Like many musicians, singer-songwriter Jake Simmons had great plans for 2020. The time had come to start thinking about a follow up to his ‘Shake So Easy’ LP recorded with The Little Ghosts, but by the time he’d hoped to resurrect the band, the world had other ideas and sidelined everything and everyone with a global pandemic.
Author Archives: Real Gone
KHYMERA – Hold Your Ground
Despite featuring no original members, Khymera’s fourth album ‘The Grand Design’ was a solid piece of melodic rock, and 2020’s ‘Master of Illusions’ was potentially even better. That record, although perhaps not up to the quality of the self-titled debut from 2003, showed how Khymera were able to steer their way through some great riffs and big chorus hooks, and they were still a great band under Dennis Ward’s guidance.
THE LAST REIGN – Endangered Pieces Volume One
Before the pandemic lockdown turned the world on its head and bands were forced to work from home studio setups wherever possible, US metal band The Last Reign’s career had really started to gain traction. Their ‘Prelude’ EP, released in 2019, mixed classic metal with waves of metalcore and a pinch of thrash to create something huge. The end result sometimes owed a debt to riff titans In Flames and Soilwork, but as influences go, it gave the band an especially solid sound. The ‘Evolution’ album (released during a troubled 2020), cemented their place within the metal underground, and a pair of EP releases – ‘Dangerous To Go Alone’, reimagining Last Reign material as 8-bit arcade machine soundtracks, and a covers disc ‘Just Too Darn Loud’ (2021) – showed that this sometimes very serious sounding band also knew how to have fun.
HOLLY BETH VINCENT – Hey Boy / Smash
This two track 7” by Holly Beth Vincent is an unexpected treat. Released a decade on from her ‘Minnesota-California’ album (a record that appears to have never made it past self-released CD-r status), these Travis Ramin produced tunes – first released via Ramo Records in 2012 – capture the one-time Holly & The Italians vocalist in a really sharp mood. Ramin’s studio techniques obviously have a hand in creating a pleasingly punchy sound and there are occasional parallels with his own recordings with Beebe Gallini and The Short Fuses, but that might amount to nothing if Holly weren’t in such interesting vocal shape.
DUST PROPHET – One Last Look Upon The Sky
Dust Prophet’s debut release ‘One Last Look Upon The Sky’ presents some immediately classic stoner metal, doom and desert rock sounds. Taking cues from Black Sabbath, Orange Goblin and Kyuss, the band instinctively knows how to make very familiar riffs immediately effective, and the sprawling nature of their material conjures a love for stoner rock’s forefathers almost as brilliantly as Black Elephant, Acid Mammoth, and Devil Electric before them.