Return of Your Recent CD's/Music Purchases

[Attila Kiss]

DERDIAN - Human Reset + 1
CD
℗ 2014
Power Metal
★★★★★★★★☆☆

It took 5 releases for Derdian to sneak into my collection, and the biggest change was expanding their music horizon, that would feel natural for a Band from Italy, yet no one thought of doing it before. (at least not to my knowledge) That new "thing" would be marrying the heaviness of Power Metal with Evergreen melodies, recalling the old days of San Remo Music Festival. I know this, because in the house of my parents, the songs performed at San Remo were played over and over, again. Perhaps my great fondness of melody in any genre of music can be traced back to my exposure to Schlager music at the early ages.
Derdian took those melodies and brought their music to a new level. Hopefully, they will continue on this path.

[Attila Kiss]

ADRENALINE RUSH - Adrenaline Rush
CD
℗ 2014
Female Fronted Melodic Rock
★★★★★★★★☪☆


The man behind Adrenaline Rush (in true sense of the word) is Erik Martensson (Eclipse). Not a household name, but it should be. The guy has the formula for turning AOR songs into epic Arena anthems. While the woman behind the band is Tåve Wanning, one half of the Swedish child duo Peaches. She's all grown up and hungry to deliver some Melodic Hard Rock like it's 1980's. The rest of the band was hand picked by the two masterminds mentioned above to restore the fun in the music for the new generation... and beyond. Strong CD with great Rockers, and few Power Ballads thrown in and all done in the way it should be. (something, that is more and more becoming a thing of the past) Erik's gripping arrangements and clean production truly shines on this album.

[Attila Kiss]

H.E.A.T. - Tearing Down The Walls
CD
℗ 2014
AOR
★★★★★★★★☪☆


It's been a steady climb for H.E.A.T. to take over the throne to AOR kingdom, and by Tearing Down The Walls they got that much closer. Some might argue, they are already there, while others will point out "Mannequin Show" is part "Oops! I Did It Again" and "Woman In Love" like it is a bad thing. I'd say: Keep Rockin'! This world needs Bon Jovi, and a Bon Jovi as they were at their early stages, and not a sophisticated and musically transformed Bon Jovi.
Melodies fly all over this release. Make sure you check out the whole CD.

[Attila Kiss]

MARTY FRIEDMAN - Inferno
CD
℗ 2014
Heavy Metal Guitar Instrumentals
★★★★★★★★★☆


Music doesn't come with guaranties. Sometimes the performers evolve, our taste change, trends come and go and there are the instances when ignorance in many forms ruin the experience. In the music world like this, one of the constants was always Marty Friedman. While he himself experimented in different styles, one could never deny the fact that he always gave 110%. His new CD is a testimony to that. Heavier than anything he did before, the nucleus remained the same. Great songs, subtle diversity. E. g. his new Music Video for the song "Undertow" starts out as a spark, catching on fire soon and escalating to a... well... Inferno.

[Attila Kiss]

UNISONIC - Light Of Dawn +1
CD / Guitar Pick
℗ 2014
Power Metal
★★★★★★★★★☪

The news of Michael Kiske coming back to Heavy Metal band had me pretty excited in 2009. Dennis Ward (Pink Cream 69), Mandy Meyer (Gotthard) and Kai Hansen (Helloween) in the same company made the deal even sweeter. However, the first CD didn't exactly live up to my expectations. But as they say: "Tomorrow is another day" and with Light Of Dawn everything is forgotten and forgiven. Simply put: EPIC... I rest my case.

[MartinNL]

Here's my Top 10 for 2014. Totally different than yours Attila Kiss... heavy rock and metal are just not my thing.

1. Ben Howard - I Forget Where We Were
2. The War On Drugs - Lost In The Dream
3. Zara McFarlane - If You Knew Her
4. Angus & Julia Stone - Angus & Julia Stone
5. Damon Albarn - Everyday Robots
6. Boy & Bear - Harlequin Dream
7. Chet Faker - Built On Glass
8. Clark - Clark
9. Oscar & The Wolf - Entity
10. Diggs Duke - Offering For Anxious

[Attila Kiss]

Here's my Top 10 for 2014. Totally different than yours Attila Kiss... heavy rock and metal are just not my thing.

1. Ben Howard - I Forget Where We Were
2. The War On Drugs - Lost In The Dream
3. Zara McFarlane - If You Knew Her
4. Angus & Julia Stone - Angus & Julia Stone
5. Damon Albarn - Everyday Robots
6. Boy & Bear - Harlequin Dream
7. Chet Faker - Built On Glass
8. Clark - Clark
9. Oscar & The Wolf - Entity
10. Diggs Duke - Offering For Anxious

'salright, Martin from NL. Not everyone can handle heavy lifting. Don't beat yourself up about it.
That being said, you have 'War, Angus, Damon, The Wolf so you're about 1/2 way there, even thou, you might not realize that. ;-)
To all seriousness, thanks for sharing. Never heard any of those CD's. Too bad you didn't provide a link to at least one song for each artist.

[Attila Kiss]

DEVIL'S HEAVEN - Heaven On Earth
CD
℗ 2014
Hard Rock
★★★★★★★★★☪

New band? Not quite. Almost the same lineup appeared on Månsson (1999) CD, although that was more of a solo release. And what a stellar line up this is. Jake Sandberg – Guitar (Aces High) / Jaime Salazar – Drums (too many to mention) / Richard "so he's not lost after-all" Andersson – Keyboards (Majestic, Time Requiem, Space Odyssey) / Jonas Reingold – Bass (extraordinary) / Marcus Nygren – Vocals (State Of Salazar) and of course, Michael Månsson – Guitars (dentist and a lucky dude to have friends in high places). Even some of the songs appeared on the 1999 CD can be found here, although nicely beefed up, carrying their weight in pure gold... or should I say jonasreinGOLD. Yep, thanks to him the production is next to none, and Heaven On Earth is the best CD Rainbow never made.

[MartinNL]

'salright, Martin from NL. Not everyone can handle heavy lifting. Don't beat yourself up about it.
That being said, you have 'War, Angus, Damon, The Wolf so you're about 1/2 way there, even thou, you might not realize that. ;-)
To all seriousness, thanks for sharing. Never heard any of those CD's. Too bad you didn't provide a link to at least one song for each artist.

Hehe, well I guess so... Fixed the post to include some links to favourite tracks of mine.

[MartinNL]

Last day of the year.... Bought this awesome Daft Punk boxset!! Listened to if many times over the years so now that it's been released on vinyl I had to buy it

[Attila Kiss]

Hehe, well I guess so... Fixed the post to include some links to favourite tracks of mine.

Got it... and after a listen, I have to disagree with your earlier observation

my Top 10 for 2014. Totally different than yours

It's just as much narrow minded as mine.

Sure, this is very nice to tranquilize yourself on a quite Saturday evening, and even put you in the mood at the right moment, but...
what you gonna listen to when you have to grab the bull by it's horn or Apollo Creed, Mr. T and Drago are looking for you all at the same time, huh?

For some reason I liked your lower entries more than the higher placed artists. Clark had the best arrangements. Nice to see an instrumental there.

[Attila Kiss]

FREEDOM CALL - Beyond
2CD / Book / Poster
℗ 2014
Power Metal
★★★★★★★★★★

A perfect album.
Full of Epic, fists in the air, get you pumped... tunes.

[MartinNL]

Got it... and after a listen, I have to disagree with your earlier observation
It's just as much narrow minded as mine.

Sure, this is very nice to tranquilize yourself on a quite Saturday evening, and even put you in the mood at the right moment, but...
what you gonna listen to when you have to grab the bull by it's horn or Apollo Creed, Mr. T and Drago are looking for you all at the same time, huh?

For some reason I liked your lower entries more than the higher placed artists. Clark had the best arrangements. Nice to see an instrumental there.

I think you're right. The thing is I always think my taste in music is quite broad, but when placed in a top 10, it's all a little same isn't it? Most is folk rock I guess. I like electronic as well as jazz too, so there's some of that in there too. SBTRKT's new album was pretty good, as was Flying Lotus', but they didn't make the cut for me on the electronic side of things. As for jazz... José James' new album wasn't as good as the album he released last year imo. Snarky Puppy's new album was quite rad, but then again, didn't make the cut, because there wasn't a period during the year where I had it on continuous repeat, like most of the albums that did make the Top 10.

Thanks for sharing your Top 10. I hadn't heard about any of those, nor will I ever hear them again I think

Either way... I'm just really glad there's so much diversity in music nowadays, so there's really something for everyone out there.

[Attila Kiss]

DON AIREY - Keyed Up
CD
℗ 2014
Keyboard Oriented Rock
★★★★★★★★☪☆

While gathering all my 2014 purchases to compile my list, I completely forgot about Don Airey's release, which is quite ironic, since I feel he is one of the most neglected artist in the business of Hard Rock. Don replaced Jon Lord in Deep Purple without much fanfare and has a list of "contributing artist" longer that 99% of the musicians in the genre. In fact, it's impossible to be a Hard Rock collector and not own at least one CD with his involvement. Myself... I have all 4 of his solo releases. Accomplishment few can brag about. Therefore, I would like to ram this CD into #7 on my list, pushing the affected releases one position lower. The biggest contributor on this CD is Gary Moore (RIP) who is dearly missed by the artist and yours truly. What a stellar performance here. The material is varied and as such makes the listening experience very exciting. Everything is nicely balanced plus you get the Keyboard version of Rainbow's "Difficult To Cure".

[WillieMorgan]

Cheers for posting this stuff Attila. I listened to most of them last night.

Not bad, and Paul Gilbert remains a class musician.