Category: All Exclusive

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I’ve never been much for the singer/songwriter genre, male or female. It’s often too introspective and eclectic fare, both lyrically and musically. So here’s Xenia Dunford, a transplant, or better an Eastern exile, to California from Boston. She offers five of her songs on her EP Lonely Streets.

It’s rather light fare, with Dunford leading with vocals and electric piano. It’s quiet, too. I’ve spun it twice, and almost fell asleep both times. Even the country liveliness of Best I’ve Ever Had couldn’t rouse me like a 5-hour energy drinks. Frankly, the songs are also rather melancholy, almost depressing. I’m not so sure if it’s the texture of the music or the lyrics, or both.

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Gentlemen of Distorted Sound claim to play groove-laden hard rock, and for once a band’s self-description provides a fairly accurate summary of the bands output. The five songs on this EP all have a reasonable groove and could be described as rock of the hard variety. They’ve got an amusing mascot in the form of a skull with a native American head dress who is also sports a monocle and cigarette holder; and provided you don’t try and take the band too seriously, this is a pleasant and varied listening experience.

The band can all play, which is always an encouraging start. There’s a solid rhythm section which locks down an effortless groove and keeps things chugging along nicely, a smattering of guitar heroics, and Gareth Nugent’s vocals offer a decent blues howl with plenty of power in the upper registers. They’re tight but not mechanical and the whole thing has a Black Sabbath-style swing to it which keeps the classic rock vibe going throughout.

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To get an idea of Ash Gray and the Girls sound on their debut disc, Born in the Summer, one could simply consider the cover art and the album title. The former echoes the art of the late Sixties, and the latter refers to 1967, ‘the summer of love,’ when Haight-Ashbury became the center of the Hippie universe.

If that’s not enough, here’s a third clue: Ash Gray covers ‘Bus Stop,’ The Hollies hit from 1966. It’s symbolic of his influences, having grown up in the UK and weaned his parent’s Sixties record collection.Born in the Summer is rich with the folk to psychedelic styles that permeated the music scene of the counter-cultural revolution. Measures of Eastern intrigue fill many songs thanks to the presence of a Sitar. Where ‘the Girls’ come in is as his harmony vocal support for Ash Gray.

Band V/A
Info: Multinational
Info: Love Never Dies (2CD)
Style: Musical/Classical
Years: 2010
Info: Lossless (FLAC, tracks+.cue, scans)/MP3 CBR 320 kbps
Info: 356 ?b+306 ?b/163 ?b+153 ?b

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This Journey is a rather appropriate name for Chris Klimecky’s third solo album. His life and musical adventure has taken him from Michigan to Seattle, from Eighties Van Halen to his own melodic prog rock band, Jester’s Crown, to his current modern melodic rock. Klimecky suggest that this is sound he had in his head for the last 20 years. Humorously, he describes This Journey as ‘modern rock with heart like Switchfoot or Foo Fighters without the screaming.’ More significant is the simple fact that Klimecky played every instrument and produced this album.

Honestly, from the first spin or two, I found This Journey unconvincing, interesting and sometimes entertaining, but not wholly convinced that I liked it. Yet it did grow on me. The fundamental reason is likely that Klimecky is strong composer creating well-crafted melodic rock songs. There’s a brisk freshness to his sound, and largely, to these ears, it comes from the strength of his melodic guitar riffs and leads.

Band Ian Gillan Band
Info: UK
Info: Rarities 1975 -1977
Style: Fusion Rock/Hard Rock
Years: 2003
Info: Lossless, FLAC (image+.cue, scans)/MP3 CBR 320 kbps
Rip By: dmvitaly32 (lossless)
Info: 540 Mb/185 Mb

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Though I don’t quite get their name, I do get Hideweaver’s metal. Being from Italy, it’s not to difficult to guess, as your top choices seem to be power metal, melodic hard rock, or sleaze glam rock. Hideweaver and their debut album Silver Bullet is firmly in the first camp of melodic, heavy, and power metal. Honestly, they’re pretty good, and this is a decent album for European power metal.

Essentially, because this is typical Euro-power metal, I could stop with those thoughts, and with the score above, call it a day and you’d probably have enough information. Yet that seems a bit reductionistic, if not unfair. And considering my usual verbosity, you’re might think I’m slipping or sick.

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Modern day AC/DC combined with ZZ Top making a foot stompin, fat sound, finger snapping, groove that brings the talent back to Rock N Roll. Great Drums, Guitar and Keyboards and spicy lyrics.”In Shades Of Legend” A band that expresses supreme respect and gratitude for all the the great artists of the past and present. Our words alone could not do that. So we made this debut self tittled album with In Shades Of Legend as our first song to help us say THANK YOU to all. The rest is just Rock N Roll.

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Amanda Lepre’s debut full-length album is of heroism, inspiration, and despair. Her appreciation for the stories and composition in video games is threaded into songs like “Undying Hero” (Final Fantasy 6) and “The Gift” (Actraiser), while others are of classic literature – most notably, The Inferno by Dante Alighieri. Her own journey in their quilted creation is chronicled throughout; the songwriting in Beneath the Forest of Error spans over a decade.

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“Telling people our vision of this world, that’s what we always wanted to do… this album is an indissoluble fusion of lyrics and music, it’s a journey through beautiful and bad things that surround us every day!” – Fabio Dessi (Fabian).

Golden Sextion is a hard rock band founded in Modena in 2007 by Faust and Loose: their aim is to create modern and sophisticated songs, trying to merge at best their influences to impress the audience and to gain more and more fans!

The line-up stabilized in 2009, and consists of Fabio Dessi (Fabian) on vocals, Fausto Giovannini (Faust) on bass, Andrea Lusenti (Loose) on guitars and Gianvittorio Vandelli(Jean) on drums: the guys quickly obtain approval and support from a growing fan base, and decide together to enter the studio to record their first album, “The Silicon Age”.