Steve Cone - Unfinished Business

Hailing from Arizona USA, Steve Cone (he plays all guitars and vocals) and his partner in crime, drummer Erik Fahrenbach, unleash Unfinished Business upon the world.

Unfinished Business has taken a few years to get completed, with the various distractions and other material that Steve Cone has put out, but here it is, 12 tracks of hard rock / traditional heavy metal.
Now don't let that put you off, think along the line of the more melodic Megadeth and Helloween tracks, maybe even mid eighties era Ozzy Osbourne, and you will be thinking along the right lines. There is nothing here that hasn't been done before, but what is here is done very well. All 12 songs are great, with 'Death From Above' possibly being my pick of the bunch closely followed by 'Not A Word Is Spoken'.

If you want a little walk down memory lane and you like your traditional heavy metal, but fancy hearing some new tracks then this could be the album for you.

Thoroughly enjoyable!

Website - http://www.myspace.com/stevecone

Rating 8/10

Reckless Love - Reckless Love

Reckless Love’s self-titled debut album does exactly what it says on the cover. Just like the logo, the music is loud, sparkly, very retro, well produced and it picks bits here and there from Kiss, Van Halen, Motley Crue, Def Leppard. Just like its very 80's styled cover, the music has a great 80's glam rock feel to it. reckless Love manage to pull the sound off, with out resorting to parody unlike the excellent Steel Panther, and the songs are pretty solid too. This is a great album to relive the glory days of Glam rock.


A great album, unlikely to change the world, but a great fun album non the less!

Website - http://www.myspace.com/recklessloverocks

Rating 8/10

FURYON - 3 Track Promo EP

Furyon are a 5 piece Hard Rock / Alternative / Modern Rock band from Brighton. This a 3 track sampler Ep taken from their forthcoming album 'Gravitas'.


The tracks included are 'Disappear Again', 'Don't Follow' and 'Wasted On You'.

From what I am hearing here I am really looking forward to the albums release. The band bring together all the elements of 30 years of rock music and deliver a truly contemporary sound similar to the likes of Nickleback and Shinedown, yet never sounding like clones, and they have some truly amazing guitar breaks in their songs!
The songs are very strong, they have a very radio friendly edge and should bring the band the kind of success that has recently been enjoyed by the likes of Shinedown etc.
Very highly reconmended!
Website - http://www.myspace.com/furyon


rating 10/10

The Display Team - Drones

Progressive punk? That's how this London six piece describe themselves, and to be honest its a great way to describe the band.


The band manage to mix in so many elements, from reggae to inspired Jazz punk! Sometimes coming across as a little like 80's legends Madness, or at times like the Beatles, all the time with a punk edge running through their core!

Musically the band are extremely talented and adept, they can mix up the tempo in heartbeat (and often they do!).

This album just oozes class, the songs, although on the surface very eclectic and erratic all come together with a strand kind of cohesion making each and every track here a really enjoyable experience!

Stand out tracks include, 'Norwegian Honey', 'Gnaw The Iron Pole', and 'Karma's Gonna Get You'.

A truly inspired album by a great band!

website - http://www.myspace.com/thedisplayteam



Rating 10/10

Shylocks - Rockbuster

Rockbuster is the fifth album from this fantastically talented Germany band. The Shylocks play a bright, energetic, catchy form of melodic hard rock. From the opening track of 'Damn Good' the standards set. the songs are very strong, the playing immense and very tight and the production excellent. This album has it all for fans of melodic hard rock.


'Sunshine vs Rain' is a big ballad that could have walked straight off of a Whitesnake masterpiece, 'Rumours' is a great song with a wry look at the world. 'Just For U' a great rocker with an excellent riff! I could list every song here, they're all that good.

If your a fan of aor, melodic and hard rock then you could do a lot worse than check this album out!

Highly recommended



Website - http://www.shylockmusic.de/



Rating 9/10

Pipes and Pints - Until We Die

Pipes And Pints were formed in 2006 by Vojta Kalina (Highland Bagpipes/Vocals) with a dream of a band that combines punk rock with dirty folk music such as The Pogues. Soon after, he met Tomas Novotny (Guitar/Vocals, ex-Who ate my Skate) who shared the same dream, flavoured by country and rock and roll.

This album finally saw a release in late 2009 but does it work?

well if I'm honest, ever since Ginger used bagpipes on the Wildhearts song, Give The Girl A Gun, Ive waited to hear someone else have the nerve to try mixing Bagpipes into a rock track, here's a band that do it on every track. Yes it really does work!!

You have all the energy and passion of your better than average punk band with the added pipe elements. The songs are well written and the band are pretty damn tight, the productions just enough to bring out all the best quality's with out ever being too much. I absolutely love the intro track, The Gael, a great instrumental with a rolling drum beat and the bagpipes. Ive listened to this album a few times, more than I expected too to be really honest and I cant really find any faults.

A great band, a unique sound, and some pretty awesome songs. A great combination!

website - http://www.myspace.com/pipesandpints



rating 9/10

Cirkus - Bad Love

Cirkus are a two piece band hailing from Uppsala, Sweden, featuring Roux'd on vocals and Snetan on guitar. The band play a kind of hard rock that seems to fuse together a few various elements from 70's prog rock to new wave. Bad Love is the lead single taken from the forth coming (as yet) un-named album. Its an enjoyable enough track to be honest and dos mark a slight change in direction for the band, but that's pretty much where the praise ends. Whilst the track itself is enjoyable enough, its also nothing special and tends to fade into the back ground becoming mere background music, to the extent that when I had it looped on my mp3 I completely lost track of when it started and when it ended. Sorry


Cirkus may offer a great album in the near future, but Bad Love is pretty much Bog standard rock n roll.



Web site - http://www.myspace.com/cirkusmusic



Rating 6/10