When ‘Addiction’ was originally released in 1996, I wasn’t in much of a position to call myself a Glenn Hughes fan. As far as I was concerned, the Phenomena project felt like an all-chums-in-the-studio-waste of plastic and at that point his solo albums passed me by completely. However, I loved the Hughes/Thrall album and still [...]

“Modern Energy…and what it means to you and I” spouts Mark E Smith at the beginning of one of the tracks on this CD. A man with a skewed take on life, you may be forgiven for thinking a spoken word release from The Fall’s front man (and only constant member) could be an interesting [...]

Back in 1990, I knew people who were really excited by Thunder’s debut album, ‘Backstreet Symphony’. While it sounded like a decent British rock album, aside from a couple of standout tracks, it didn’t match their live performances. Their second album ‘Laughing On Judgement Day’ was a great improvement over the debut (if a little [...]

On February 19th 2010, it’s been thirty years to the day since Bon Scott died. If people ask me, I’ll always tell them the Bon Scott era is my preferred era of AC/DC. The material feels a little looser and the rock ‘n’ roll ethic hasn’t yet given way to the band’s slightly more metallic [...]

Yes, Vanilla Ice. You know him. In 1990, ‘Ice Ice Baby’ was huge and people loved him. He sold millions of records – though it’s unusual to meet anyone who’ll openly admit to having owned either ‘Ice Ice Baby’, or its parent album ‘To The Extreme’. He faded from the public eye some time after [...]

Between leaving Montrose in 1975 and joining Van Halen a decade later, Sammy Hagar was a busy man. During that decade he embarked upon a solo career whereby he released eight studio albums and two live albums, as well as a collaboration with Neal Schon, Kenny Aaronson and Mike Shreive (released as HSAS: ‘Through The [...]

The release of Saxon’s live LP ‘The Eagle Has Landed’ in 1982 effectively closed the door on the first part of their career.It was the first year in which the band hadn’t been extremely busy: they’d already released four studio albums in three years, backed by constant touring.The release of the live album afforded them [...]

Mind Funk were initially a supergroup, of sorts. Except none of the band members were particularly famous. Vocalist Pat Dubar had previously been a member of Uniform Choice; Reed St Mark had drummed with Celtic Frost; Louis Svitek and John Monte had both previously been with thrash/punk outfit M.O.D. and Jason Coppola had previously worked [...]

Ringo Starr needs no introduction. He’s one of the most famous rock drummers on the planet, if not the most famous. Many of his post-Beatles solo records have been criminally overlooked. This offering from 2010 is surprisingly good – almost as good as 2008’s ‘Liverpool 8’ – and it’s another disc featuring a roll-call of [...]

I heard the second album by these guys back when it came out; despite lots of decent press, it didn’t impress me.  Their sound was solid enough, but none of the songs made any lasting impression.  I was told to forget about that, since this third outing for Jared Leto’s band was a vast improvement. [...]