Now UK January 23, 2017

Talk about a tough act to follow. Back in 2014, Thorbjørn Risager & The Black Tornado released Too Many Roads: the award-winning ninth album that saw the golden-voiced frontman and his seven-piece lineup showered with global acclaim. For the fans who had followed the Copenhagen band since their formation in 2003, it felt like a career-best release. But we were wrong.

How nice that Lee Abraham is once again a member of Galahad. The bassist-turned-guitarist had made some rather fine solo music since parting with the band almost a decade ago, and Colours continues that tradition. Regular bassist Alistair Begg, pianist Rob Arnold and drummer Gerald Mulligan remain in place along with a plethora of guest singers, though while prog remains Abrahams’ default setting, this time things are slightly different. After six albums his melodic approach now fully embraces a love of AOR acts such as Toto and Asia.

The years go by and the legacy left by the Ramones still puts down more and more roots in the great history of the pop music of the twentieth century. The false brothers from Queens have actually never taken their dirty and used Converse elsewhere than down the beaten path of a certain rock’n’roll tradition going from surf music to girl groups. With stupidity as philosophy, teenage insouciance as credo, supersonic guitars as weapons of mass destruction, their albums—binary in their form, really enjoyable in their content—give birth to hymns of bubble-gum pop on amphetamines that are a lot more serious than they seem.

British electronic group Leftfield have reissued their 1995 debut album Leftism in May this year as Leftism 22. The reissue comes in the form of a double deluxe edition which feature the remastered album (Neil Barnes and Paul Daley have taken care of remastering duties) on the first CD and a bonus disc of the 11 album tracks remixed by a host of "top house/electronica/techno artists".