Ashton Nyte is busy. Not only is he featured on a recent track from musical collective Beauty In Chaos (whose recent single featuring The Mission’s Wayne Hussey is a must hear), but he’s also promoting new material from his own band The Awakening, who are set to release a self titled album in October.
Before the release of ‘The Awakening’, Nyte has given fans a classic sounding preview via the single ‘Mirror Midnight’.
Call To The Void have been lurking within the musical underground for a while. In the summer of 2023, the London based band shared their debut single ‘Uncontrollable’ which blended sharp edged, 90s inspired elements – Pixies/Nirvana-eque basslines coupled with a noisy chorus – with a few 80s goth traits to create something that had one eye on the past, but sounded really punchy in the present. Their belated follow up, ‘Blow’, delivered in January 2024, explored a few different sounds. Stoking up the bass and relying more on a moody vocal, it shared moments that sounded, strangely, a little more like they were channelling a couple of old Billy Idol hits, but with the help of some aggressive guitar work, their love of 90s alternative sounds still remained obvious.
Welcome back to the Real Gone Singles Bar, the place where we explore some of the individual tracks that have landed in our inbox over the past few weeks. This time, we have what we believe is one of our most adventurous selections to date. We’ve brought together a couple of downbeat songwriters, a slab of soul with a very dark and arty core, a couple of great rock tracks, and even a track that blends a singer songwriter’s personal side with an almost prog rock grandness. As always, we hope you find something new to enjoy!
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Scottish rockers Silver Dollar room aren’t afraid of going retro on their debut album ‘Gilded Echoes’. By taking influence from a wealth of classic rock bands and mixing in strong elements of a post-grunge sound, they’ve created a ten song release that’s riff heavy, but also very accessible. Naturally, there are times when the influences shine perhaps a little too brightly, but that never stops the songs being enjoyable – and it’s always clear that this band more than knows their way around a decent hook.
Eleven years after the release of their well received ‘Wings of Love’ album, the bulk of Find Me’s ‘Nightbound’ sees the much loved AOR band often sticking to a tried and tested brand of melodic rock. A couple of tracks deviate from the formula to explore different avenues of classic rock, but it’s fair to say that this fifth album plays very much to the fan. Drawing influence from bands like Survivor – whose Jim Peterik scores co-writing credits – and more modern melodic rock bands like Lionheart, the material has no real care for fashion, but what it does, it does brilliantly. So much of the strength in the band’s sound is due to vocalist Robbie LaBlanc (sometime of Blanc Faces) who possesses one of the best melodic rock voices of his generation. When you have someone like Robbie on board, capable of summoning the power of Joe Lynn Turner circa 1985 and the huge melodic sounds of a peak Dave Bickler or Steve Overland, there’s little point in trying to branch out or add new twists to a classic rock backdrop – his huge voice handles the 80s influenced sounds so perfectly.