Twelve Factor

Album No.2 by this great Ska band is a cracker, lead of course by Madness's Lee Thompson and his pals. Their first album was one of those that you keep playing because it has that fell good factor. Twelve groove ridden tracks including a very neat reworking of a Bond Theme, a few covers including one from The Beatles, 'I'll Be Back', then we have Leiber & Stoller's 'Hongry' a stand out version oh and that Bond theme is John Barry's 'On Her Majesty's Secret Service'. An album full of good things, played by a superb group of musicians, and all the right ingredients to get the party going, you like Ska you'll love this. So as one track says 'Step It Up Sister', and track 2's encouragement to 'Feel A Little Better'. This is the music of summer, this is the music that reminds you of sandy beaches, the blue sea and a cool drink and dancing till late…Lee Thompson's Ska Orchestra is a must.

Erich Wolfgang Korngold (1897-1957) wrote an undeniably beautiful violin concerto near the end of World War II, despite its conservative language and intemperately debonair veneer. He had left his native Austria in 1934 for the United States and taken up permanent residence in California, where he launched a successful career writing film scores. The concerto is based on themes he used in four such cinematic efforts, themes whose new guise hardly masked the air of a splashy, saccharine Hollywood, with images ……

Robert Cummings @ AllMusic

Somehow, leading Norway's Tristania to the top of the goth metal heap wasn't enough for vocalist/guitarist Morten Veland, who unilaterally seceded from the union in the year 2000 to found a brand-spanking-new though similar-sounding band named Sirenia…