Ian Boddy is a venerable e-music veteran, so it's fitting and proper that Box of Secrets, the debut release on his DiN label, is one of his best - even one of the best CDs of this style and genre. With a reputation for creating cutting-edge European electronica, Boddy weaves deep atmospheres and metallic textures to create futuristic space music. This auspicious adventure lends itself to active listening, and the sound design incorporates an intellectual approach within a flexible structure. That allows Boddy to use free-flowing atmospheres and tight sequences to create an essential CD.

Both of Young Flowers' studio albums (1968's Blomsterpistolen and 1969's No. 2) are included in their entirety on this two-CD compilation, which also has a 1967 non-LP single and the three songs they contributed to the 1970 Quiet Days in Clichy soundtrack, as well as three live September 1969 recordings. With English-language liner notes, it's the definite collection of this Danish psychedelic group. As the back cover points out, they were "the first Danish hippy band, the first home-grown rock band to sing in Danish (though the majority of their recordings were in English), and the first to play the States." These are substantial achievements, so it makes a reviewer feel like a party pooper to point out that in many respects, they were a run-of-the-mill late-'60s act. Their debts to Jimi Hendrix and Cream, in both the song structures and the guitar distortion…

History has proven that when the world is in flames, it ignites the empathetic artists to siren their words, music, and rhythm, to blanket our society’s fury and nurse scorched souls. The seemingly endless years of pandemic lockdown and social distancing, coupled with the turbulent plague of civil unrest and racial injustice, called on Vintage Trouble to step into their battle wear. Like so often before, they have spun records to drop onto the fighting grounds, with the intent to freeze the frame long enough to momentarily halt the warring world. And while at ease, we can freely choose to think before we strike or decide to retreat, rather than thoughtlessly charge into repeating history. This collection of heavy hymns is from the heart, and it provides a necessary rise to our ever reckoning.

Ian Gillan's final solo outing before his second comeback with Deep Purple is possibly the singer's most rocking solo collection. Originally a European release, Toolbox finally appeared in North American record stores in 1997. The disc is hampered by its '80s production (complete with faux-Van Halen guitar licks and big reverb drum sounds) but Gillan's personality and dynamic performances preserve Toolbox's sharp rock & roll edge. Tracks like "Candy Horizon" and "Don't Hold Me Back" have more than their share of questionable lyrics, but Gillan's trademark screams easily overshadow any poetic shortcomings. Nothing can compare to the classic recordings Gillan was involved with in the early '70s, but among his second-tier offerings, Toolbox is definitely one of the best.

This delightfully wide-ranging jazz quintet album from Kenny Barron opens with a delicate reading of Washington and Carmichael’s “The Nearness of You” and closes with a brisk sax and piano duet cover of Thelonious Monk’s “We See”. There is a nod to the Jazz Messengers with drummer Jonathan Blake’s composition “Blues on Stratford Road”, and drums and piano rampage through an unusually taut duet version of “Softly as in a Morning Sunrise”.
But the body of the album, and indeed its subtle emotional range, comes from the five Barron originals that span the breadth of the pianist’s 50-plus-year career. “Sunset”, released on Muse in 1973, was the first track on Barron’s debut solo album Sunset to Dawn. Back then it was interpreted through swirls of resonant Fender Rhodes, but here an acoustic band get to the essence of the tune’s prowling melody and sinuous left-hand groove…

2006 reissue with 4 previously unreleased bonus tracks.
High Tide's self-titled second album from 1970 continues the great jamming heavy prog rock tradition that they initiated with Sea Shanties from 1969.
"High Tide" grafts violin (courtesy of future Hawkwind and Third Ear Band member Simon House), alongside little touches of organ, piano and more acoustic guitar flavours this time around, and the LP offers fleeting moments of folk, raga-rock and acid elements woven to the relentless mud-thick sludgy guitars.

Recorded live on May 21, 1994 at the Breminale Blues Nights festival in Bremen, Germany, a treasure of an album from a man who spent over half a century in an urban hipster’s world of jump and jive. Floyd passed away in 1995 at the age of 80, but fortunately we have this live date to celebrate his long life in music. For Floyd that journey included playing the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair, pop success in the 1940s and ’50s with the Four Blazes, an extended run with the Ink Spots in the ’90s, and a blossoming solo career that includes his first album as a leader, Let Your Hair Down. His whiskey-smooth vocals and Charlie Christian/T-Bone Walker-influenced guitar work are in fine form here. This was Floyd’s last recording, but through it his music goes on.

Another leap in musical sophistication made Yello's second album another high point in the development of synth pop. The future of Euro-disco and dance-pop are easily audible from the opening "Daily Disco" and other tracks like "Pinball Cha Cha," "The Evening's Young," and "Cuad el Habib." Though Claro Que Si is slightly more pop-oriented than the group's debut, with Boris Blank's electronics just as innovative and obtuse as before, that's hardly a step backward.

666 (subtitled The Apocalypse of John, 13/18) is the third and final studio album and only double album by Greek progressive rock band Aphrodite's Child, released in June 1972 by Vertigo Records. An ambitious double-LP concept album, ostensibly an adaptation of Biblical passages from the Book of Revelation, 666 was composed by keyboardist Vangelis and lyricist Costas Ferris. Conflict within the band and with their record company over the album's uncommercial style led to its release being delayed for more than a year. Though it was eventually released to a lukewarm critical and commercial reception, it later attracted a cult following among fans and musicians and became the group's most acclaimed project. It has appeared on various lists of the greatest progressive rock albums of all time.

Japanese edition with bonus track.
In the new somber group, Cemetery Skyline, Markus Vanhala (Insomnium, Omnium Gatherum) is joined by keyboardist Santeri Kallio (Amorphis), drummer Vesa Ranta (Sentenced, The Abbey), bassist Victor Brandt (Dimmu Borgir and many more) and singer Mikael Stanne (Dark Tranquillity, The Halo Effect).
"We all share a deep love for goth rock from the 80s and 90s - whether it's more synth-driven or heavier guitar-dominated stuff. You know the deal with the best bands from The Sisters of Mercy to Type O Negative", says Santeri Kallio, who shares songwriting duties with Vanhala…