Still II

I didn't bother seeing the recent remake of "Conan the Barbarian" (and from the box office and reviews, if looks like I didn't miss anything.) Instead, I bought and watched the contents of "Roger Corman's Cult Classics: Sword and Sorcery." As I've mentioned in the past, Corman was quick to ride on the success of the original "Conan", with movies like "Sorceress" and "Barbarian Queen" flooding theaters and VHS rentals back in the day. The most successful of these though, was the "Deathstalker" series, which took the basics of the Sword and Sorcery genre and added more exploitable elements to them. So with all that out of the way, let's take a look at the first two movies in the franchise.

Guitarist Ritchie Blackmore resurrected the beloved hard rock band Rainbow in 1995 for the album Stranger in Us All. The new lineup – technically named Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow – was not an all-star who's who of hard rock like the groundbreaking original version with vocalist Ronnie James Dio or the radio-targeted AOR version with vocalist Joe Lynn Turner. All incarnations of Rainbow, even the mid-period lineup fronted by bellower Graham Bonnet, are generally revered in hard rock circles. In its own way, Rainbow's music was just as influential as the music Blackmore made during his years in Deep Purple…

From Bad Time Records comes THE SHAPE OF SKA PUNK TO COME: VOLUME 1, featuring 12 brand new / unreleased tracks from some of ska punk's boldest and brightest.

Wardance shows many of the attributes associated to symphonic rock, from a surrealistic record cover and detailed information about what amplifiers and cymbals the band uses, to song titles like "Star Maiden/Mysterioso/Quasar." But even though Colosseum II had much in common with symphonic rock, they were more of a jazz-rock or fusion band. While none of the musicians are anything even close to restrictive in their playing, Moore's solo guitar is what many of the songs are built up around. His distinctive way of playing, while still in development, is clearly heard, as are similarities to his first solo album Grinding Stone, especially in the album's only vocal song, "Castles." This was the second album released by Colosseum II in 1977, and their third in two years.