Eleventh Dream Day

In a better world, Eleventh Dream Day would be universally acknowledged as indie rock elder statesmen and one of America's great post-punk guitar bands. They built their reputation on blistering live shows and released a string of albums that rocked as hard as anyone in the late '80s and early '90s. Personnel departures and the proverbial music biz/major-label problems derailed their momentum to the point that EDD became a part-time concern in the mid-'90s, but they never threw in the towel completely and continued to turn out remarkably consistent albums even as the pace slowed. Zeroes and Ones is their first release in six years, but they haven't lost a step. In fact, they sound reinvigorated and tougher than they have in years.

Against The Grain by the reformed UK AOR-sters After Hours. Now I say unexpected because this is a band that have been defunct for just a little under a quarter of a century with their last release coming in the shape of their debut effort Take Off from 1988! AOR Heaven have also reissued that album and on the strength of Against The Grain, it is an album I'll be investing in sharpish! The After Hours story goes all the way back to 1987, but after that debut release things started to really build for them, with European tours, appearances on German TV and a sponsorship deal with Adidas. However keyboard player Rick Young soon left the band, being replaced by ex Michael Schenker man Andy Nye, but with record labels dragging the band round the world to record album number two After Hours basically disintegrated, although that second release Afterhours did see the light of day in 1992.