Heavy Star – Electric Overdrive (CD)

If you were brought up on the 80s melodic, sleazy hard rock with bands like Ratt and Cinderella, you should definitely check out Italian band Heavy Star. I’m definitely more of a seventies guy with riffs and a bluesy vibe as my preference, as I’m sure most of you know by now. I however must say Heavy Star do a great job bringing back the vibe of the era of big hair and spandex. Guitarist Marco “K-Ace” is a shredder with the right attitude and sound and singer Albert Fish does have a touch of Steven Pearcy meets Tom Kiefer. I don’t think it’s a coincidence the band is on the notorious glam, sleaze and melodic rock label Perris Records. These guys will fit in perfectly in the labels roster and if you like the other releases of Perris Records, no need to hesitate!

Janne Stark

Label: Perris Records

Year: 2016

Country: Italy

RED MORRIS – Lady Rose (CD)

With so many great productions being released every day, average is not enough. Unfortunately stuff like this drowns in the flood of high quality releases being released every day. Releasing a memorable and great instrumental album, is even more difficult. It has to be top notch musicianship, killer sound, no programmed drums and simply, and most importantly – great songs. The opening track Golden Angel starts with quite horrible and simple drums. The melody is simple, but not really interesting and it doesn’t really give me anything. The title track is just more of the same. Very amateurish guitar work and childishly simple melodies, which could, maybe, have been accepted in the 70s (but without sounding 70s), but would even have been below par back then. Mystery is just more of the same, and it really makes me feel this is really a waste of natural resources. There is no refinement whatsoever and it sounds like some beginner’s first project. This is just bad. Sorry.

Janne Stark

Label: self-released

Year: 2015

Country: Italy

JOHN DALLAS – Wild Life (CD)

I’ve given this album a few spins, but John Dallas just doesn’t manage to rock my world. He’s not bad, but it just doesn’t do anything for me. The opening track Under Control is quite generic melodic, poppy rock and it shows quite clearly John has an ok, but quite average voice. Heaven Is is slightly heavier, but here it’s also quite evident the production is not really up to par. Falling is so heavy compressed the song even sighs when the drums start pounding. This, to me sounds like a decent demo at best. Average performance, average songs and average production.

Janne Stark

Country: Italy

Year: 2015

Label: Street Symphonies