First Spin Impressions

[heaven&hell]

I've not heard SisterSin - be very interested if it is better than HEAT ;-)

No i was saying i listened to both of them and they were both much better on the 2nd spin than the 1st. I wasn't saying one was better than the other......

 

Oh ok I get you lol. I do like the Sister Sin albums - good solid rock, just wish those hooks could have a bit better. Amazing musically tho :-)

 

I figured you weren't understanding what I meant.

 

Hey I have played the HEAT a few more times and yes it has some great hooks and melodies and fantastic songs so it's much better than my first spin.

 

I would see why the Sister Sin wouldn't be your thing as much as the HEAT. Her voice can be an aquired taste I guess but I dig it and love the female Motley Crue meets Accept thing they go going on. I didn't love the new one as much on first spin but after a few more it's getting better and better but I do thing the production was better on SOTU release.

[Geoff]

Ten - Heresy & Creed ; has anyone even acknowledged this on the forum yet? Probably the best Ten CD I've heard in a while. The opener actually has some balls, but overall there are some pretty damn fine cuts here. Not a perfect album and still no 'Babylon,' but like I say, their best in a long while. I liked it.

 

 

Yep. Kind of.

 

http://heavyharmonie...93

 

Good album..drops off in the middle, but some good songs and one of their better recent albums.

 

Whoops, missed that one. Good album, looking to get to know it further.

 

With regard to the Sister Sin discussion, I also heard 'True sound of the underground' and despite it being pretty one dimensional it's almost impossible not to love what they're doing with the constant barrage of killer hard rock riffs. I see what Glen is saying about the lack of really memorable hooks, though, but it's still awesome stuff.

 

I actually just bought all 3 of their albums for very sexy prices this week. Looking forward to the hard copies.

[LV KIX]

I need to go out and get that new Disciple CD....they are definitely one of my favorite modern hard rock bands. I do enjoy your lists, Geoff, as I often will look for some Modern Hard Rock that I've overlooked! I did like the Falling in Reverse CD **their last one??**....is there going to be another one, or is the singer onto other things now?

 

Sorry mate, no idea about Falling In Reverse at all to be honest. Just checked wikipedia - looks like all is well and they're already recording album two.

 

But I prefer The Dead Rabbits.

 

As far as Falling In Reverse goes.. I believe you are correct Geoff. I saw Falling In Reverse this past summer at Rocklahoma and they said that they had a new release in the works. I believe they even played a couple new tunes.

[JamesEagle]

Testament - Dark Roots of Earth

Pretty decent thrashin' tunes ... nothing really standing out yet, but I'm sure there will be some growers on this one. Great guitar solos.

 

Crazy Lixx - Riot Avenue

Okay, I'd heard a few of the songs online before getting the CD, but having got the disc I thought I'd post here. This is seriously good ... 2 absolutely belting, killer tunes, 'Church of Rock' and 'Riot Avenue', along with one nearly as good, 'In The Night' and a handful of other good songs. No real filler at all, easily their best album so far for my tastes.

[The Rocker]

Testament - Dark Roots of Earth

Pretty decent thrashin' tunes ... nothing really standing out yet, but I'm sure there will be some growers on this one. Great guitar solos.

 

Crazy Lixx - Riot Avenue

Okay, I'd heard a few of the songs online before getting the CD, but having got the disc I thought I'd post here. This is seriously good ... 2 absolutely belting, killer tunes, 'Church of Rock' and 'Riot Avenue', along with one nearly as good, 'In The Night' and a handful of other good songs. No real filler at all, easily their best album so far for my tastes.

I like this alot, but New Religion was my album of 2010! Absolutely love it!

[All Nights Reserved]

Adler - Back From The Dead

 

A decent hard rock album. It's hard to decide if it wants to be old-school or modern though but one thing is for sure: 'The One That You Hated' is one of the catchiest songs I heard this year.

[Glen]

Testament - Dark Roots of Earth

Pretty decent thrashin' tunes ... nothing really standing out yet, but I'm sure there will be some growers on this one. Great guitar solos.

 

Crazy Lixx - Riot Avenue

Okay, I'd heard a few of the songs online before getting the CD, but having got the disc I thought I'd post here. This is seriously good ... 2 absolutely belting, killer tunes, 'Church of Rock' and 'Riot Avenue', along with one nearly as good, 'In The Night' and a handful of other good songs. No real filler at all, easily their best album so far for my tastes.

 

Finally James I can say I agree with you whole heartedly. I love Riot Avenue - such an awesome album.

 

[JamesEagle]

Testament - Dark Roots of Earth

Pretty decent thrashin' tunes ... nothing really standing out yet, but I'm sure there will be some growers on this one. Great guitar solos.

 

Crazy Lixx - Riot Avenue

Okay, I'd heard a few of the songs online before getting the CD, but having got the disc I thought I'd post here. This is seriously good ... 2 absolutely belting, killer tunes, 'Church of Rock' and 'Riot Avenue', along with one nearly as good, 'In The Night' and a handful of other good songs. No real filler at all, easily their best album so far for my tastes.

 

Finally James I can say I agree with you whole heartedly. I love Riot Avenue - such an awesome album.

 

Don't worry ... I'll say something to piss you off soon enough...

[KarpetRydOFunk]

Testament - Dark Roots of Earth

Pretty decent thrashin' tunes ... nothing really standing out yet, but I'm sure there will be some growers on this one. Great guitar solos.

 

Crazy Lixx - Riot Avenue

Okay, I'd heard a few of the songs online before getting the CD, but having got the disc I thought I'd post here. This is seriously good ... 2 absolutely belting, killer tunes, 'Church of Rock' and 'Riot Avenue', along with one nearly as good, 'In The Night' and a handful of other good songs. No real filler at all, easily their best album so far for my tastes.

 

Finally James I can say I agree with you whole heartedly. I love Riot Avenue - such an awesome album.

 

Don't worry ... I'll say something to piss you off soon enough...

 

Restoring balance, eh. You're a good man, James. ;}

[JamesEagle]

Testament - Dark Roots of Earth

Pretty decent thrashin' tunes ... nothing really standing out yet, but I'm sure there will be some growers on this one. Great guitar solos.

 

Crazy Lixx - Riot Avenue

Okay, I'd heard a few of the songs online before getting the CD, but having got the disc I thought I'd post here. This is seriously good ... 2 absolutely belting, killer tunes, 'Church of Rock' and 'Riot Avenue', along with one nearly as good, 'In The Night' and a handful of other good songs. No real filler at all, easily their best album so far for my tastes.

 

Finally James I can say I agree with you whole heartedly. I love Riot Avenue - such an awesome album.

 

Don't worry ... I'll say something to piss you off soon enough...

 

Restoring balance, eh. You're a good man, James. ;}

 

Nah, I'm a total c***. But I try not to be.

[Geoff]

In brief:

 

Captain Black Beard - Captain Black Beard ; solid hard rock disc with one or two highlights, otherwise pretty forgettable.

 

Dead City Ruins - Midnight Killer ; one or two okay tunes, otherwise forgettable hard rock disc.

 

Dirty Black Halo - Burning At The Edge Of Dawn ; as above, average hard rock throughout, but 'French Tickler' is a good tune.

 

Drug Under - Forgive And Forget ; poor, bland hard rock disc.

 

Gary Schutt - Puppets In Symmetry ; if these are meant to be catchier, more melodic versions of these songs I'd hate to hear the originals. Mostly very average, though 'Bitch with a capital C' and 'Dog' are pretty cool.

 

Grease Helmet - Grease Helmet ; really bland as hell plain rock to me - didn't do much for me at all.

 

Hessler - Comes With The Territory ; pretty exciting new hard rock band. A heap of potential here, but the vocals are a little strained and the hooks just aren't there a lot of the time. But a band to watch out for, for sure.

 

Jackvalve - Jackvalve ; average, plain hard rock.

 

Jaguar Blaze - Wild N' Free ; much like the above, with one or two pretty cool tunes.

 

Killer Bee - From Hell And Back ; rubbish, filler packed hard rock/metal.

 

King Lizard - A Nightmare Livin' The Dream ; solid, consistent sleaze hard rock release - just missing an edge to make it really worthwhile.

 

Nasty Habit - Nasty Habit ; very basic and thinly produced 80's style hard rock CD. Packed with very average songs.

 

Naughty Whisper - Addicted To Decadence ; harsh, noisy hard rock... especially the vocals. But really not too bad songwise.

 

Layla Milou - Reborn ; terrible female vocal disc. Real bad.

 

Leaving Eden - Between Heaven & Hell ; a few okay tunes here, and some great guitar. But the end of this album, and some terrible songs really caps off a really inconsistent CD. Very, very avoidable.

 

Malice - New Breed Of Godz ; terrible output from an otherwise solid band. This is so bland and lacklustre it's harsh.

 

Maryann Cotton - Free Falling Angels ; creepy almost Alice Cooper wannabe. It's a creepy disc with a couple of decent moments in all honesty, but an awful vibe and some truly dreadful songs, which erase any goodness here, which is not much anyway.

 

Michael Addison - Blinding Shadows ; bad, almost gospelly type AOR. Really unappealing.

 

Midnite Sun - Anyone Like Us ; okay metal with a few cool tunes like 'Mind the gap' and the balladic 'Fault.' But average overall.

 

Mitch Malloy - Shine On ; a re-recording of 'Shine?' If that is so, this is amazing because I traded off that CD a while back because I didn't like it at all whereas I actually really liked this. Good, vintage MM. Nice stuff.

 

No Romeo - Lost Angel In Paradise ; really really bad disc. Sure they had the look but that's where it stopped. Very weak songs, but more to the point the sound quality is barely audible. Do not be fooled by the cover photo - this is a really poor album.

 

Phoenix Rising - Give It A Name ; stunning production at times, but a really poor vibe and weak songs. Some truly terrible horrible chorus non-hooks. I didn't like this at all.

 

Prayer - Danger In The Dark - very basic, very average and solid AOR. Not bad at all, but just so safe and simple.

 

Pulse - Show Me The Way ; not a bad modern rock disc. A lot of really average songs here, but a small handful of strong songs mixed in too.

 

Punchline - Superfly ; really shitty Euro modern rock - very samey, very poor.

 

Reed-Ritchotte - Finally… ; very average and unfulfilling bluesy rock. Just very average.

 

Robert Tepper - New Life Story ; what a piece of shit. Very mellow, but more than that, just really weak songs. Michael Ross (ex-Gypsy Rose) and Torben Schmidt both made decent albums like this in 2012. No need to record such poor songs, even if you need to be mellow as hell.

 

Showdown Boulevard - Showdown Boulevard ; strong accent, weak songs. Avoid.

[Glen]

Gee thanks for that run down of shite lol. The only one I actually know off that list is Mitch Malloy, but doesnt sound like Im missing much!

[Geoff]

lol, my pleasure. Hopefully saving others from the bother of checking them out.

[zacharyamelie]

lol, my pleasure. Hopefully saving others from the bother of checking them out.

 

Taking the 'shit music' bullet for others. Your sacrifice won't go unoticed and in your honour, I promise to never listen to any of those releases.

[KarpetRydOFunk]

lol, my pleasure. Hopefully saving others from the bother of checking them out.

 

Good on ya, mate.

[Dead Planet]

Benedictun - Seasons of Tragedy.........some excellent heavy metal with female vocals....will have to hunt down their other 2 releases....

 

 

[heaven&hell]

Benedictun - Seasons of Tragedy.........some excellent heavy metal with female vocals....will have to hunt down their other 2 releases....

 

 

 

All 3 are great and there is another one on the way.

[All Nights Reserved]

Ammotrack - Come Die With Us (2011)

 

Wow, that's a really good one! It's some kind of sleazy melodic metal with cool (shredding) solos, energetic catchy songs (with some Pantera(!) influence), good musicians, and I loved every single track on this album which is something. Oh, and one more thing: they are Swedish.

[Dark Star]

Helloween "Straight Out of Hell" Just got this today?? After one spin, I give it about an 8/10?? Really strong release from these German Pumpkin Power Metallers!!! Only really one song I would consider to be filler?? and even that isn't a BAD tune really.. Just kind of ballad-y and stuff....That song would be Hold Me in Your Arms.. A decent enough song, just in My opinion not up to par with the rest of the songs on the album... I can't pick a favorite tune yet, maybe after a few more listens?? All in all a DAMN good album!!!!

[All Nights Reserved]

Grease Helmet - S/T (2012)

 

Well I guess it's one typical album that you have to spin quite a few times before you judge it... Btw it's a true old-school hard rock album with a lots of 70's feelings and grooves but the songs - I think - are not as catchy as they should be. My favourite one is called "Not Rocket In My Pocket" which is a nice Rolling Stones influenced track. So I'm gonna give it one more try - or two. We'll see.

[metalmaniac777]

CRASHDIET: "The Savage Playground"

 

One of those albums that manages to be both a crash-and-burn disappointment and yet a solid effort at the same time. Over the years the band has fed us a steady diet of awesome sleaze-rock so expectations were extremely high for this album and it simply doesn't live up to those standards. But taken on its own terms, it's a fairly decent hard rock release, with some truly great songs that are brought down several notches by the piss-poor production which replaces the band's earlier crisp, clean sonics with something much more sloppy and sludgy. Songs like "Anarchy," "Circus," and "Got a Reason" make this one worth playing from time to time, but when you want to hear the best of Crashdiet, this won't be the album you reach for.

[Jez]

Steve Lukather - Transition

 

A great and varied set of well written songs, well produced, immaculately executed as you would come to expect from Luke. Well worth the wait and possibly even better than 'All's Well That Ends Well'. An absolute perfect album for my tastes.

 

Taste - S/T

 

Very very 80's style retro AOR/MR, with some nice tunes going on. Loads of sugary keys everywhere and pretty well done for a small production, Not earth shattering by any means, but well worth a listen if you like your Rock at the sweeter end of the spectrum.

 

Lifesigns - S/T

 

Excellent debut featuring Nick Beggs and John Young. 5 long tracks of highly melodic prog rock and not a duffer amongst them, 'Telephone' especially being an aural treat of the highest order.This is gonna be one of the best melodic prog releases this year, guaranteed.

 

Heaven's Basement - Filthy Empire

 

A long time coming this one and to be really honest i'm not sure about it after a couple of spins. I much preferred the more old school sound of the Roadstar stuff and even the excellent 1st Heaven's Basement EP. they put out in '08..and hence why I think the best track on here is the revamped 'Executioners Day' from the very same EP. I dunno, they had huge potential a few years ago and really were one of the shining lights, but now to my ears, even though they are still a good band, they just sound like thousands of others doing this type of stuff, I shall persevere with it though.

[heaven&hell]

Heaven's Basement - Filthy Empire

 

A long time coming this one and to be really honest i'm not sure about it after a couple of spins. I much preferred the more old school sound of the Roadstar stuff and even the excellent 1st Heaven's Basement EP. they put out in '08..and hence why I think the best track on here is the revamped 'Executioners Day' from the very same EP. I dunno, they had huge potential a few years ago and really were one of the shining lights, but now to my ears, even though they are still a good band, they just sound like thousands of others doing this type of stuff, I shall persevere with it though.

 

You sealed the deal for me to pass on this one.

 

As you did I loved the Roadstar/1st HB EP. The original singer was awesome and the band died when he left.

Either hang it up or change the name IMO.

[Glen]

Heaven's Basement - Filthy Empire

 

A long time coming this one and to be really honest i'm not sure about it after a couple of spins. I much preferred the more old school sound of the Roadstar stuff and even the excellent 1st Heaven's Basement EP. they put out in '08..and hence why I think the best track on here is the revamped 'Executioners Day' from the very same EP. I dunno, they had huge potential a few years ago and really were one of the shining lights, but now to my ears, even though they are still a good band, they just sound like thousands of others doing this type of stuff, I shall persevere with it though.

 

You sealed the deal for me to pass on this one.

 

As you did I loved the Roadstar/1st HB EP. The original singer was awesome and the band died when he left.

Either hang it up or change the name IMO.

 

Pretty boring live as well :-(

[Geoff]

Heaven's Basement - Filthy Empire

 

A long time coming this one and to be really honest i'm not sure about it after a couple of spins. I much preferred the more old school sound of the Roadstar stuff and even the excellent 1st Heaven's Basement EP. they put out in '08..and hence why I think the best track on here is the revamped 'Executioners Day' from the very same EP. I dunno, they had huge potential a few years ago and really were one of the shining lights, but now to my ears, even though they are still a good band, they just sound like thousands of others doing this type of stuff, I shall persevere with it though.

 

You sealed the deal for me to pass on this one.

 

As you did I loved the Roadstar/1st HB EP. The original singer was awesome and the band died when he left.

Either hang it up or change the name IMO.

 

Pretty boring live as well :-(

 

What's the back story with these guys. I hated Roadstar and for that reason I never checked these guys out. Were Roadstar classic rock or something? Whatever the case, they definitely caused enough of a ripple in my mind to ensure I was basically never going to check out Heaven's Basement. Thank Jeebers I did, though.

 

Like Jez says, it's nothing outrageously new or anything. They kind of remind me a little bit of Endeverafter, Taking Dawn or Jettblack - the semi-popular modern rock bands with a huge 80's influence. I heard the new CD too and I think it's pretty damn good. The EP sounded really awesome to me and even though I only heard it a week ago for the first time, I'm not sure the full disc lives up to that quality. Though I look forward to more spins of both to find out. There is definitely some good stuff going on here.