Author Archives: Real Gone

BYZANTHIAN NECKBEARD – Minaton

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Byzanthian Neckbeard broke a five year hiatus at the beginning of summer 2019 when they re-emerged with ‘Extinxtion’, a heavy as hell three tracker that raised the bar for uncompromising sludge metal sounds. Expecting the band to go back into hibernation after wearing everyone down with a set of absolutely crushing riffs, it came as a surprise when the Guernsey based trio released a full length album just a couple of months later.

‘Minaton’ is everything ‘Extinction’ promised…and more. The band’s trademark heavy, sludgebeast of a sound is firmly in place throughout. This is an album that starts somewhere around 8/11 on the heaviness scale, but somehow manages to increase its sledgehammer-like presence as it goes. Some of the material seems a little more intensive on the death metal inflected vocals than before, but for lovers of a sludgy riff or six, it’s the kind of album that’ll tick so many of the right boxes.

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MICK RONSON – Only After Dark: The Complete MainMan Recordings

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For many, Mick Ronson needs no introduction. However, for his much celebrated fame with Bowie’s Spiders From Mars, his associations with Mott The Hoople and Lou Reed and having a lifetime champion in Def Leppard’s Joe Elliott, there’s one aspect of Ronson’s career that’s sometimes overlooked: his 1970s solo recordings.

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THE BABYS – On The Edge

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With their third album, 1979’s ‘Head First’, The Babys finally gave the world a genre classic. Their first two albums weren’t short on great material, but occasionally wavered with a couple of lightweight tracks here and their which sometimes seemed to lessen the overall quality, especially from an AOR/melodic rock fan’s perspective. In ‘Head First’, it felt like the first time all of the pieces truly fit. Aside from a bizarre song where John Waite recounts a childhood visit to the dentist, pretty much everything on the album represented The Babys at their absolute best.

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VINCENT CARR’S SUMIC – New Paeans

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Vincent Carr’s fifth album ‘Rekindled’ (released under the name Vincent Carr’s SUMIC in 2016) was one of the year’s most pleasant surprises. Taking influences from Nick Drake, John Martyn, various 70s prog bits and a smidgeon of trad English folk, the album took the listener on a very pastoral musical journey. Traces of Freddie Phillips’ children’s TV scores also added to the album’s very English qualities. It was an album only heard by a relative few, but those who did, invariably loved it.

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A Decade Of Real Gone: Ten Years, Ten Albums

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It’s hard to believe that Real Gone has reached its tenth anniversary. There have been a vast amount of albums and EPs reviewed in that time. Some captured a moment somewhere in the world of DIY recordings; others continue to be unloved by the masses but we’re still more than glad we got to help spread the word in our own way.

Then there have been those albums destined to become classics; albums we’ve continued to love long after our reviews were shared. For our tenth anniversary, it seemed only appropriate that we took a look back at a few landmark albums from our first decade online – an album from each year we think holds up well; recordings that continue to be important to us and have somehow allowed us to build a following and still have an internet presence… Ten years – ten albums… Every one a classic.

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