Onward 4K 2020

The revival of old school thrash metal that kicked off soon after the turn of the millennium has presented a fair share of blessings and curses, the most frequently cited in the later camp being that the younger crowd has been a bit too slavish to the past…

“Feelings are good,” a vocoder-soaked John Mitchell tells us at the beginning of Lonely Robot’s fourth album. The sentiment of this album’s title, and its opening title track, could not have come at a more appropriate time, as in 2020 people all around the world find themselves awash in a sea of myriad feelings, considering everything happening in the world these days. And, as much as 2020 feels like we should get a “do-over” or a mulligan on this entire year so far, as if these past six or seven months were just some cruel joke, somehow time marches ever onward; in the music world, it has suddenly been nearly a year-and-a-half since Lonely Robot‘s most recent album, “Under Stars”. In the world of John Mitchell, one of the most prolific song-crafters in all of progressive music, that might as well be an eternity…

Now comes a remarkable set, sure to be cherished by Ochs fans and followers, Phil Ochs, The Best Of the Rest: Rare and Unreleased Recordings, which comes out on CD on May 22nd. It consists of many demos he made for Warner-Chappell music which have not been heard by the public ever, some of songs that he recorded on his albums, but also many of songs never recorded and unknown.