Bad Sector Vocalist Pro

Years after any remaining U.S. interest in Lenny Wolf and his Robert Plant sound-alike voice had vanished, the singer and his "band" Kingdom Come (really just a solo vehicle for Wolf) continued to release material marketed mostly in the frontman's German homeland. Bad Image, from 1993, is one such collection of forgettable hard rock…

Revocation are one of the best technical metal bands you will ever hear, and this incredible debut makes you wonder just how the Hell these guys aren’t touring with other tech metal giants. It’s just that fantastic. Techincal metal is an overcrowded genre these days, mostly because of all the prententious, boring bands that only care about showing off their talent, yet here comes a band that really enjoy themselves (Heck, Davidson even shouts “GUITAR!” before playing one of this solos) and they aren’t even getting a slice of the damn cake – and mind you, that’s a huge cake!…

To say that the past decade has been kind to Amorphis would be an understatement. From the elegance of Silent Waters to the pomp of Circle, the Finnish prog metallers have carved a solid foothold for themselves over the course of eight years. So, of course, when a new album is released, the inevitable question of whether or not the flavor has gone bland comes up. Sure enough, Under the Red Cloud proves to be another worthy addition to Amorphis’s discography, as well as one of the best progressive metal releases this year so far…

"Vienna" was a kind of Japanese super-group because of inclusion of 4 musicians who used to play in popular prog-rock bands: Yukihiro Fujimura ("Gerard"), Shusei Tsukamoto ("Outer Limits"), Toshimi Nagai ("Afflatus" & later also "Gerard") and Ryuichi Nishida ("Novela" & "Mugen")…

New Jersey rockers Fandango were dogged by misfortune and misadventure throughout their inglorious career, and are now best remembered for launching the career of well-traveled vocalist Joe Lynn Turner, later of Rainbow, Yngwie Malmsteen, Deep Purple, and other A-line bands. Turner had already been involved in a few amateur groups in the early '70s, but it was with the formation of Fandango in 1975 that he would officially go pro, joining guitarist Rick Blakemore (no relation, huge coincidence), keyboard player Denny LaRue, bassist Bob Danyls, and drummer Abe Speller in the lineup that finally graduated from countless club gigs to a record contract with RCA.

The final Warner Bros. release for Dio after an 11-year run of hard-edged post-Sabbath recordings, Strange Highways is almost a return to early '80s form for a group that hadn't done anything particularly inspiring since 1984's Last in Line. Joining the band's namesake vocalist Ronnie James Dio on this 1994 release is an all-star lineup, including long-time drumming cohort Vinny Appice, bassist Jeff Pilson (most notably of Dokken, and an nice addition to the group, especially live), and unknown guitarist Tracy G. Dio is in fine voice as usual, especially on "Hollywood Black"…

Because the band risked experimenting with some bold new directions on 1990's By Inheritance, the album usually gets a bad rap from grumpy thrash purists and even some Artillery fans. But, with the benefit of hindsight, Artillery's third album frequently sounds like their finest hour, as much for boasting some of the most distinctive and imaginative songs of their career as for incorporating textural variety at a time when many of the Danish quintet's contemporaries were wallowing in stagnation…

After about a decade of silence by the band with Schmier not in the lineup, Destruction's main vocalist/bass guitarist is back! This was of course taking place in 2000. Destruction just wasn't the same without him. His unique vocals meshed so well with the Destruction of the old. Good to have him return, especially with this 2000 release declaring war when it comes to thrash metal, Destruction's divine genre…