Shine On
Adelitas Way
This Means War
Aware At Last featuring Adelitas Way

“Shine On” is a good song. Reminds me a lot of Tesla and the “Forever More” album.

And it’s virtually ignored.

The YouTube video dropped a few days ago and it has less than 5000. It doesn’t even rate in the Top 5 listened songs on Spotify.

But it should.

Break
Still Breathing
Taking Dawn

They started off as “7th Son” in tribute to their favourite Maiden album. Signed to Roadrunner and then neglected by Roadrunner.

This one is from their “Dawn Of The Demos” album released during COVID-19.

London 1666
Alcatrazz

There best known phase was with Malmsteen on guitar. “No Parole From Rock N Roll” and “Live Sentence” are good metal albums.

Fast forward 30 plus years later and Yngwie devotee Joe Stump is on guitar. He riffs and shreds like Malmsteen and Alcatrazz haven’t sounded this good for a long time.

The intro riff could have come from the “Marching Out” album. And Graham Bonnet, he might not look like a stereotypical metal singer, but he has the pipes for it.

So far they have dropped two songs from the upcoming “Born Innocent” album and I am liking.

When Ignorance Turns To Bliss
Good Days, Bad Days
Eric Steckel

I was searching the blogs for blues rock guitarists to sink my ears into that have come out in the last 15 years. And it wasn’t a simple search. I was going in deep, reading reviews of albums and various blogs and what not. Like the good old days of searching vinyl.

Eric Steckel and Christone “Kingfish” Ingram are two blues rock dudes that have come out of this search and I have gotten into.

And man, they can play and they can sing.

Eric Steckel reminds me of what Jake E. Lee was trying to do with Badlands crossed with a bit of Bad Company. Steckel can be emotive, bluesy and if needed, he can metal it up and shred.

“Good Days, Bad Days” is my favourite of the bunch. It’s a subdued and melancholic, rhythm and blues rock tune with a killer emotive lead break.

Stop The Bleeding (featuring Jesse Leach)
Bulletproof
Machine Head

“Stop The Bleeding” is a great song. The riffage, the punk like feel in the chorus and the lyrics, “Beating after beating, throat choked under knee, help me please because I can’t breathe, just stop the bleeding”.

The whole world is aware but will anything really change in the long run.

Like the lyrics in “Bulletproof”, “The rich mad with power, the poor left to bleed”. And its these people and the organisations they represent that will do whatever it takes to keep their power and all their multiple zeroes in their bank accounts.

As Y&T sing in “Masters And Slaves”, “there’s only kings and queens and you’re a pawn in their game” and “like masters and slaves, we are divided that way”.

In the state of Victoria, in Australia, they are experiencing a second wave of outbreaks of COVID-19. Government housing buildings and suburbs which are not wealthy are in lockdown, but the wealthier suburbs are not in lockdown. So what gives.

Who are people who live in affluent suburbs so special?