Tag Archives: sunstorm

The Real Gone End of Year Round-Up 2024

Posted on by

 

It’s been another great year at Real Gone. We’ve reviewed countless albums and EPs. We’ve covered a record number of gigs (with Simple Minds and Deacon Blue being particular standouts), and gained support from a wealth of new labels and PR teams. It’s also been the first full year online for our popular Singles Bar – allowing us to take a look at various individual tracks and submissions – which has provided a massive extra stream of traffic.

It’s been a superb twelve months for music, and it’s time to shine a light on the many talents we feel have helped to make our site interesting. We’ve featured a wealth of new stuff. As usual, rock has provided the backbone of Real Gone’s musical interests, but we’ve really gone all out to try and promote some of the most interesting things from other genres, which has made picking favourites a little harder this year.

Continue reading →

SUNSTORM – Restless Fight

Posted on by

When Joe Lynn Turner left Sunstorm it was truly the end of an era. The arrival of the always busy Ronnie Romero allowed the band to explore a harder sound on 2021’s ‘Afterlife’ and 2022’s ‘Brothers In Arms’, but they essentially sounded like a different band. They were still capable of enjoyable tunes, but for those who’d enjoyed hearing Joe belt out classic AOR tunes like ‘Gina’ (originally recorded by Michael Bolton before he turned his back on rock music in favour of an easy listening crowd) and ‘You Wouldn’t Know Love’ (a staple from Cher’s rock period), the “new” Sunstorm might not have always hit the mark.

The band’s eighth studio album ‘Restless Fight’ could easily have had its name inspired by Sunstorm’s inner turmoil. The only musician on this record to have appeared on a prior Sunstorm disc is Romero – the golden boy of the Frontiers Records stable – who with three years loyal service can now consider himself a Sunstorm veteran. Everyone else has been a member of this band since 2023. The record label obviously considers the Sunstorm name to be of some bankable value, even if, on paper, this seems a little too close to “Rod Evans’ New Deep Purple” for comfort. Moving on from any quibbles as to how this could possibly be anything more than another Ronnie Romero album, on its own terms, most of ‘Restless Fight’ is actually great. Far better than it had any real right to be.

Continue reading →

GOTUS – Gotus

Posted on by

Gotus? In terms of band names, that’s pretty ugly. It certainly isn’t terrible – that would be reserved for the likes of Smoking Gives You Big Tits, Dohny Jepp, and Fuck Yeah Dinosaurs, all of which not only have the misfortune to exist, but also the distinction of somehow being better than anything else those bands could come up with – but it certainly doesn’t inspire. It was chosen with solid reasoning, however: it’s a portmanteau designed to advertise the fact that this European supergroup features members of Gotthard and Krokus. That should be enough alone to secure the melodic rockers a decent audience, but in many ways, the biggest draw here is their choice of vocalist.

Continue reading →

RONNIE ROMERO – Raised On Heavy Radio

Posted on by

For his first solo album, Chilean vocalist Ronnie Romero took the easy route and put together a covers album. To be fair, it’s not like he had anything to prove; in the year before its recording, he’d already recorded well-received albums with both Lords of Black and The Ferrymen. He wasn’t about to spend much time coasting along recycling other peoples’ classic rock works either, since he then released an album with his other band Sunstorm, which hit the shelves barely four months later.

Continue reading →

SUNSTORM – Brothers In Arms

Posted on by

When the legendary vocalist Joe Lynn Turner stepped away from Sunstorm in 2020, it could have been the end of the line for the much loved melodic rock band. After all, his departure not only left them without their distinctive voice, it also led to a band with no original members. In addition, Joe was the reason why most people loved Sunstorm in the first place. For these reasons, for Sunstorm to continue seemed like a strange decision. However, they battled on, thinking that Sunstorm name would be enough alone to shift a few units.

After securing the talented but busy Ronnie Romero in 2021, the band secured not only another top drawer singer – capable of tackling a broad range of styles – but also someone who’d technically filled Joe’s shoes when Ritchie Blackmore decided to revive the Rainbow moniker. On paper, Ron was perfect for the Sunstorm job. Since they were attempting to replace the irreplaceable, the reality could have been different, but between some well written songs and Romero in great form, the new-look Sunstorm’s ‘Afterlife’ was a solid affair, regardless of whatever band name happened to be on the box. It was certainly good enough to suggest that Sunstorm had a future without Turner.

Continue reading →