Søren Nico Adamsen and longtime drummer Carsten Nielsen leaving the fold, although replacing them would be the more-than-capable sticksman Josua Madsen, and a relatively new talent in vocalist Michael Bastholm Dahl…

Forming back in 2010 at Irpinia, Italy, and spending a couple of years touring and eventually recording, Locus Amoenus released their debut album `Clessidra' (Hourglass) on September 28th 2013, and it keeps up the strong tradition of dynamic Italian progressive releases from recent years. However, what sets them instantly apart is that band work at the darker, noisier and dirtier end of RPI, more influenced by the likes of Biglietto per L'Inferno and the dark jazz of Delirium due to the heavy attacking presence of sax and flute. The musicians contrast soft and heavy, electric and acoustic passages with plenty of building, brooding atmosphere.

The incomparable lied baritone, Christian Gerhaher, revisits Gustav Mahler in his latest release Mahler: Orchestral Songs. Accompanied by the Montreal Symphony Orchestra , under the elegant baton of Kent Nagano, Gerhaher has recorded three Mahler song cycles in their authentic orchestral versions for the first time. On Mahler: Orchestral Songs, Gerhaher manages to blend with the compelling sound of the orchestra, but at the same time makes his baritone hover above the instruments, so that every word and nuance comes across without ever sounding forced. Simple in style and full of empathy, this is the art of song at its finest.

WIZARD's album, entitled 'Trail Of Death' deals (as the title suggests) with death in all its ways and the question of what comes afterwards. The album features serious lyrics ('Creeping Death', 'Post Mortem Vivere') as well as others with a sense of humour ('Machinery Of Death'). Recorded at WIZARD's own studio and once again produced by Achim Köhler, 'Trail Of Death' turned out to be diversified. Expect thrashy tunes ('War Butcher'), epic tracks ('Angel Of The Dark'), metal tunes ('Angel Of Death')as well as trademark WIZARD songs like the speedy double-bass smasher 'Black Death'!

Historic live recordings from the Holland Pop Festival held in the Kralingen neighbourhood of Rotterdam, on 26-28 June 1970. The attendance was anywhere from 100,000 to 150,000. This line-up features both British and American rock royalty including Tyrannosaurus Rex, The Byrds, Santana, Jefferson Airplane, and the headlining Pink Floyd.

Following the same formula as Atlantic Crossing and A Night on the Town, but not explicitly breaking the record into fast and slow sides, Foot Loose & Fancy Free was a limp effort from an increasingly complacent Rod Stewart…

Calvin, best known for his work with Ray Charles and Aahmad Jamal, returns with his first solo album in seven years. On 'Electric Keys' Calvin adeptly navigates straight ahead, Funk, and Blues, all the while maintaining the quintessential Calvin touch for which he is well-respected. Soul jazz is alive and well. With a sound that updates Wes Montgomery‘s fluid lines and combines that style with a head-nodding groove that will be familiar to fans of boogaloo revivalists such as The New Mastersounds and Soulive, Keys is in fact the real deal. Having cut his teeth as an able sideman to the likes of Ahmad Jamal and Jimmy Smith, Keys’ career releasing albums under his own name only began in earnest relatively recently; though 1997’s Standard Keys was his fifth album, the previous four were released across a span of some sixteen years.

Alan Hull's second solo album, and his first since the dissolution of Lindisfarne, is very much the son of its fathers – the quiet idiosyncrasies of Pipedream live on, but so does the more commercial sheen of Roll on Ruby, as Squire marches resolutely across 11 songs, any one of which could be called representative…

The recording offers a new look at Pachelbel's keyboard oeuvre and corrects the prevailing view of him as a composer of liturgical music for practical use without higher artistic aspirations. This audio edition presents his complete extant works for keyboard instruments, including various historical organs and on the harpsichord.

Following on from the highly successful Classic Americana, comes the sequel Classic Americana 2. Chock full of sounds from the west coast, the 2CD collection includes U.S. superstars The Beach Boys, Bob Dylan, The Doors, Fleetwood Mac, Simon & Garfunkel and more!

James Arthur was the victor of the British X Factor's ninth season in 2012, winning the public vote with a rendition of Shontelle's rousing ballad "Impossible." Born in Middlesbrough, England, Arthur had written and performed in various bands since the age of 15, as well as performing solo in pubs and bars in his hometown. Many early recordings of the singer/songwriter illustrate the pop/rock and hip-hop influences that helped to shape his unique voice and style.

La Passion de Simone is an oratorio for solo soprano, choir, orchestra, and electronics by Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho. Originally premiered in a stage version directed by Peter Sellars, this oratorio about the life and work of French philosopher Simone Weil, has been developed in a new version for live video by Jean-Baptiste Barriere. This new version premiered at the occasion of the 60th birthday celebration of Kaija Saariaho, offered to her as a surprise gift in Helsinki’s Musikkitalo earlier this month.

Harold Mabern, Jr. (born March 20, 1936) is an American jazz pianist and composer, principally in the hard bop, post-bop, and soul jazz fields. He is described in The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings as "one of the great post-bop pianists". Mabern's piano style has been described as being "aggressive, very positive, crashing out chords that drop like pile drivers and warming up and down the keyboard with huge, whooping bursts of action", while, at the same time, he shows "a keen sensitivity" as "an extremely perceptive accompanist". Critic Gary Giddins has identified some of the characteristics of Mabern's playing as being "blues glisses, […] tremolos and dissonant block chords", that help to create a style "that marries McCoy Tyner's clustering modality with rippling asides that stem from [Art] Tatum". The influence of Phineas Newborn, Jr. remains noticeable: Mabern employs Newborn's "manner of playing fast lines in a two-handed octave (or two-octave) unison, and uses this device in wildly imaginative ways". When accompanying vocalists, Mabern states that he plays with "less force, less aggression. I use the soft pedal. You don't voice the chord with the leading tone. You wait for them to sing a phrase, then fill in the space."