Few bands have made such a dramatic musical turn as Radiohead between the release of their second album ‘The Bends’ and third album ‘OK Computer’. With ‘OK Computer’ Radiohead continued on a path of musical adventurousness and in looking to move forwards, they looked backwards in terms of influences. Instead of drawing from other indie and alternative sources, the album drew heavily from prog rock experimentation and made the band heroes to many fans of 70s experimental sounds.
BRASS OWL – State Of Mind
Brass Owl unleashed their self-titled debut album in the summer of 2018. While that record was loaded with great riffs and showed promise, it was also fatally flawed. More than great riffs are needed to create great songs and their song writing wasn’t always the most memorable. Also, in frontman Brian Tarter, the band seemed to be hampered by a vocalist who often…overstretched himself.
Unfortunately, since Tarter also supplies those great guitar riffs and actually represents fifty percent of the band on 2020’s ‘State of Mind’, Brass Owl are sort of stuck with him. As a result, it is another album where a massive amount of promise is evident, but the genuine quality doesn’t always come through.
Iggy Pop ‘Bowie Years’ box set track listing revealed
It’s been known for several weeks that a super deluxe Iggy Pop box set entitled ‘The Bowie Years’ is to be released this year. Aside from the announcement that the box set would include 2CD editions of 1977’s ‘The Idiot’ and ‘Lust For Life’, plus a broad selection of live material, any other info has been rather scant.
Now scheduled for a May release, it has been confirmed that the 7CD set will include the following material, with everything on discs 5-7 being previously unreleased:
The Great 80s Project: 1980
Back in May 2017, Real Gone launched “The Great 70s Project”, a ten week exploration of a classic decade’s worth of music. By side-stepping a couple of the obvious hits and digging deeper into back-catalogue albums, we were able to present a very broad look at the albums of the era and it became one of the site’s most popular features.
A long time in the planning, we’re pleased to present The Great 80s Project, a similar exploration of the decade that brought us a multitude of synth-pop, shiny tunes, bright colours, Live Aid and a handful of stadium giants.
DOOL – Summerland
On their debut album ‘Here Now, There Then’, Dool formulated a sound that blended goth, hard rock and a touch of trad metal to create a sound that drew a lot of influence from the early 90s, but in some ways sounded almost timeless. With elements of Killing Joke providing a core influence – especially in some of Job van der Zande’s chosen basslines – it was a record that had a relatively strong musical foundation, even if some of the songs weren’t especially memorable. A cover of ‘Love Like Blood’ flaunted their love of Killing Joke further on an EP in 2019 that, in the band’s own words, saw them growing in confidence.