Queen Flac 2025

Belgium had a small but strong metal scene back in the '80s, which continues today. Speed Queen has been around for over 10 years but are just getting their debut album out in 2025, and joins the fray begun by groups like Killer, Crossfire and Ostrogoth with that same mix of loose, fast playing and youthful energy and enthusiasm on …with a Bang! It is an album defined by simple, direct songs about sex, booze and the heavy metal lifestyle and, if not for the smooth, modern production values, could have been a "lost" release from the mid-80s!

With Songs of Passion, a collection of vocal and instrumental music by John Dowland and Henry Purcell – English composers born nearly a century apart – mezzo-soprano Lea Desandre, lutenist Thomas Dunford and Ensemble Jupiter have created a companion to their previous Erato albums, Eternal Heaven, Idylle and Amazone. Making guest appearances on Songs of Passion are four further singers of the rising generation: baritone (and Erato artist) Huw Montague Rendall, contralto Jess Dandy, tenor Laurence Kilsby and bass Alex Rosen. Dowland is known for his intimate evocations of amorous melancholy in his writing for voice and for lute, while the music of Purcell – the greatest British-born composer of the Baroque era – encompasses a rich diversity of moods and emotions. To the fore on Songs of Passion are two of Purcell’s works for the stage: The Fairy Queen and Dido and Aeneas. Dido’s famous lament, ‘When I am laid in earth’, forms the climax of the album.