Tuesday 14th February 2012

Rock Candy will be releasing the long awaited reissues of Roadmaster's 'Sweet Music', 'Hey World' and 'Fortress' albums on 27th March. All three albums will be released officially on CD for the first time. Also reissued on the same day will be Dakota's self-titled debut album and the follow up 'Runaway' release.

Rock Candy have also announced on their official website that an off-shoot label, Hard Rock Candy, has been established to concentrate on the reissue of 'proto-metal' product. To this end, the first trio of releases on the new imprint will likely include Stepson's 'Stepson', Diamond REO's 'Dirty Diamonds' and Captain Beyond's self-titled release.

Meanwhile, AOR Heaven's reissues in the Classix series continues with Bricklin's 'Bricklin' album (featuring 3 bonus tracks) and Airkraft's 'In The Red' (plus 2 bonus tracks)  in March. The Bricklin album was originally released on A&M Records in 1986. Produced by Neil Dorfsman, the record offered a delightful combination of pop and melodic rock. Formed from the ashes of the Philadelphia pop rock outfit The Schoolboys, the group was led by Scott and Brian Bricklin who, along with fellow band member Jake Meyer, later recorded two albums under the Martin's Dam moniker in the mid 90s. Airkraft were formed in Winsconsin back in 1982 and 'In The Red', originally released by Curb Records in 1990, was their fourth album and found particular favour with European melodic rock fans, especially after extremely favourable reviews published in the likes of 'Kerrang!' and 'Boulevard' magazines.

Thursday 9th February 2012

The latest releases in the AOR Heaven Classix series have just been issued. Marc Jordan's 'A Hole In The Wall' (originally released in Japan back in 1982) and Cannata's 1988 release 'Images Of Forever' have both been given the Classix treatment with remastering from Chris Lyne. The Marc Jordan release features two bonus tracks in 'Holding Up The Sky' and 'Soldier Of Fortune', both tracks written in the aftermath of 'A Hole In The Wall' during the period Marc was writing new material in order to gain a new recording deal in North America. The Cannata album comes hot on the heels of Jeff Cannata's self-released and newly remastered version of his classic 1983 self-titled Arc Angel album. The new version adds a bonus track in the form of a cover of King Crimson's 'The Court Of The Crimson King'.

Wounded Bird are set to reissue Yes guitarist Steve Howe's 1975 solo album 'Beginnings' on 21st February. They are also releasing Japanese metal outfit Loudness' 'Lightning Strikes'  with the tracks from 1991's six track mini album 'Loud N' Rare' as bonus material.

Cleopatra Records will be releasing a 2CD Axe anthology, titled - yup - 'Axeology: 1979-2001' on 14th February.  The track-listing is as follows:-:

Disc One: 'Life's Just An Illusion'; 'Hang On'; 'Sympathize'; 'Forever'; 'Back On The Streets'; 'Battles'; 'Living On The Edge'; 'Fantasy Of Love'; 'First Time, Last Time'; 'Carry On'; 'Running The Gauntlet'; 'For A Little While'; 'Rock 'N' Roll Party In The Streets'; 'Steal Another Fantasy'; 'Jennifer'; 'Burn The City Down'; 'Now Or Never'; 'Holdin' On'; 'Silent Soldiers'; 'Bad Sometimes'.

Disc Two: 'Heat In The Streets'; 'Young Hearts'; 'All Through The Night'; 'Eagle Flies Alone'; 'Let The Music Come Back'; 'Masquerade'; 'Magic (In Our Eyes)'; 'Heroes And Legends'; 'Burn Me Once Burn Me Twice'; 'Where There's Smoke, There's Fire'; 'Any Place On This Highway (Is Home)'; 'Crown'; 'Good Times'; 'Torturous Game'; 'Foolish Deception'; 'No Heroes'.

Our Lady Peace return to action on 3rd April with the release of new album 'Curve' through Coalition Entertainment. The record was produced by Jason Lader and OLP's frontman Raine Maida.

Wednesday 1st February 2012

AOR Heaven have announced the signing of former Tokyo and Craaft man Klaus Luley to the label. Klaus has put together a band, Luley, that consists of former LeeZ, Silver and Michael Schenker cohort Matthias Rethmann on bass and Chris Elbers (who has previously played with Gary Barden) on drums. Luley's debut album, produced by Michael Voss (Mad Max), will be released early in the summer.  The label will also be releasing a new album from Bangalore Choir, titled 'Metaphor', currently being completed by the David Reece fronted band.
 
Tuesday 31st January 2012

Yesterrock will be reissuing 'Take The Money And Run' from Midnight Blue on 3rd February. Midnight Blue were a short-lived, though nonetheless notable British melodic rock band, that featured a line-up comprising a few names sure to be familiar to many readers and included vocalist Doogie White, guitarist Alex Dickson, keyboard player Jem Davis, bassist Niall Canning and drummer Eddie Fincher.  The album was originally released through the Japanese based Zero label in 1994

Monday 30th January 2012

The line-up for this year's Firefest has now been announced. Taking place at Rock City in Nottingham between Friday 19th October and Sunday 21st October, the event will kick off with a Friday bill consisting of Tyketto, Ten, Dante Fox and Lionville. Saturday's line-up has been confirmed to feature the following acts:
Gotthard, Mitch Malloy, XYZ, Santers, Robin Beck, Work Of Art and Johnny Lima. Sunday's bill will comprise: Danger Danger, Stage Dolls, Lillian Axe, Brighton Rock, Royal Hunt, Fiona  and Far Cry. For more details please visit www.thefirefest.com.
 

Friday 27th January 2012

Yesterrock will be releasing the third release in their reissue of the Tokyo back catalogue when 'San' hits the stores on 3rd February. This follows the label's release of the band's self-titled debut and 'Fasten Seat Belts' late last year. As with those earlier releases, 'San' will feature bonus material; in this instance the bonus tracks include ‘Diana’, ‘You’re A Liar’, ‘See You Again’ and ‘Ocean Of Love’. All were originally recorded during the 80’s and had been archived as demos. They are previously unreleased. In between 1995 and 2004 guitarist Robby Musenbichler reproduced these songs. Another bonus track, ‘Too High’, is a newly recorded version of a track that also forms part of the original album that Robby has updated with a fresh sound. The release of 'San' concludes Yesterrock's reissue series of the Austro-German group's albums that was augmented by the release of a remastered edition of Robby Musenbichler's post Tokyo project Jojo. As with the Tokyo albums, the self-titled Jojo release featured a wealth of bonus material.

Rock Candy has announced that four new reissues will be released on 13th February. This latest batch features Praying Mantis' 'Time Tells No Lies', Grand Prix's 'Samurai', Candy's 'Whatever Happened To Fun...' and the self-titled debut from Sheriff. The latter release will include the added extra of the rare live promotional album 'Live At El Mocambo' as bonus material. Stay tuned for further new release announcements from the RC stable!

The recent, fifth edition of 'Classic Rock Presents: AOR' is still on sale, priced at £7.99 in the UK, featuring cover stars Mötley Crüe who talked exclusively to the magazine ahead of their UK tour with Def Leppard and Steel Panther, major features on Sebastian Bach, Issa, David Crosby, Y&T, Shy, Lindsey Buckingham, Tokyo, Doogie White, Davy Vain, Le Roux, Starship and a six-page review of Firefest. There's the usual album and live review sections. There's also a 15-track free CD, titled 'AORmania', featuring all-new tracks from Houston, Fiona, Grand Illusion, Fate, Reckless Love, Mecca and more.

Incidentally, the sixth edition of the magazine is due for publication at the end of February and that's set to be jam packed full of all the regular features that readers have come to expect plus plenty of exclusive new interviews with AOR and melodic rock artists from around the globe. Don't miss it!

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