'80s metal luminaries The Rods are back with Wild Dogs Unchained, a new album that combines reimagined classics from their past with masterfully crafted new songs.
Hooks, grooves, crafty, formidable, and rebellious are songwriting attributes that The Rods gladly embrace. On Wild Dogs Unchained, the veteran power trio continues their famed aural assault with songs like “Eyes of a Dreamer” and “Tears for the Innocent,” revealing heretofore unrealized musical melodicism, while re-tooled classics, “Hurricane” and “Wild Dogs Unchained,” percolate with renewed vigor. On Wild Dogs Unchained, the playing is harder, the grooving is heavier, and the singing more soulful than ever before. David “Rock” Feinstein (guitar/vocals), Freddy Villano (bass), and Carl Canedy (drums) have crafted a definitive Rods album aimed at pleasing die-hard fans and new audiences alike…

For folks younger than, say, the average member of Gen X, the dismissive hostility that their elders have displayed over the years toward Phil Collins must be somewhat confusing. Sure, he was the guy who had a raft of very '80s-sounding pop hits and was responsible for the Tarzan soundtrack, but his prog-rock bona fides (not just in Genesis, but with Brian Eno and many many others) and his chops as a drummer (he's responsible for the most iconic drum break of the last 40 years)—make it easier to see his pop records as part of a broad spectrum over the decades. But that's what retrospective analysis gets you.

To mark the 30th anniversary of "Voices & Images", the album now earns a repackaged, limited edition reissue featuring deleted remixes, rare versions and B-sides.
When it was played on modern rock radio stations in 1988, Camouflage had everybody duped with "The Great Commandment." With its chilly synths, robotic percussion, and gloomy vocals, the song was a Depeche Mode doppelganger. Similarly, Camouflage's debut album Voices & Images is the sound of young men who couldn't stop playing Depeche Mode's Black Celebration in their tape decks. However, they are somewhat talented plagiarists. The icy, computerized rhythms in the anti-racism track "Neighbours" and "Helpless Helpless" have toe-tapping appeal, and "Winner Takes Nothing" regurgitates Duran Duran as new romantic cyborgs…

The Tedeschi Trucks Band and Leon Russell's Mad Dogs & Englishmen Revisited pays tribute to the iconic 1970 collaboration led by Joe Cocker and Leon Russell. In 2015, TTB, fronted by Derek Trucks and Susan Tedeschi, revived the historic event at LOCKN' Festival. Featuring original Mad Dogs members and guest stars like Chris Robinson and Warren Haynes, the concert combined Southern soul, blues, and rock with a 20+ musician ensemble. TTB's fresh, dynamic rendition of classics like "The Letter" and "With a Little Help from My Friends" honors the past while infusing modern energy.

Although they never enjoyed the national fame, Linn County was one of the most musically sound, in-demand and highly admired outfits in the Bay area. To trace the roots of Linn County's genealogy, one must venture back to their early days to the home state of Iowa when they were known as the Prophets. An unusual late-'60s band that combined horn-embellished soul-rock with more interesting material utilizing jazz-colored arrangements and somewhat spacy songwriting. There were few parallels for this kind of thing at the time, other than perhaps the only slightly less obscure Insect Trust.
In 1968, the band signed with Mercury Records, moved to San Francisco, California, and changed its name to Linn County. ..

Some music stays with you for a lifetime — not just in your memory, but in your hands, your ears, your way of feeling the world. For me, that music began in Tbilisi, Georgia, where I was born and raised, and where these sounds first took root. The journey of this album begins with the music of Nodar Gabunia — a composer, mentor, and teacher who shaped my early musical voice. His musical language is deeply personal, yet unmistakably his — full of clarity, warmth, wisdom, wit, and beauty. The second half of the album gently shifts into the sound world of Giya Kancheli — a close friend of Gabunia’s.

Composer-pianist-producer Eunike Tanzil releases a third single Reverie from her upcoming debut album on DG The First of Everything. The project reflects the versatility, sense of freedom and spirit of adventure that are all part of Tanzil’s modern take on orchestral music.

With Songs of Passion, a collection of vocal and instrumental music by John Dowland and Henry Purcell – English composers born nearly a century apart – mezzo-soprano Lea Desandre, lutenist Thomas Dunford and Ensemble Jupiter have created a companion to their previous Erato albums, Eternal Heaven, Idylle and Amazone. Making guest appearances on Songs of Passion are four further singers of the rising generation: baritone (and Erato artist) Huw Montague Rendall, contralto Jess Dandy, tenor Laurence Kilsby and bass Alex Rosen. Dowland is known for his intimate evocations of amorous melancholy in his writing for voice and for lute, while the music of Purcell – the greatest British-born composer of the Baroque era – encompasses a rich diversity of moods and emotions. To the fore on Songs of Passion are two of Purcell’s works for the stage: The Fairy Queen and Dido and Aeneas. Dido’s famous lament, ‘When I am laid in earth’, forms the climax of the album.