Glen

Edguy - Age Of The Joker (this is pretty awesome.....getting better with every spin. Also did I say a few days that 'Behind The Gates....' was a filler? What a madman I am....I love that song! Hell I even like 'Robin Hood' now...I know, Im sad.)

Awesome track! The chorus is BIG à la Def Leppard. Backed - very good track....in fact ive liked all three that ive heard.

Yeah it was released in 2010. Nice rocking album.

Amazon.UK is pretty much the best retailer I have come across. Really great prices on everything (not just cds), free shipping (in the most part) and a customer service second to none. I recently had to return a pair of headphones (cos the were shite)....and they almost ended up apologising to me for inconveniencing me. Full refund no questions asked even though the plastic box had been torn apart etc......pretty amazing really! Cheers

Agree friend, i also think it's pretty good too Wow does anyone else think tho that this trails off badly on the second half. I mean the first 4-5 songs are all great, but then all sense of melody seems to go out of the window, bar maybe one track. Decent album, but some way behind 'Gods Equation' IMO.

Yeah maybe, but the songs just sounded really dull to me and some of the instrumental parts were ludicrous even by DT's standards. Just found myself chuckling at times........like at the beginning of 'Lost Not Forgotten' - I mean WTF. How is that enjoyable. Not for me Im afraid.

got to be 2012 - still writing! & yeah I hope it is awesome too.

XOrigin - State Of The Art Toby Hitchcock - Mercury's Down

Sorry definitely no WET this year. Richard Mace is a friend on my facebook - he does all the artwork & he's heard diddly squat on the WET front - anyhow EM is tied up writing for the new Jimi Jamison solo album. Re Vega - all ready to go by the sound of it but I reckon it will be 2012 - I bet we'll get acouple of new songs at Firefest though. Cheers yeah i thought with Martensson busy writing music for Eclipse From Erik Martensson's facebook page regarding the new Eclipse album - "We're doing our best to satisfy your craving for the best hard rock ever written, performed and produced by mankind!" Somehow, after Toby Hitchcock, I believe him lol !!

We both agree with 'Gina' and 'Matters', but cmon, you give a 75% for Performocracy ? give it another spin and tell me it's a 90%-ers, or should i need to listen again ? It may not be my final rating, but by my own admission I'm a pretty hard (note, not harsh) marker, but this type of stuff just really appeals to me. Some people (Tim ) seem to hate stuff that sounds like it's from 1988-1990 but if you look back through the archives you'll find that I've rated stuff like Hotshot, Blind Date, Rockarma etc. all very high in recent years. And even include White Widdow in that. I love when a band records something that is genuinely as good as stuff that was released in music's prime, and that's where Tim and I differ on this. I think this would stack up just fine against some of the greats of 80's AOR (Alien - better than most of their discography bar first 2 CDs / Glory - better than anything they did after the first 2 albums / Treat - I'd honestly prefer this to s/t, 'Scratch & Bite' and 'Pleasure Principle' / Skagark - probably on par with a lot of their stuff). There is just some really killer stuff on here. I don't mind the fact this sounds like it's out of 1985 at all. I loved Crash the System and last years Vega album's, both of which I had to repeteadly check the recording dates for as I still can't believe they weren't originally made in the 80's. I just mind when the quality isn't high enough. XOrigin has no fillers on it IMO. But at the same time the best song (which is clearly "Can't Keep Running") is not as good as the weakest song on either the Alien S/T or any of the first 3 Skagarack albums, nor anywhere close to the weakest song on "Dreamhunter". In fact it's an insult to those great bands to compare them IMHO. I still love great Scandi AOR, it was and will always be my favourite era and musical style. I still love it when I hear new bands playing in this style - the arrival of bands like Brother Firetribe and H.E.A.T are a total breath of fresh air to the genre - but this is a zillion miles from those bands. It's good, very good in parts actually, but they need to seriously crank-up the quality if they want to have a hope of making a follow-up album... OK, I listened to this again this morning and have tentatively rated as 87%. As stated previously there are a few dips in quality, but the real gems prop up the score - 'Cant Keep Running' (9.25), 'This Is It' (9.25), 'Said & Done' (9), and 2 more obvious stand outs are the Robert Sall penned 'Too Late' (9.25) and 'What Love Is All About' (9) both of which could easily sit on the new WoA album IMO. Cheers

Have you read all of my reviews? I would review, specifically, my opinions on the three albums by Ten I wrote about. I don't think any of them got 5 out of 5, and I greatly enjoyed one of them. As I said, there were throw aways and that's what starts to make points drop off. If I go to a 10/10 or 100% scale, all of a suddenly, we're splitting hairs. Maybe you like less keyboards than I do, or I want a little more guitar solo than you do... No two people are going to line up perfectly on taste but as far as how highly I can recommend it, I usually from avoid, worth checking out, average but good, highly recommended to must buy. That's what I mean when I give a 5. What I'd be more interested in hearing about is why you didn't like it as much as I might have; I think that'd be useful to anyone else reading this conversation so they can say, "OK, I agree with that other guy. I wont like the album as much, because I prefer more of X and this doesn't have it." From the different points of view, I think one can get a better understanding about all of the different kind of response that CD elicited in its listening audience. Dont bite, it only makes him worse ;-)

I think RM sounds a damned sight better on 'Victory' than he does on FF stuff...........God some of that is so high pitched it sounds like he's on helium! Some singers who are SHIT who I have enjoyed their songs and music over the years - Ozzy Lemmy James Hetfield Fish Brian Johnson Don Dokken

Those sound right, too, but I work on a 0-5 scale without fractions in order to save time. I don't start taking off points unless there are songs on there that are an absolute throw away. fair play mate, but 0-5 doesnt give you much room to differentiate between releases?? No, but he gives them all 5 anyway so that's less of a problem. Well he gets one thing right - 'I Found Love' being the best song - I seem to remember arguing this point at the time. Havent listened to it in ages, but seem to recall it was about the only song which truly captured the magic of some of the songs on the debut like 'Keep Tonight' etc.

I really like the title track. Also Mark, you are starting to sound a bit like Blackadder with all these quotes! While not true fillers, per se, the songs that didn't grab me as much as the others are "How to Stop," "Let Go," "If It's To Be (It's Up To Me)," and "Summer Nights in Cabo." All the rest are excellent, including the title track. And as Tim mentioned, "Summer Nights in Cabo" features a world-class vocal performance (as does the whole album for that matter) from Hitchcock, but something about the chorus just leaves me going, "Meh." Glen, I must confess that the Blackadder reference missed the mark with me...who is Blackadder? And is it a good thing or a bad thing? I hate to think you gave me a good insult and it went over my head! Summer Nights In Cabo, a filler. lol. Well to each their own mate...that song is friggin awesome IMO and features not only a stunning vocal from TH, but also the best damned geeeeetar solo ive heard this year! As for Blackadder, yeah its a (brilliant!) British comedy.....its just he makes loads of comparitive quotes like you do......

I love Lion. I really need to pick up their albums, but every copy I come across on eGay, I always fear it might be a boot. And they're usually too expensive. Don't Stop - Bad City That Bad City album has been my favourite discovery this year. I keep expecting to grow tired of it, but the exact opposite happens with each listen. I need to pick this one up, too! get the bonus track 'Love On War' its the best song............ No, I disagree. "Don't Stop" or "Touch" are better. That's not to say "War On Love" isn't great. Or did you not mean "War On Love?" Is "Love On War" another bonus track? Maybe a demo? Heh. no my bad,,'War On Love'. yeah, 'Dont Stop' is a goodie too. Both bonus tracks are better than most of the album tracks IMO. Cheers

Unruly Child - s/t [one damned near perfect album IMO - roll on Firefest!!]

I wouldnt bother with the Dream Theater....from what ive heard it sounds shit.

backed. Awesomeness.

Those sound right, too, but I work on a 0-5 scale without fractions in order to save time. I don't start taking off points unless there are songs on there that are an absolute throw away. fair play mate, but 0-5 doesnt give you much room to differentiate between releases??

I really like the title track. Creep ;-)) Also Mark, you are starting to sound a bit like Blackadder with all these quotes!

Slamer - Nowhere Land Lovex - Watch Out

probably my 2 favs as well. Whole album is much more akin to Rocketride tho which suits me. Yeah, it has glimpses of the band at their best - 'Every night without you' is a pretty super ballad too - but where they stumble is with absolutely dreadful songs like 'Robin Hood,' 'Rock of cashel' and 'The arcane guild,' none which I can stand. And when rating an album as a whole, 3 absolutely terrible songs go a long way to bringing an otherwise good album down. 'The Arcane Guild' is awesome man cmon! If by awesome you mean unbearable, I totally agree. The Arcane Guild is bearable....not one that I would necessarily skip. Robin Hood has to be lumped in as a filler just because of the ludicrous subject matter. But here's the thing.....from about 5 mins in that song is AWESOME....it morphs into everything I love about Edguy - huge riffs, great vox and a killer solo. So for me if theyd dropped the painful spoken parts, toned the lyrics down a tad and put it near the end of the album this could have been a great song. Hey ho. Rock Of Cashel is a weird one too.......definitely Irish in sound, and if you dont like that sound then this song wont work.....after a few listens I have warmed to this track though. My personal biggest filler is 'Behind The Gates To Midnight...' - too long and just doesnt hold the interest and unfortunately being sandwiched between the great 'Fire On The Downline' and the final ballad means its an instant skip for me. Still a good return to form for the guys.

I'd say there's a whole bunch of albums better than this, but 6/10 is a bit harsh. Granted there are a couple of fillers, but in the main this is solid AOR. Not particularly original but then what is these days?? As good as TB & WoA are you can hardly call them original??

Haha. You evil man. But yeah, gotta agree in this case. Love this album, but 100% - a perfect CD? Wowser. Most people thought the first album was better (I didn't), so would that have been a 6/5? The first album was better. Have never rated these 2 albums but off the top of my head I'd say - Debut 85% ish Second 75% ish

probably my 2 favs as well. Whole album is much more akin to Rocketride tho which suits me.