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First Spin Impressions


JustJason

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SCAR SYMMETRY - Pitch Black Progress

 

On first spin this is terrific. They call themselves Melodic Death Metal (WTF? :blink: ) but that pidgeon-hole does nothing to reveal the cross-over potential this band have. They mix crushingly heavy riffs & a battering rhythm section with some glorious melodies & great choruses. Whereas the vocalist does growl & scream, he also soars & delivers some great 'clean' vocals. Pretty technical stuff, but great so far... :banger:

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Bulletproof Messenger - 'Crucial Line': Very nice. I think there was only one track I disliked and the rest all sounded great. It's not going to top Papa Roach for me, but it's still a very good album. Looking forward to more listens.

 

 

Hey, glad you like Bulletproof Messenger! :banana:

 

I bloody love that album! It just gets better and better with every listen.

 

My fav tracks are easily 'DTD' and 'Crucial Line', both of which rival anything on the Papa Roach album.

 

As you say its a hard toss up between the 2 for best modern rock album of 06.

 

Cheers

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Sinner, MASK OF SANITY: decent but not terribly exciting traditional metal from Germany. This is Mat Sinner (of Primal Fear)'s other band and basically it sounds like Primal Fear with a different singer.

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Sinner, MASK OF SANITY: decent but not terribly exciting traditional metal from Germany. This is Mat Sinner (of Primal Fear)'s other band and basically it sounds like Primal Fear with a different singer.

 

Yeah, I think those guys sort of lost the "Sinner sound" at the time of 'Nature of the beast'. A couple of decent tracks on that one, but they were clearly steering away from what made Sinner Sinner.

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Salvage - s/t ; Vocally it reminds me a little of Forever/S.I.N but the hooks are much stronger, songs much better. It's actually a very good disc, with track 6 being my fave thus far. Released in 1991 this is good early 90's style hard rock.

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Monro - s/t ; pretty much sky-rocketed up into my top 10 AOR albums of all time. (And I'm talking real AOR like FM's debut, Sahara etc - not Sunstorm or Brother Firetribe with their balls of steel :P) What a great disc... hugely recommended to any fan of AOR.

 

Dreamstreet - 'Heartzone' ; what a softie... 2 AOR release in a row, but this one was great also. Not as good as Monro, but a cool AOR release and also recommended to AOR fans.

 

Lady Blush - s/t ; okay, finally got around to Andy Kuntz's band (Pronounced Koontz, I'm sure) and it ain't half bad. The first 2 songs contain dreadful verses (slow, bluesy hard rock swagger) but some big Baton Rouge-like choruses save the day. And the choruses are the definate highlight of the album and keep it above board. It's seriously not a bad album by Andy Kuntz and the boys.

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Winger - IV: Good production, Kip's voice and lyric-writing abilities appear to be no worse for the wear. Reb's guitar playing is awesome as always. Not sure if I like it or not... I did listen to the whole thing straight through which says something though. It kinda picks up where "Pull" left off, but in many places goes in a completely different direction. Nothing at all reminiscent of the first two albums at all. Jury's still out, might be a grower, or it might sit mostly unlistened to in my collection...

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Lightspeed - Waves

one for the Pomp fans amongst us (Nick I think you already have this one)? Swazi, Chris???

 

I'm waiting for my CD <_< I'm in a hurry to listen to it :doh:

 

 

Monro - s/t ; pretty much sky-rocketed up into my top 10 AOR albums of all time. (And I'm talking real AOR like FM's debut, Sahara etc - not Sunstorm or Brother Firetribe with their balls of steel :P) What a great disc... hugely recommended to any fan of AOR.

 

The song 'Here Comes The Night' is a killer !

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Code - The Enemy Within

 

Not the complete Softy Westcoast releases I was expecting - 'Kingdom Of Desire' era Toto is the styley here. Some excellent rocking tunes with a great Sherwood Ball vocal and......wait for it....... a GREAT PRODUCTION. A good start for AOR in '07.

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Code - The Enemy Within

 

Not the complete Softy Westcoast releases I was expecting - 'Kingdom Of Desire' era Toto is the styley here. Some excellent rocking tunes with a great Sherwood Ball vocal and......wait for it....... a GREAT PRODUCTION. A good start for AOR in '07.

 

I just got my copy of this today. It's great stuff, & unsurprisingly is similar to Grand Illusion (Rydholm & Trampe were both involved). My only slight criticism is Sherwood Ball. I'm not his biggest fan, but he really doesn't suit this heavier stuff. Perhaps Joe Lynn Turner or Terry Brock or Kevin Chalfant or Joseph Williams would've suited this better... Excellent CD though...

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Code - The Enemy Within

 

Not the complete Softy Westcoast releases I was expecting - 'Kingdom Of Desire' era Toto is the styley here. Some excellent rocking tunes with a great Sherwood Ball vocal and......wait for it....... a GREAT PRODUCTION. A good start for AOR in '07.

 

I just got my copy of this today. It's great stuff, & unsurprisingly is similar to Grand Illusion (Rydholm & Trampe were both involved). My only slight criticism is Sherwood Ball. I'm not his biggest fan, but he really doesn't suit this heavier stuff. Perhaps Joe Lynn Turner or Terry Brock or Kevin Chalfant or Joseph Williams would've suited this better... Excellent CD though...

 

 

 

I like his vocals on here, although it is really annoying me who he is a deadringer for. It's been bugging me all day??

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Code - The Enemy Within

 

Not the complete Softy Westcoast releases I was expecting - 'Kingdom Of Desire' era Toto is the styley here. Some excellent rocking tunes with a great Sherwood Ball vocal and......wait for it....... a GREAT PRODUCTION. A good start for AOR in '07.

 

I just got my copy of this today. It's great stuff, & unsurprisingly is similar to Grand Illusion (Rydholm & Trampe were both involved). My only slight criticism is Sherwood Ball. I'm not his biggest fan, but he really doesn't suit this heavier stuff. Perhaps Joe Lynn Turner or Terry Brock or Kevin Chalfant or Joseph Williams would've suited this better... Excellent CD though...

 

 

 

I like his vocals on here, although it is really annoying me who he is a deadringer for. It's been bugging me all day??

 

Um... An even-more-gay-sounding George Michael?!

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New Iron Maiden. Did nothing for me upon first listen. I hope it grows like a fungus. It does have good production and Bruce sounds awesome but there's something missing.

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New Iron Maiden. Did nothing for me upon first listen. I hope it grows like a fungus. It does have good production and Bruce sounds awesome but there's something missing.

 

 

 

It's a grower Imo. It's not nearly as immediate as the previouis 2 releases, but once you give a few more spins it should grow on you. It's a little darker with much longer songs and besides "Different World" there isn't any songs I could hear getting played on radio on a regular basis.

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Corin & Edman - Roc de Light

 

Excellent Westcoast with a phantastic Goran Edman on vocals !! :)

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Lion - DANGEROUS ATTRACTION

Wes was kind enough to hook me up w/this one cuz I was curious about 'em after all the Lion talk around here lately (thanks bro!). Sounds a little dated but overall it's not bad, the guitar work absolutely shredz, I probably would've been all over this band if I'd heard 'em back in 1987 when this was current. And that "Transformers" theme song is hella cool. ;)

 

Saint - TOO LATE FOR LIVING

A vintage 80s Christian metal release that sounds pretty cool but unfortunately suffers from the low-budget production that was so prevalent in indie metal during that era. Plenty of fire-and-brimstone lyrics and judging by the Halford-esque vocals I bet these guys must've listened to a lot of Judas Priest circa BRITISH STEEL and POINT OF ENTRY. A cool little curiosity item/collectors piece but not a classic for the ages.

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Lion - DANGEROUS ATTRACTION

Wes was kind enough to hook me up w/this one cuz I was curious about 'em after all the Lion talk around here lately (thanks bro!). Sounds a little dated but overall it's not bad, the guitar work absolutely shredz, I probably would've been all over this band if I'd heard 'em back in 1987 when this was current. And that "Transformers" theme song is hella cool. ;)

 

I'm sorry you never got to hear them back in the day. :( When that came out I was like "Holy crap, that's everything I want in a band!" Still love it to death, but it screams 80's for sure.

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Cycle Sluts From Hell - S/T (1991)

Got this one from Lala.com after tripping over the video for "I Wish You Were A Beer" on YouTube some time ago. I've been getting into a lot of foul mouthed punk/metal chick bands lately (Slunt, Betty Blowtorch, L7, etc.) and the Sluts fit right into that category. (Hell, this is from 1991, they practically invented the category!) What I didn't realize back in the day was that the Sluts were merely singers in this band, they stood up front while they had an (all male) backing band behind them. So they were kind of like a metal version of the PussyCat Dolls when you think about it. :)

Anyway, the disc is loud, dumb, and raucous, just the way I like it! Horrible album cover though.

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Code - The Enemy Within

 

Not the complete Softy Westcoast releases I was expecting - 'Kingdom Of Desire' era Toto is the styley here. Some excellent rocking tunes with a great Sherwood Ball vocal and......wait for it....... a GREAT PRODUCTION. A good start for AOR in '07.

 

I just got my copy of this today. It's great stuff, & unsurprisingly is similar to Grand Illusion (Rydholm & Trampe were both involved). My only slight criticism is Sherwood Ball. I'm not his biggest fan, but he really doesn't suit this heavier stuff. Perhaps Joe Lynn Turner or Terry Brock or Kevin Chalfant or Joseph Williams would've suited this better... Excellent CD though...

 

 

 

I like his vocals on here, although it is really annoying me who he is a deadringer for. It's been bugging me all day??

 

I'm with you there, Jez. He sounds so much like someone it's silly, but I also can't pick it.

 

Sadly, I'm not with you guys in regards to the quality of the material. I thought it was average, generic, nothing really stood out... one of those releases the melodic rock world could easily do without. It reminds me of the early Ambition and Main Attraction releases last year. Not really that bad, but so average and forgettable. Plus, I already skipped through about 4-5 songs. Maybe it's not my thing... but either way I just see it as something that didn't really need to be recorded. I may spin it once more this year, but that's probably about it for this one.

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Geoff - Just thought of who Sherwood Ball sounds like in places on this 'ere Code disc

 

Al Fritsch of Drive, She Said

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MASTERPLAN - Lost & Gone (E.P)

 

Holy shit. I cannot wait for the new album, this is amazing stuff. A touch heavier than previous but they're sounding great with the new vocalist....

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BIG GUNS - ON DANGEROUS GROUND

 

Awesome melocic disc good vocals the guitar work is pretty good not great does have some good riffs. I really like it, this will probably go into my drinking/party catagory. It looks like it came out in 1994 a time were that grunge crap was ruling the airwaves which left great bands/albums like this on imports. This was the time I really starting to get into black and death metal because I didn't know were to find bands like this at that time.

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MASTERPLAN - Lost & Gone (E.P)

 

Holy shit. I cannot wait for the new album, this is amazing stuff. A touch heavier than previous but they're sounding great with the new vocalist....

 

 

 

That's good news. I'm looking forward to this since Dimeo joined the band.

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Just listening to an advance of Fall Out Boy's newie... what a HUGE improvement on the last one. Some huge choruses on this one. After a pretty bland start to the year so far, this is definately my fave 2007 release so far... not that's there's much competition so far. Track 4 is awesome, and 7 and 8 are highlights too, but most sounds quite good. Good album.

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