Geoff

I hate hearing someone's hard earned work and saying 'maybe next time,' but I'm going to have to say it here. This album is almost there in every single regard, but it also just misses the mark each time too. Great music tracks... just need those hooks to be refined for the next album. This one's very solid, though.

1 . From the Ashes 2 . For You 3 . Time Machine 4 . Second to None 5 . When She Calls Me Up 6 . Running in Circles 7 . Hit and Run 8 . Before the After Party First three songs are beauties... rest is a bit of a patchy affair. I do love this one;

Yep, would pretty much agree. These guys (and gal) genuinely impress me that they still deliver a reliable, quality product without ever truly dipping in output. I'll confess that this one is probably a bit slim on outright keepers (even if most are all but there) but it's still so damn solid. Favourite song is this 'Everything,' which does not appear to be on youtube.

So let's discuss the best album of the year (spoiler alert) that people seem to be purposely dodging and I need to understand why. I've missed the memo. First Signal - 'Face Your Fears.' You dudes are my people, but hit me with it. What trivial reason are we all ignoring this album for? Can't be the songs because they're killer. If we pause what we're doing now and just put this in your ears; Obviously no genuine member of this site is hearing that and thinking, "Oh my, that is yuck garbage." So why is everyone ignoring this album? Like I said, you're my people, but if there's on this thing this forum as a collective can do it's to get caught up on something trivial and insignificant and roll with it. Do we not like this album because it's another Frontiers project album? Fill me in, dudes. As someone who takes each album on it's own merit, this is pretty easily slaying most of what I hear this year (except maybe Creye) but it can't even earn a mention on any other list, on a melodic rock site? I am flummoxed. If it wasn't Hess singing someone else's songs for a Frontiers project, but it was a new band with the same album would everyone be falling over themselves for it?

It's a pretty solid album. Don't absolutely love it, but it is solid. This one's the pick for me;

Nice tune from pretty decent EP; Sleep Signals - Endure 1 . Fearless 2 . One Life 3 . Nomad 4 . Make It Up to Me 5 . Patterns Nice tune from a bit of a mixed bag album; The Seafloor Cinema - The Seafloor Cinema 1 . Mercury In Gatorade 2 . If This Were A Film (feat. Onlyfriend) 3 . Geese Attack!!! 4 . Crop Top Sorority 5 . Oaklands Finest Glass Beaches 6 . Dolly Parton Vs. The Government 7 . The Lesson (.44 Magnum) [feat. Aaron Pauley] 8 . Take Drugs! Kill A Bear! 9 . Jacob Cracks The Liberty Bell 10 . The Sun In Reverse 11 . Deeth Starr Valley (feat. Pulses.) 12 . Paper Planes Burning In Paris This one's a good, strong EP; Sakoya - Sakoya 1 . Wandering 2 . What You Need 3 . Cynical 4 . A Way Out 5 . Taking Sides Another cool song off decent EP; Crashing Atlas - Call Me Hysteria 1 . Capacities 2 . A Violent Affair 3 . Fake It With Me 4 . Call Me Hysteria This is a solid album; Block of Flats - No Hope For The Hopeless 1 . Set The World On Fire 2 . Feels Like 3 . Bleed 4 . I Got Your Back (If You Got Mine) 5 . Lake Of Fears 6 . No Hope For The Hopeless 7 . Dead Inside 8 . Burnout 9 . Never Forgotten 10 . Black Swan And the single, I guess; Another solid EP with a cool tune on it; Accvsed - House of Doubt 1 . Deviant 2 . Currents 3 . Unraveled 4 . What We'll Never Be 5 . Obscurity 6 . House of Doubt And another nice EP; To Octavia - Wonderland 1 . KISS KISS KISS 2 . Dare 3 . Do Ghosts Dream Like Us? 4 . Hopeless Romantic 5 . i'd like to see you more Another sweet track from a solid album; HumanKind - An End, Once and for All 1 . No Man's Sky 2 . It Comes in Waves 3 . The End of Everything 4 . We Are One 5 . Shadows 6 . Dead Girl Walking 7 . Worst Enemy 8 . Dear Mother 9 . Wastelands 10 . Daybreakers

Heard this this week and didn't realise this was the Loveblast singer. Glad I can piece it together. Brian Durbin - Only Jams 1 . Shake This City 2 . Give Me Your Love Tonight 3 . Something New 4 . Make A Scene 5 . Revenge Is A Long Game 6 . J. Lo of Chicago 7 . Dick 8 . I Love It When You Get Loud 9 . Down In My Soul 10 . Don't Let Go 11 . Feelin' Myself I found this to be a pretty mixed bag. Favourite song, by far, is 'Don't let go' (above) and I'm not surprised that this album must be a gathering of sessions, of sorts, but didn't realise that song dated back to 2021, obviously. 'Dick' is another thing, whoops I mean song that I really like, tacky as it is; Other than these two songs, it's a pretty patchy. But two cool songs, at least.

I'm a bit bummed I couldn't find a few more keepers on this one because it's a pretty fair stab at it, if you ask me. Average production and some of the songs aren't exactly great, but I don't mind the general vibe of this one. 'Alibi' is a pretty cool tune too. Fun chorus.

Pretty patchy overall, but a few killer cuts (thanks mostly to the musicality) in 'Hungry For Love,' 'Midnight Girl' and 'Coast Of Gold.' Simple, and pretty banal, lyrically, but very nice slabs of melodic rock / AOR.

New album out from ex-vocalist Tommy Vext. Tommy Vext - A.N.T.A.R.C.T.I.C.A. 1 . Smoking Gun 2 . Gods and Monsters 3 . Panda Eyes 4 . Terrible Things 5 . Until We Break 6 . Can't Ourrun Your Ghost 7 . My Amends 8 . Father and Son 9 . Children of the State 10 . Gave It All 11 . We Carry On Bit heavier than the new Bad Wolves album, though not quite as polished, which detracts a little from the heaviness. Not that it's poorly produced by any means... maybe just not quite as 100% immaculate as the majority of modern rock/metal these days. As heavy as it is, a lot of the more balladic moments are actually the stand out tracks for me on this one. Was going to post a few tunes, but I can't find anything on youtube from this. Guess you'll just have to trust me that it's pretty decent.

Wow, that’s actually pretty incredible at that price. Few pretty decent albums in that lot.

That is good. Accent maybe a little stronger than ideal in a perfect world, but good energy, good song.

I’d be very curious to know the musical direction of this one.

lol, and again, this is fresh info to me again. This is the reason for all the sales, ay? Who’d have thunk.

I have no idea for sure, but my initial thought was just that it was a song recorded for use in the show alone? I don’t know how big or capable the show was of doing this, but it just came to mind as my kids watch these kids shows and several times there’s songs featured, created I assume by the writers, for the show. I wonder if this is the case here? I don’t know otherwise.

Absolutely excellent.

And album of the week goes to this little monster. First two tracks and album closer I can give or take but the rest of this thing is pretty well delicious. 1 . Feeding the Gods 2 . The Overlook 3 . Dead Talk 4 . Bodybag 5 . Euphoria (What a Feeling) 6 . Dissipate 7 . Losing My Color 8 . Hangfire 9 . Drowning Hymns 10 . Almost Ecstasy 11 . The Bends

Well I'll say it - it's not great but it's better than anything I've heard from Sweet outside of Stryper for as long as I can recall. If I'm being honest, I probably prefer these songs to most recent Stryper songs too, but I'd still prefer to hear Sweet in Stryper, if that makes sense. But this is far better than the Sweet/Lynch albums, imo. All that said, I don't love it. It's just better than comparable projects. Production is good and songs are actually mostly pretty decent (except 'Spinning wheel' and 'Wounded'). Favourite track is 'Eternal Flame.' My biggest gripe with the album is actually something Glen brought up a few years ago in reference to the latest Stryper album at the time. It's not the case on every song, but a lot of the time I just can't understand what Sweet is singing. Sometimes it's fine, many other times I just can't understand the words. Anyway, it's a pretty typical project album, but definitely not that bad and probably even pretty sweet for Sweet diehards.

She just dropped a new album. Forgot she was the bird from Flyleaf. Makes sense. Don't love it, but someone might? Lacey Sturm - Kenotic Metanoia 1 . Intro (My Heartbeat) 2 . State of Me 3 . Are You Listening 4 . The Decree 5 . Terrible Mistake 6 . Wonderful 7 . A Man Needs A Maid 8 . Thief 9 . Not Your Fight 10 . Awaken Love 11 . Reconcile 12 . (I Died) 13 . Breathe With Me (feat. Lindsey Stirling) 14 . End The Wars 15 . Outro (My Heartbeat)

Yep, same reaction as those above. Music and production is absolutely top notch. The songs? Maybe not so much. It's not like it's bad, but where the choruses at? Couple of songs on here the band just sounds a bit lost and directionless. See 'End Of A Chapter' for the most obvious example. What I assume is their climate change anthem, 'No One Saves The World Alone,' is a muck too. They're the only two songs I wouldn't play again. The rest is all solid, but a significant step back from their usual high level of quality. 'Street runner' and 'Stay with me' and then 'Follow through' would be my favourite tunes from the album.

Not all the bands I drop here are things I wholly love, but some are ones I think might appeal to others here, such as this one. Solid stuff; ANTINOVA - No Escape 1 . Talking Heads 2 . Love Games 3 . Another Heartbreak 4 . No Escape 5 . My Starlight 6 . Rise 7 . Recovery (Worth The Wait) 8 . Invincible 9 . Codependent 10 . Your Mistake 11 . Confessions 12 . Hypomanic Black Out The Sun - Cycle of Pain 1 . Cycle of Pain 2 . Memory 3 . Wildfire 4 . Kingdom Come 5 . Before I Fade Away 6 . Let Me Out 7 . Worlds Away 8 . Broken Paradise 9 . Whirlwind 10 . Set Me Free 11 . Better Place The Last Element - Chapter 3: Solitude 1 . The Journey Begins 2 . Lost Cause (The Journey Part I) 3 . The Mountain (The Journey Part II) 4 . Bury Me (The Journey Part III) 5 . The Journey Ends Don't love this album, but this was a great song from this one; This one could test to see if Dan ever enters this thread as I feel like this band might be slightly up his avenue. Maybe? Spiritbox - The Fear Of Fear 1 . Cellar Door 2 . Jaded 3 . Too Close / Too Late 4 . Angel Eyes 5 . The Void 6 . Ultraviolet

Nice find. Their new album is due out on 1st of December - 'Somewhere through the night.' Definitely one to bookmark.

I officially don't now, lol. But I'm serious too. Pile ons just irritate me. Next we'll be saying the blanket world reaction to covid was all good too. I was all on board with a few harmless snipes at ADV here and there, but blanket general opinions and commentary will always just annoy me. Not having a go at you, @EnJayKay, but the moral of this thread seemed to end up being that you just hate everything. I made the point that I think right now ADV is more well equipped to be writing songs for, or with... I don't mind with, Jack Russell and Tracii Guns. And you said you'd rather hear shit written by Guns/Russell, but then as the thread went on you hate all the shit the non-ADVs of the world write anyway and nothing was accomplished. I like to discuss what is before us, and in this case, if the above song is anything to go by, I don't mind ADV in this project. He may fuck something else up and I'll be there to call it what it is, but in my opinion, this particular case isn't a reason to pile on ADV. I think that song's as good as anyone could expect from these guys in 2023, personally. And maybe that's because of ADV?

This one's just a straight no from me, and I would definitely have worn the purple eye shadow too. Definitely.

Nice chorus, but the verses are horrendous.