Seals

This is a collection of 5 Seals & Croft albums released during the peak of their career in the 1970's. Included is their breakthrough album "Summer Breeze" which was their first big hit, reaching number 7 on the Billboard album chart in 1972; "Diamond Girl" which hit number 4 in 1973…

Everyone who followed Son Seals has a special story to tell about the way they discovered him, a certain show they witnessed, or the like. This DVD, A Journey Through the Blues: The Son Seals Story, is certain to bring great memories to all of his fans and will enlighten those who might have overlooked his immense contribution to the blues. I first saw Son Seals perform on a sultry July afternoon in Oswego, NY. I had previously spun his albums on my radio show in college, and was quite pleased when I saw him listed as a side stage act at Phish's 1999 festival. I didn't know much about him other than his signature guitar sound - a tone as unmistakable as those of BB King or Jimi Hendrix - and that startling voice.

Son Seals in an experimental mood, utilizing chord progressions that occasionally don't quite fit together seamlessly (but give him an A for trying to expand the idiom's boundaries). Less innovative but perhaps more accessible are his smoking covers of Albert King's "Nobody Wants a Loser" and Junior Parker's "Goodbye Little Girl".

Live and Burning lives up to its billing. Seals' smoking set, caught live at Chicago's long-gone (and definitely lamented) Wise Fools Pub, finds him attacking a sharp cross-section of material – Detroit Junior's deliberate "Call My Job," Elmore James' "I Can't Hold Out," his own "Help Me, Somebody" – with an outstanding band in tow, featuring saxophonist A.C. Reed, guitarist Lacy Gibson, pianist Alberto Gianquinto, bassist Snapper Mitchum, and drummer Tony Gooden.

Love it or hate it, power metal is here to stay; and no band has done more staying than German supergroup Primal Fear, who arrive at their sixth studio release, Seven Seals (and seventh release overall, if you count 2002's Horrorscope EP – hence the title), showing just as much conviction and, er, power, as ever before. What's more, where recent efforts had found singer Ralf Scheepers (ex-Gamma Ray, near-Rob Halford replacement) somewhat uninspired and prone to merely reminding you, again and again, how gloriously metallic metal is, here he proceeds to discuss how gloriously metallic things like demons, angels, and roller coasters are…