no Sign of Weakness

Who doesn’t love classic heavy metal? Look no further than Sinister Realm. They’ve already created 2 amazing classic styled heavy metal albums with solid reviews from around the world. “World of Evil” is their 3rd full-length album, which shows no sign of weakness in the song-writing department. This is fist pumping heavy metal with big catchy choruses, doomy at times, and all around quality and memorable heavy metal album. The closing song “Four Black Witches” is one of the best closing songs delivered to an album in a long time! Fans of Dio, Heaven and Hell, Candlemass, Black Sabbath, Judas Priest, and Iron Maiden will absolutely love this album.

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…

With the arrival of Delta Lady: The Rita Coolidge Anthology, one can only remark: what took so long? No other singer – not Maria Muldaur, Bette Midler, Bonnie Bramlett, Carly Simon, or Linda Ronstadt – more perfectly embodied the wide range of changes that popular music underwent from the late '60s through the mid-'80s, and continues to seek new means of expression today. This two-disc anthology on Hip-O offers the first complete portrait of this complex and multivalent talent on CD (though a box set would have been nice). Rita Coolidge scored her first chart hit with friend Donna Weiss' "Turn Around and Love You" in 1969. That song earned her a studio spot where she fell in with Delaney & Bonnie, Leon Russell, and a huge cast of musicians. Being a background vocalist on Delaney & Bonnie's classic Accept No Substitute earned her a place on Russell and Joe Cocker's Mad Dogs & Englishmen revue and the rest is history, including a handful of chart hits and guest appearances that stagger the mind.

The Fugs First Album (1965). A loping, ridiculous, and scabrous release, the Fugs' debut mashed everything from folk and beat poetry to rock and rhythm & blues - all with a casual disregard for sounding note perfect, though not without definite goals in mind. Actually compiled from two separate sessions originally done for Folkways Records, and with slightly different lineups as a result, it's a short but utterly worthy release that pushed any number of 1964-era buttons at once (and could still tick off plenty of people). Sanders produced the sessions in collaboration with the legendary Harry Smith, who was able to sneak the collective onto Folkways' accounts by describing them as a "jug band," and it's not a far-off description. A number of songs sound like calm-enough folk-boom fare, at least on casual listening, though often with odd extra touches like weirdly muffled drums or out of nowhere whistles and chimes…