The Independent June 5, 2019

The Kinks were one of the most influential bands of the British Invasion. Early singles "You Really Got Me" and "All Day and All of the Night" were brutal, three-chord ravers that paved the way for punk and metal while inspiring peers like the Who. In the mid-'60s, frontman Ray Davies came into his own as a songwriter, developing a wry wit and an eye for social commentary that culminated in a pair of conceptual LPs, The Village Green Preservation Society and Arthur (Or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire), that proved enormously influential over the years.

Collective Soul has weathered many industry shifts and challenges since its 1993 hit “Shine” catapulted to No. 11 on the Billboard Hot 100 and won a Billboard Music Award for top rock song. From the start, the band — known for crafting beautiful songs with a hard-rock edge and contagious choruses reminiscent of Cheap Trick, The Cars and The Smithereens — was incorrectly associated with grunge, simply because “Shine” arrived during the genre’s mainstream peak. It was an affiliation that vocalist-guitarist E Roland did his best to dismantle.

Jamestown Revival's highly anticipated new album, San Isabel, will be released June 14 onThirty Tigers and is now available for pre-order. In advance of the release, the band's new song, "This Too Shall Pass," premiered a few days ago at Rolling Stone. Of the track, Rolling Stone praises, "…bright harmonies and loping guitar patterns…an optimistic track that splits the difference between modern-day Americana and old-school folk."

Alphaville is a German synth-pop band centered around vocalist Marian Gold (Hartwig Schierbaum), formed in 1982 in Münster. Started out as a trio with Gold backed by synth players Bernhard Lloyd and Frank Mertens…

Iiro Rantala is a jazz chameleon who loves to appear in many guises. The Finnish pianist invariably springs a surprise with the concepts for his albums, particularly those of his solo piano projects. For "My Finnish Calendar", he has turned a new page: this is improvised music but with an extra-musical narrative: from a very personal and Finnish point of view, he has set to music the passing of a complete year in his home country, and he has done it with his typical mixture of melodic inventiveness, melancholy and humour. His well-known technical finesse and mastery, acquired over the years, have been applied here with an unerring instinct for bringing the essential to the fore.