Listen: Carter USM legend Jim Bob shares new 30 second single!

“Not a day without a murder / Not a week without a bomb” proclaims Jim Bob, somewhere near the peak of his new single. A burst of punk rock anger shows the one-time Carter USM frontman in a particularly angry mood. …And rightly so, since the world seemed to be falling apart as we all hurtled into the new year, unaware that things were in fact about to get worse.

Continue reading

The Great 80s Project: 1981

For a lot of people, 1981 is a year where the 1980s really found its feet.  It’s a year where fewer things carry a feel of the 70s; it’s a year where the New Romantics and the new wave of synth pop stars dominated the charts.  As well as being a solid year for pop, 1981 also found the New Wave of British Heavy Metal reaching its crescendo.

Continue reading

ZERO FIRE – The Attic Sessions EP

Canadian metal band Zero Fire’s second EP ‘Second Sun’ was packed with great riffs. By creating a brand of melodic metalcore that also included nods to groove metal and contrasted its heaviness with use of clean vocals, it managed to be very broad in appeal. A year on, ‘The Attic Sessions’ offers fans and newcomers a couple of live recordings that demonstrate both extremes of the band’s sound. While a new studio recording would have been preferable – and a full length album better still – this EP has the benefit of giving a premier to a pair of previously unrecorded tracks.

Continue reading

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.

Continue reading

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.

Continue reading