Although the band has put out several fine albums over the years, Golden Earring has not always had an easy time staying consistent from album to album. This 1980 effort is one of the rare instances in the Golden Earring catalog in which the group takes a good album, No Promises…No Debts, and actually improves on it. Like the aforementioned album, Prisoner of the Night presents a collection of songs that combine pop hooks and hard rock muscle in a radio-friendly way. However, Golden Earring improves on this style instead of recycling it: The guitar riffs hit harder, the hooks are catchier, and the arrangements are more willing to toss an occasional left turn at the listener while still managing to keep the songs lean and exciting.
Bert Kaempfert had almost too much talent, ability, and good luck rolled into one career to be fully appreciated, even by his own chosen audience, the lovers of fine orchestral pop music. He was one of the most successful conductors, arrangers, and recording artists in the latter field, but was also a major producer and played a key (if indirect) role in the roots of the British beat boom of the early '60s, which evolved into the British Invasion of America in 1964…
AT THE GATES are innovators. From debut album, The Red In The Sky Is Ours, through comeback stunner, At War With Reality, the Gothenburg-based death metal act have always traversed the left-hand path on their own terms. The Swedes are keenly aware of who they are, where they come from, and how they got to where they are today. In the ‘90s, AT THE GATES spearheaded The New Wave of Swedish Death Metal. In the aughts, then-swansong album, Slaughter Of The Soul, served as a feature-rich treasure chest for a host of upstarts to plunder. When AT THE GATES returned in 2008—a full 12 years after they disbanded—their return was celebrated and the follow-up to Slaughter Of The Soul—now placing handsomely on Top Metal Album Lists—hotly anticipated. Now, four years after At War with Reality, the Swedes are ready to show their indomitable spirit, ceaseless ingenuity, and raw power on new album, To Drink From The Night Itself.
Vintage-inspired singer/songwriter Chris Isaak has periodically attempted to update his '50s and '60s-influenced sound. Albums like 2002's Always Got Tonight and 2009's Mr. Lucky found the California native incorporating funk grooves, modern rock guitars, and the occasional synthesizer. Despite these moves toward contemporizing his pompadour-accented approach however, Isaak's best work, even on those albums, is always on the tracks where he embraces his old-school aesthetics and delivers melodic, twangy songs in his signature goosebump-inducing croon. This is the approach Isaak takes on his 13th studio album, 2015's First Comes the Night.
This is the first CD in a new series for the record label that, “…charts the evolution of soul music across America through genres like R&B, blues and proto soul spanning the fifties and early sixties.” Rather than take each artist at a time, the series forms around the compilation format and, in this first effort, covers 25 tracks.