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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.

When Joey Tempest - still when Rolf Magnus Joakim Larsson - and guitarist John Terry Norum founded Force in 1979, from which Europe emerged, they dreamed of producing music at some point that could compete with their role models UFO, Deep Purple, Rainbow, Led Zeppelin and Thin Lizzy. They had to travel a great distance to reach this goal. On the way there, after the monster hit "The Final Countdown" from the third album released in 1986, a rift broke out.

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". From the wool Kriwanek Band, to which he belonged for years, Vincent Rocks developed after Kriwanek's death in 2003. Paul Vincent has now presented the four CD box "L.O.V.E." under his own name.

eclipsed: What does the title "L.O.V.E." refer to?

"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. The third studio work "Spirit On A Mission", like its predecessor "Bride The Gap" (2013), was written in Münster, Westphalia.

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. And so it is hardly surprising that the 54-year-old is not part of the recently started tour of the new band The Gentle Storm, put together around front woman Anneke van Giersbergen. Also the performance at the "Night Of The Prog"-Festival will take place without Lucassen.

eclipsed: Although you are known to be reluctant to tour, you are now playing live again. How's that?

STEVE HACKETT - The Wheel's Turning (7:23)
Album: Wolflight (2015)
Label/Distribution: InsideOut/Universal
www.hackettsongs.com

Once again the master guitarist and composer takes us on an eventful journey through different countries and epochs, which will not be forgotten so quickly. It is almost a miracle that the former Genesis string acrobat never copies himself and yet always remains himself.

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. Three studio albums followed, which from a commercial point of view couldn't reach the beginning, but are considered absolute insider tips of the genre. In 2010 Reed went his own way again, and Paul Mackie joined them. Pallas recorded two records with him, most recently "wearewhoweare". 2015 the band consists of the three original members Ronnie Brown (keyboards), Niall Mathewson (guitar) and Graeme Murray (bass) as well as Fraser and Mackie.

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.