Real Gone’s End of Year Round-Up, 2018

In 2018, Real Gone celebrated its ninth birthday. It’s been a long and hard road to this point, but we’re pleased to be celebrating our most successful year online to date. Hundreds of new albums have been heard and a record number of gigs have been attended. Not only has this year been our biggest success…it’s also been our favourite.

Nearing the close of 2018, it’s time to look back and celebrate our favourite events – including our top ten  album releases…

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Normally, each year has an album that’s a clear stand out. Making that distinction this time around has been somewhat trickier, so we’re awarding a joint “album of the year” to two very different albums. If that seems like a cop-out, we don’t care…there really was only a hair’s breadth between them.

Drum roll…

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Listen: Dancing Robots & Punk Rock Angels – A Real Gone Playlist for 2018

Previously at this point in December, it has become the custom for Real Gone to issue a free download containing some of the best underground tracks of the year.  For the past seven or eight years, these downloads have been a popular fixture on the Real Gone calendar, turning people on to all kinds of artists.

With the changing times, we regret to say the era of the free sampler has come to an end.  It seems that people much prefer streaming and with that in mind, we’ve made the decision to highlight some of our favourite tunes in an eighty minute playlist.

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Watch ‘Blue Rose’, the new video from Awooga

You don’t necessarily have to take our word for it, but Awooga’s new album ‘Conduit’ is one of the best albums of 2018 so far. In alt-metal terms it’s got everything: huge riffs, the kind of space-filling sound that’s rarely been heard outside of A Perfect Circle’s ‘Mer De Noms’ and the Smashing Pumpkins‘ ‘Siamese Dream’ and a sense of atmosphere to back up the heaviness.

The album’s trippiest offering ‘Blue Rose’ now has a new music video, which you can stream in full below.

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Listen: Real Gone’s New Release Round-Up, January-March 2018

We’ve always aimed to bring an eclectic coverage of music at Real Gone.  We’ve always insisted on mixing genres and covering bigger bands we love alongside some really underground DIY releases.

Since the site launched in November 2009, there’s been a lot of music to get excited about, but the first quarter of 2018 could be one of the most enjoyable yet.

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AWOOGA – Conduit

Creating a hybrid metal-based sound of doom, grunge, sludge and progressive metal, Awooga floored at least half of the competition with their debut EP ‘Alpha’. Taking cues from Deftones, Tool and Amplifier, the band created a sound that went far beyond being just a composite of its influences; a brilliant technical ability and a melodic vocal often contrasting the heaviness made it very compelling listening.

Approximately eighteen months on, the Sheffield-based riff-meisters have created something rather special in their first full length album. ‘Conduit’ takes everything that was great about the EP and refines it and improves upon it, but without any temptation to make it more commercial. The production is amazing; the songs – if indeed they are songs as opposed to a collection of amazing riffs with a vocal weaving in and out – each showcase a band who’ve really taken their time in making sure everything is almost perfect. And it shows: there’s barely a note out of place , and with the album clocking in at an old fashioned forty minute running time, there’s been no temptation to waste a second of it.

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