Scars of Sense

After spending over a decade churning out electrified blues, Gary Moore partially returns to his hard rock beginnings in Scars. Reminiscent of '60s power trios such as Cream and especially the Jimi Hendrix Experience ("World of Confusion" is practically a rewrite of "Manic Depression" and "Ball and Chain" borrows the riff from "Voodoo Child"), Moore hasn't abandoned the blues, he's just pumped it up with blustery retro roots rock. With all the genre's limitations, the guitarist is so obviously inspired in this format that the album is a success on its own terms, even though it breaks little new ground. "Wasn't Born in Chicago" infuses jazzy drums and slight electronics to enhance the basic three-piece assault, resulting in the album's most unique and arguably best performance…

After a brief return to his hard rock roots in 2002's Scars, guitarist Gary Moore comes back to the blues where his heart seems to be. But really, Moore's forte is his knack of combining the meaty licks and rugged tone from his gutsy rock to energize the electric blues music he has embraced since 1990's Still Got the Blues. To that end, Scars' drummer Darrin Mooney returns and Bob Daisley, veteran of such thundering outfits as Ozzy Osbourne's band, Uriah Heep and Rainbow, joins on bass. Hence this album's title is appropriate, since the power trio format pounds out this music with clenched-fist authority. Moore is an exceptionally tasty musician but even when the amps are turned up to eleven, as they are for most of this disc, there is feeling in his fiery licks…

As Blackfield, the duo of Aviv Geffen and Steven Wilson has worked together intermittently across 22 years, going back to 2000. The entirety of the project's output through to 2017 is captured on An Accident of Stars: 2004-2017.

SCARED TO GET HAPPY (A Story Of Indie Pop 1980-1989) was the first box set ever to document the explosion of Indie Pop in Britain across the 1980s. This release is a 5 CD Cherry Red's box set, charting Indie Pop’s development from the post punk era and the dominance of Scottish bands through to its genre-defining C86 period and onto the end of the decade, with the arrival of Madchester and the shoegazing sound.

As Blackfield, the duo of Aviv Geffen and Steven Wilson has worked together intermittently across 22 years, going back to 2000. The entirety of the project's output through to 2017 is captured on An Accident of Stars: 2004-2017.

Paris-based Soror Dolorosa creates raw and hungry gothic rock inspired by post-punk, death rock and cold wave. French for ‘Sister Pain’, Soror Dolorosa was formed in 2001 by vocalist Andy Julia. Taking its name from the novel “Bruges-la-morte” by Flemish symbolist writer Georges Rodenbach, Soror Dolorosa channels its inspiration’s strong undercurrents of passion, nostalgia and mourning, transferring those powerful emotional states into its music and live performances. These signature elements of the group’s sonic formula are heard in its muscular songs, jangling guitars, overdriven bass lines, driving rhythms and Julia’s distinctive, dramatic vocal style.

You kind of get the sense from the Dark Tenor that anything other than 100% effort simply will not do. The marketing campaign is elaborate, slick and edgy, drawing in who-knows-what kind of audience and the voice and music matches it. The build up has been going on for some time; he's accumulated over 30,000 likes on Facebook before he even had a bar of music available for purchase. This is exciting stuff. The mysterious, masked Dark Tenor is signed to a major label, doing new things and creating larger than life arrangements and interpretations of classics we've always known but seldom recognise on his debut album Symphony of Light…

Throughout their career, Rush have always been a band that you could count on to push the boundaries of what rock was capable of, and their discography contains a laundry list of ambitious albums that helped to bring prog to a wider audience…