Four years ago, the eruption of an Icelandic volcano had caused Sera Timms, singer and bassist of the Californian psychedelic sludge band Black Math Horseman, to land at Los Angeles airport with band merchandiser Jason Bennett. During the days of the forced break they wrote songs together and a little later the band Ides Of Gemini.

Let's take the conclusion straight away: "Sloe Gin" (2007), "The Ballad Of John Henry" (2009) and "Driving Towards The Daylight" (2012) remain untouched as Bonamassa reference works of "Different Shades Of Blue".

"March Of Progress", the title of the last Threshold album, proves to be a bit exaggerated in retrospect. The British are stagnating at a high level even with "For The Journey", without being able to reach the class of their first two 2000 works "Hypothetical" and "Critical Mass".

Voodoo is said to have been practiced in the backwoods village of Korpilombolo in the far north-east of Sweden. If it's true, we can't say. But at least this would be a clever marketing trick that the Gothenburg-based band, which claims to come from there, supports by wearing masks and costumes at concerts. And their absolutely crazy mixture of Fusion, Afrobeat, Hard- and Acid-Rock, which could be called Experimental Fusion, is indeed musical Voodoo.

Trans Am have existed for almost three decades now. At first they moved in the environment of hardcore and math rock, then they became more electronic, oriented to Aphex Twin, until they became one of the leading post rock bands beyond Chicago.

The temperature's rising. Not immeasurable, but "Temperature Rising" is definitely one of the best albums of British blues rock so far. For some it may even be on a quality level with his 2007 "Just As I Am". Powerful it goes immediately with "Best Of Me" into the full. Bryant can immediately make clear what a brilliant and virtuoso guitarist he is.

Full-time boss of Dinosaur Jr., guitarist and singer J. Mascis is considered a roughneck, but on his solo records he always shows surprisingly soft sides. But he has never been as poetic and dreamy as on "Tied To A Star". The record is reminiscent of Neil Young's countryesque albums from the early to mid seventies like "Comes A Time" or "Harvest".

After a three-year break, "Love Of Cartography" is the band's most recent studio work, in which Nick DiDia (Karnivool, Pearl Jam) sat in the producer's chair and made sure that the relationship between bombast passages, electronica elements and gentle ambient trips was right.