That's what every band secretly dreams of: to add quality to every new album. The Swedish Europeans - apart from a small drop-out shortly after the reunion - have taken exactly this direction: further upwards. Europes frontman Joey Tempest takes our congratulations to the tenth album "War Of Kings" calmly and sees still air upwards.
It doesn't happen that often that you insert a CD and leave everything you're busy with lying around. Ryley Walker's "Primrose Green" is a candidate for such a loss of control, because such an album has not existed for a long time. It builds from old virtues of free improvisation a completely new variant of folk. But the young singer-songwriter from Chicago also has both feet on the ground in very different traditions.
Paul Vincent is a German rock rock. Active since the sixties, he has moved from early involvement in beat bands (Park Lane) and psychedelic bands (Missus Beastly) to professional work as a studio musician. Through contacts to Keith Forsey, Klaus Doldinger and Olaf Kübler, he was quickly integrated into the music scenes of Munich and Hamburg and was a member of Udo Lindenberg's Panic Orchestra from 1975 to 1980. After that he played Meat Loaf's "Bad Attitude" and Freddie Mercury's "Mr. Bad Guy".
"The band will soon be able to stand on their own two feet," Michael Schenker muses. Temple Of Rock is not only the name of his group, it was also the name of the album with which the 60-year-old guitarist opened a new chapter in 2011. A permanent band with singer Doogie White, guitarist/keyboarder Wayne Findlay and the former Scorpions rhythm team, drummer Herman Rarebell and bassist Francis Buchholz, has crystallized out of this. The main singer of the debut, Michael Voss (MadMax), holds the reins as producer.
Arjen Lucassen is jittery. Highly nervous. It is the beginning of February, and the slag from the Dutch town of Oudenbosch is currently preparing for some acoustic concerts that will soon take him across Europe together with singer Anneke van Giersbergen. Over eight years have passed since his last gigs with Stream Of Passion, and those who know Lucassen know how unpleasant, almost painful such undertakings are for him.
STEVE HACKETT - The Wheel's Turning (7:23)
Album: Wolflight (2015)
Label/Distribution: InsideOut/Universal
When the Scottish neoprog band Pallas was launched in 1980, nobody suspected that four years later they would create a work for eternity with their debut "The Sentinel". With Marillion and IQ she belonged to the spearhead of this genre. Their concerts were and are a truly pompous pleasure for the senses. But their winning streak was short-lived. When the singer Euan Lowson left the band in 1986, it was over at first. Not until 1999 did Pallas reappear, with Alan Reed on the mic and Colin Fraser on the drums.
![LED ZEPPELIN - The last flight of the Zeppelin: the history of "Physical Graffiti](https://www.eclipsed.de/sites/default/files/field/image/Led%20Zeppelin%20Neal%20Preston%20web.jpg "LED ZEPPELIN - The last flight of the Zeppelin: the history of "Physical Graffiti")
In the mid-seventies Led Zeppelin had reached their second artistic zenith and documented this in a unique way with "Physical Graffiti", the band's only double album. Until today it is Robert Plant's favourite record with the group, probably also because the formation before and after has never been more expressive and multi-faceted. Released on February 24, 1975, "Physical Graffiti" was the first record in rock history to achieve platinum status through pre-orders alone.
A normal band will never become from the once rock'n'roll lifestyle shaken UFO probably. But since the US guitar witch Vinnie Moore joined the band in 2003, the English hard rock rocks have been on a consolidation course. The latest album "A Conspiracy Of Stars" is further proof of this.
Eight years after his comeback, the man who was once Cat Stevens has returned with the edgy album "Tell 'Em I'm Gone", indulging in blues, R&B and folk rock. The 66 year old Englishman with Greek and Swedish roots wants this to be understood as a homage to the music of his youth.
