Dark Four Door
A Few More Hours At YYZ
Hell Or High Water
Billy Raffoul

Billy Raffoul came on my radar via the excellent blog, 2loud2oldmusic. Mr John Snow buys a lot of physical recorded product and an album by Billy Raffoul was one of his purchases. Check out the blog here.

So I called up the artist on Spotify and these three songs really stood out to me.

He doesn’t have a Wikipedia page (while a lot of the 80s bands do), but he has a song which has 34 plus million streams on Spotify and other songs all over 2 million plus streams (which a lot of the 80s bands I like don’t have).

In other words, the new artists don’t need an encyclopedic entry as their music is doing the promoting. Furthermore, the majority of music consumers these days don’t really care about this information. My son learnt the solo to “Comfortably Numb” and doesn’t even care to know who the guitarist is.

Until then I’m still looking for you in every dark four door
From Dark Four Door

I should have known, I should have tried to hold on
From Hell Or Highwater

An acoustic and a voice. You can’t get any more simpler than that.

Paper Sun – Live
Def Leppard

The intro is one of my favourite Def Leppard riffs and when I tell people who “liked Def Leppard in the 80’s” about this song, they don’t know of it, as it appeared on “Euphoria” released in 1999.

From the live recordings I have heard, Joe Elliot is pretty conservative with his voice, singing more in a bass baritone voice. It’s a smart move as there is no point in straining the voice each night when a lot of shows are coming his way.

Rodeo – Live
Pretty Maids

Pretty Maids is one hell of a rock band. And they deliver live as well.

“Somebody makes it and somebody don’t” because in the end, life is a rodeo, in which we need to perform publically each day in order to participate in society.

I even associated the rock and roll live show to a rodeo, as the trucks start to turn up to the venues, the road crew then gets the stage ready and the band turns up and performs publically.

I’ll Be Waiting
Believe In Us
Hell Or Highwater

I’ve been a fan of this band since their first EP release. For those that don’t know it’s a another outlet for the drummer from Atreyu (who also does the clean vocals for Atreyu) to showcase his songwriting and vocals.

And it’s all rock songs.

Canary Yellow
Haken

This one took a few listens to grow on me, and I’m glad I invested the time in it.

Haken has been an interesting journey for me. Their 2016 album “Affinity” made me a fan, but “Vector” in 2018 didn’t really cement it for me. The new album “Virus” is coming out in two weeks and suddenly I’m interested again.

Polar Bear
Alcatrazz

Joe Stump came out in the early 90’s and was labelled as an Yngwie clone.

When you have solo albums with the titles like “Guitar Dominance!” (1993), “Night of the Living Shred” (1994) and “Supersonic Shred Machine” (1996), he was an anomaly in the grunge musical landscape and the “no guitar solo nu-metal” movement.

And when I heard the latest song from Alcatrazz, I thought Yngwie Malmsteen re-joined with Graham Bonnet. Because all the guitar parts sound like Malmsteen. But then I read a bit more, and found out that the guitar player is Joe Stump.

And I’m thinking, what a brilliant move by Bonnet.

So if you like the first Alcatrazz album, then you will like this song.

Check it out.

Addison
Birds Of Tokyo

How could you leave me here, my friend?

Relationships either romantic or friendships or family, have an end. Sometimes nothing needs to be said, as life and society is enough to tear it all apart and once months and then years go by, it becomes harder to reconnect.

Birds Of Tokyo rule the charts in Australia with each release.

Ian Kenny from the excellent progressive Karnivool is on vocals, and it was sort of a side project for him, but I think these days, it’s his main project with Karnivool becoming a side project.

And on this album, he’s written the turmoil and angst of his marriage breakdown.

Rainbow In The Dark
A Conversation With Death
Khemmis

The Dio cover is down tuned, sludgy and the way its delivered, it would give Ghost a run. Then it picks up for a shred lead break.

Plus there is an original cut, which sounds like a conversation at the crossroads with death himself.

The New Pandora
Hands Of Time
Line And Sinker
We Don’t Need Them Here
Destination Unknown
Angel Of Dawn
The Unity

This album surprised me at how good it is. “The New Pandora” sounds like it came from Dream Theater’s “Six Degrees Of Inner Turbulence” and “Hands Of Time” sounds like it came from a Pretty Maids album.

I had to do some reading on them. From Germany, the guys in the band are from various power metal acts and this is their third album. And this album has done enough to make me a fan.

The Way Back Home
Spoken

This band is down tuned and aggressive on the music side, and the clean tone vocals remind me of James Durbin. If you like melodic rock done a bit different from the Euro melodic rock doing the rounds at the moment, check out Spoken.

Give Me All Your Love -2020 Remix
Whitesnake

I suppose Whitesnake will always be in a playlist for me.

The End
Watch Me Drown
Blacktop Mojo

They came into my radar because I saw in some article how they won an opening spot on a Bon Jovi tour a few years back, so I thought I should check em out, plus their name sounded cool.

And I was greeted with a refreshing hard rock sound, and I’ve been a fan ever since. Plus they do a pretty awesome cover of “Dream On” from Aerosmith.

Alive And Kicking (Quarantine Sessions)
Nonpoint

I have always enjoyed the brand of rock that Nonpoint bring and this is a cool acoustic session for a song which is 15 years old.

“Alive and Kicking” was originally released in 2005 on their fourth album. And they have been around since 1997. 23 continuous years in the business.

Stay tuned for part 2.