Fortean Times From January 2014

Death metal, as a genre, hasn’t made too many leaps since its birth into the field. But like the old saying goes, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”, and Massacre’s new piece takes that motto to heart with their new album Back From Beyond…

Roots band Birds of Chicago formed in 2012 as a collaboration between Chicago's JT Nero (JT & the Clouds) and Vancouver's Allison Russell (Po' Girl). Although both singer/songwriters were actively leading their own projects, their combined efforts were convincing enough to make a go of it and they set about recording their debut. Though a talented songwriter in her own right, a big part of the Birds of Chicago sound came from the material Nero had written specifically for Russell to interpret, and it was their combined voices that won over fans on 2012's self-titled Birds of Chicago LP.

Suzi Quatro is a performer as famous for her image as her music; Quatro was rock & roll's prototypical Bad Girl, the woman in the leather jumpsuit with the enormous bass guitar (well, it looked enormous, given that Quatro is only five feet tall), looking sexy but ferocious as she banged out her glam rock hits in her '70s glory days. Quatro is a woman who titled one of her albums Your Mamma Won't Like Me for a reason. But there's more to Suzi Quatro than all that, and she seems determined to show off the full range of her 50-year career in music on the box set The Girl from Detroit City. Quatro is a rocker but she's also a showbiz lifer, and the music spread over these four discs is the work of someone up to do a little bit of everything, and along with Chapman/Chinn thunderboomers like "Can the Can," "49 Crash," and "Daytona Demon," you also get vintage garage rock (three numbers from Quatro's first band, the Pleasure Seekers, including the gloriously snotty "What a Way to Die"), easygoing pop numbers like "Stumblin' In" (her hit duet with Chris Norman of Smokie)…

Music Inspired by the Life and Times of Scrooge is the first solo album by Finnish songwriter and keyboardist Tuomas Holopainen, best known for his work in the symphonic metal band Nightwish. The album is based on the Walt Disney graphic novel "The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck" written and illustrated by Don Rosa, who illustrated the cover artwork. It was released on April 11, 2014, with the first single "A Lifetime of Adventure" being released on February 5, 2014 along with a music video directed by Ville Lipiäinen. It features several vocalists including Johanna Kurkela, Tony Kakko of Sonata Arctica and narration by Alan Reid, with lyrics in English and Scottish Gaelic. It also features the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the choir group Metro Voices, and several guest musicians including fellow Nightwish member Troy Donockley. Limited Edition includes bonus CD, which contains the entire album as instrumentals.