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Seems like good news to me.  Frontiers sometimes seems to get a lot of flack but all I know is I've enjoyed many of their releases.

Hopefully this exposes Degreed to a bigger audience as they've been an under-rated band IMO.  

4 hours ago, Glen said:

Coming Home is easily top 4 imo 

I like the music of that one...just the theme that doesn't do much for me.  I guess I've heard enough Coming Home type songs over the years.  Kind of the same thing for the Babylon tune.

10 minutes ago, AlphaMale said:

That might be my fav as well. One Final Kiss is awesome too though.

Not sure what my favorite is but my top 4 in no particular order would be Big Boys Don't Cry, Moment of Truth, Got To Be About Love and One Final Kiss.

Solid album though outside of a few tunes in the second half.  If this had come out in December it would've been top 3 for me in 2020.  However, I'm doubting it ends up that high for me this year with so much great stuff to come.  We shall see.

Either way, nice to be hearing quality new music.

Video for new tune. 

Excellent tune!  Dig when these guys with these style of tunes!

Best day in quite some time for new music!

Digging the new tune a lot.  Really like the edgier vibe to it while still being melodic. 

Here's the video for the new tune:

Gave this a listen and been through twice so far.

Basically, I dig the first 5 songs but second half is a little hit and miss until One Final Kiss which is killer.  

Still a handful of good tunes I'll initially be adding to my playlist though and we'll see how it goes after a few more listens.

Dig that a lot and think I like it more than the first tune.  

Either way, t's going to be very easy to connect to these songs knowing what Ronnie is going through.  Agree that you can just feel the emotion coming through in these songs.

Ronnie looks good and sounds good so fingers crossed for him.

New Wicked Smile song released.  Sounds pretty good to me...

On 1/9/2021 at 6:44 PM, Y&TForever said:

Review from The Rock Pit...

 

https://www.therockpit.net/2021/album-review-w-e-t-retransmission/

Sounding good.  Have seen a few other reviews and all have been glowing.

Really looking like this might be a very strong year for new releases.  Hopefully we start seeing the results of all the time artists have had on their hands to work on new music

33 minutes ago, Dead Planet said:

Almost every rare cd has been booted in the last 10 years so it is difficult to say what is truly rare or not these days.... every day people buy cds on ebay that they think are rare but are almost always boots....

Really good point.   

Between boots, re-issues, re-masters and easily just being able to download most albums, not sure "rare" is really much of a thing anymore.  

I've unloaded a lot of the harder to find CD's I had over the past few years.  I mean, most of them I never even listened to and I only had them to basically look at lol.  I figure once my time comes, my kids will probably just toss them in the trash or something so better off selling them now.

I'd have to toss out Roxy Blue with their recent s/t album.

I actually like a few tunes on it but still a huge departure from their great debut album and nowhere near the same style.

Ok tune I guess.

My problem I think though is that I'm so damn sick of this year that I don't want to listen to a song about it.  So don't realyl see myself getting into this song much even though I dig these guys and it's well done.

5 hours ago, KarpetRydOFunk said:

Hoe. Lee. Fuck. 

Look who came around!

;}

Getting there lol.

Still don't care much for those first 2 albums though 

Hell yeah!  Great tune!

Good to hear new music from Ronnie.

This sounds good to me.  I've always dug the more melodic side of Pretty Maids and this falls along those lines. 

Definitely sad about his situation.  But hopefully he's able to keep plugging along and keep doing what he loves.  One thing is for sure and that is that he still sounds great.

2 minutes ago, Glen said:

no I meant kennys vocals slightly less accented.....than they were 10 years ago. 

Erik always clean to me too 

Oh...okay.  Yeah, might be a little less accented.  I probably haven't really listened enough to those first 2 albums to have enough basis of comparison.

This sounds good though.

49 minutes ago, Glen said:

2 more small observations :

1. they choose probably the most aggressive song vocally on the album. To prove a point? I think some of the other songs are easier to sing

2. Is it me or does his vocals seem slightly less accented? only a good thing right? 

Totally agree on #1.  I think they chose the most aggressive song definitely to prove a point. 

Not sure about #2 though.  At least to my ears, I never noticed any accent on Erik's stuff.  Frankly, always felt like Erik had one of the "cleanest" swedish voices I've heard.  Kenny sounds good too though in that regard and no accent coming through for him either.

Definitely going to be interesting to hear the next album.  

I think what this does for me is show that Kenny can sing with some aggression and belt it out a bit.  He'll never exceed Erik for me, but this still sounds good.

Agree that the most interesting thing will be to hear new music.  This song shows though that they should be able to keep the more aggressive production style they've went to on the past few albums and that Kenny can handle it.

Hearing this mostly settles it for me too in that the reason I didn't care much for those first 2 albums wasn't due to Kenny.  It was more just due to the wimpy, lite production of those albums and style.  I mean, Kenny sounds great here and I'd still dig this tune if this was the first time I'd ever heard it and Erik had never done it.

Looking forward to hearing new music.  

Excellent tune.  Like that it has a bit of a different vibe than many of their recent songs.

Good stuff!

I just happened across this band as....Had never heard or them before or bothered to check them out.  I'm not overly big into female fronted stuff so that's probably why I passed on it.  Although, I do dig Halestrom so figured I'd give it a shot.

Anyways, damn....clicked on a couple videos and I'm digging what I hear.  I don't know much about this band and think they've been through some lineup changes from what I've seen.  But have been spinning some tunes today and the few tunes I've listened too are kicking some ass.  I even dig the ballad....very Halestorm-like IMO.  

Haven't even checked out the full album yet but intend to do do.  Might be a late alteration to my 2020 list.

Not bad after a few listens.  Wish there were a few more tunes with a little more edge like Hot Steel.  I know that's not what this is going for though.

I can see 3-4 tunes here making my playlist...probably Way Up Here, Hot Steel, Orgin of Love.  

It's a yes from me.

Just feel like my 2019 list was much stronger at the top than my 2020 list. 

If I were doing a top 5 list of 2019 and 2020 combined, it would go:

1.  H.E.A.T II (2020)

2. Pretty Maids (2019)

3. Crazy Lixx (2019)

4. Defiants (2019)

5. Eclipse (2019)

So 4 of my top 5 would be 2019 releases.

For me, 2020 just wasn't very exciting at all musically.  Maybe I was just in a bad mood from all the crap that's went on this year.

I'm expecting 2021 to blow the doors off 2020 also.  Should have W.e.t, Midnite City, Maverick, Shiraz Lane, Treat, maybe new Crazy Lixx and I'm sure much more.  Hopefully we really start to see results from all the COVID lockdown stuff and artists having time to work on music.  I have to think some have held back releasing music as there is little point if they can't play live to support it.  

Feeling like my 2020 top 7 is just about set.  I don't really know of anything that will make it out before the end of the year that will change my list.  If it does, I'll edit.  And I'm only going with 7 this year as nothing else really captivated me enough to add it.

1.  H.E.A.T - H.E.A.T II.  For me, nothing else is even close but you all knew that.  Nice way for Erik to go out and it sure capped a fabulous 4 album run.

2.  Shiraz Lane - Vibration I EP.  It's only an EP so I hesitated putting it on the list.  But love what these guys are doing and this EP got a ton of play for me this year.

3.  Tokyo Motor Fist - Lions.  Good second effort.  For me, the first 4 songs are darn near perfection and exactly what I'd want from these guys.  There's a couple songs I skip in the second half but still solid overall.

4.  Arctic Rain - The One.  Fabulous debut album from these guys.  Have spun this album a lot since it came out.  Cool 80's vibe without being cheesy.

5.  Thundermother - Heat Wave.  I happened on this band recently and had never listened to them before.  Haven't had much time with this yet but damn, digging it.  They're like a more classic hard rock version of Halestorm.

6.  AC/DC - Power Up.  Just a casual fan of these guys and honestly haven't been interested enough to listen to much of their output since Razor's Edge.  But I've been spinning this one frequently.  It's kind of similar to Tokyo Motor Fist in that I dig the first 4-5 songs, then it weakens in the second half before finishing pretty well with Money Shot and Code Red.  Solid release though for this stage in their career.

7.  Wicked Smile - Delirium EP.  Solid debut EP that's gotten a lot of play.  I'm generally not a "metal" guy but I dug this.  It reminds me of Turbo era Juda s Priest...metal but with a melodic, commercial vibe to it.  Black Swan is probably also a good comparison but I like this much more than I liked Black Swan.

8.  Collateral - S/T.  I liked 3-4 tunes on this release (Big Shot, Promiseland, Lullaby, Merry Go Round) but also really disliked a few of the more Country sounding tunes.  These guys have potential though I hope they stay away from the Country twang.

Honorable mention-Basically these are a few releases I liked 2-3 tunes off but didn't grab me much overall. 

One Desire - Midnite Empire  

Palace- Rock & Roll Radio 

Perfect Plan - Time For A Miracle

Harem Scarem - Change The World

For my tastes, it's not been a great year at all and expecting/hoping 2021 is much better in many ways!