Soaring to Glory

It's only been seven years between Just Whitney and 2009's I Look to You, not even Houston's longest time between albums, but it feels much, much longer, her glory days obscured in hazy memories of lost luster chiefly deriving from a bad marriage with Bobby Brown, chronicled in an embarrassing reality show for Bravo in 2004. I Look to You attempts to wash this all away with something of a return to roots – a celebration of Houston's deep disco beginnings, tempered with a few skyscraping ballads designed to showcase her soaring voice. Houston's rocky decade isn't ignored, but it isn't explored, either: songs allude to Whitney's strength, her willpower as a survivor struggling through some unnamed struggle – enough for listeners to fill in the blanks, either with their own experience or their imaginings of Houston's life.

It's only been seven years between Just Whitney and 2009's I Look to You, not even Houston's longest time between albums, but it feels much, much longer, her glory days obscured in hazy memories of lost luster chiefly deriving from a bad marriage with Bobby Brown, chronicled in an embarrassing reality show for Bravo in 2004. I Look to You attempts to wash this all away with something of a return to roots – a celebration of Houston's deep disco beginnings, tempered with a few skyscraping ballads designed to showcase her soaring voice. Houston's rocky decade isn't ignored, but it isn't explored, either: songs allude to Whitney's strength, her willpower as a survivor struggling through some unnamed struggle – enough for listeners to fill in the blanks, either with their own experience or their imaginings of Houston's life.

The soaring vocals of Kelly Sundown Carpenter and the spontaneous combustion of the Michael Harris' spectacular licks are the most flagrant and symbolic factors of the DARKOLOGY sound, after five excruciatingly long years since their seminal debut album "Altered Reflections" nothing has changed and the precepts are numerous and all fulfilled in a perfect demonstration of the contemporary American Metal splendor…

One LP of classic material by the Daredevils, 12 songs drawn from their first five A&M albums, showing the different sides of the group to very good advantage, from the hard-rocking "If You Wanna Get to Heaven" to the soaring, upbeat, mandolin- and electric-guitar-driven "Homemade Wine."

Although they didn't fare nearly as well as fellow Teutonic thrashers like Kreator and Sodom in terms of career longevity or commercial success, Würzburg, Germany's Paradox certainly seemed, on the surface, to have a better shot at the big time with their more melodic and accessible style. Formed in February of 1986 by vocalist and rhythm guitarist Charly Steinhauer, lead guitarist Markus Spyth, bassist Roland Stahl, and drummer Axel Blaha, the group was heavily influenced by the biggest of all thrash bands – Metallica – and quickly parlayed a few impressive demos into a deal with Roadrunner Records and a very impressive debut album, Product of Imagination, the following year…

A collection of 8 CD, which includes all the studio albums by English rock band Oasis at the moment, and 1 maxi-single.