Monthly Archives: February 2025

Lavish 8CD box set of Status Quo’s seminal “Status Quo – Live!” album from 1977 due in May

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With a career now in their seventh decade, it’s no wonder that Status Quo have become national treasures. Even with some of their 90s output being a far cry from their best, the Rossi/Parfitt commitment to live work helped the band remain a massive draw for gig goers, and any musical missteps are easy to forgive when taking into consideration that Quo’s run of albums released between 1967-77 is almost flawless.

On 16th May, lovers of classic Quo are in for a real treat. The essential 1977 release ‘Status Quo – Live!’ will be reissued as a lavish 8CD box set. Obviously, this isn’t the first time that the album has been given the box set treatment: in 2014, a 4CD version coupled the original album with the previous Japanese-only release ‘Tokyo Quo’ and a decent quality bootleg recording from the Australian leg of the same tour.

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Check out ‘Sentinel Hill’, the new video by In Dakhma

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When a band is pitched as “death metal”, there are certain tropes that the listener will expect. There are the pnrumatic drums – an integral part of the death metal sound, from the genre’s formative years, due to the brutal assault of bands like Suffocation – and the guttural vocals, often associated with the genre’s bigger names like Death and Entombed. You’d probably also expect to hear speed driven, huge sounding bass grinds, often providing a pivotal aspect to the aural assault.

Croatian band In Dakhma’s debut album ‘He Who Sows The Ground’ features all of that…and more. Check out ‘Sacrum’ and you’ll find a classic death metal sound delivered with a genuine enthusiasm; listen to ‘In Dogma’ and you’ll discover a hardcore infused bass part colliding with thrash riffs that are direct descendants from Sepultura’s massively influential ‘Arise’. Elsewhere, ‘Lies Beyond The Golden Ruins’ colours the band’s riffs with a hard nod towards groove metal, and the epic closer ‘Tower of Silence’ introduces sludgy riffs to bring something even heavier to the fore.

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THE REAL GONE SINGLES BAR #93

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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 previous few weeks. This time out, we’ve got the return of a much-loved pop band, a laid back narrative piece from a very familiar name, a great synth oriented workout, some huge riffs from the Medway area in South East England…and more besides. As is often the case with the SB, there’s no genre snobbery; just a spotlight on things we’ve found interesting. Hopefully, you’ll find something of interest too.

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YAWNING BALCH – Volume Three

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The first two albums by Yawning Balch – the side project featuring members of Yawning Man with Fu Manchu guitarist Bob Balch – yielded some fabulous music. The lengthy, improvised jams filled a pair of records with brilliant, almost ambient desert rock sounds; a whole world of sonic textures that really capture a moment, but really allow listener to be really drawn in by the band’s almost cinematic qualities.

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ROBIN McAULEY – Soulbound

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A strong case could be made for Robin McAuley’s second solo album – 2021’s ‘Standing On The Edge’ – being one of the finest of the journeyman vocalist’s career. It seemed to hit a sweet spot in terms of melodies, and although the singer’s brand of melodic rock was hardly in fashion at the time of release, his love for the style appeared unwavering. The album’s strong musicianship and big choruses rivalled his earlier associations with the legendary Michael Schenker, and the record’s AOR slant made it a great fit alongside some of their other Frontiers Records releases from that time. Taking influence from Black Swan’s second album ‘Generation Mind’, 2023’s ‘Alive’ took a slightly harder turn musically, but still found Robin in great voice and an enthused mood.

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