The Road is a concept album about relationships, addictions, and the struggles of modern day life. The style of music is a mix of modern/pyscedelic/classic rock and blues…

When the first line-up of Rare Bird folded in early 1971, keyboard player Graham Field formed a new outfit with bass player, vocalist and guitarist Alan Barry and King Crimson drummer Andy McCulloch. Although the band failed to emulate the commercial success of Field’s previous group, the self-titled album they recorded and released in 1971 was a magnificent example of British Progressive Rock.

Swedish prog-rock legends The Flower Kings have returned with the newest full-length offering in their 25-year history, By Royal Decree. The group’s third studio record since introducing drummer Mirko DeMaio and keyboardist Zach Kamins into the lineup is a vintage affair in many respects. With virtually no touring to endeavor upon for the last two years, the band was free to focus on recording new material, as well as reviewing things left on the cutting room floor from previous sessions.

Here are Maurizio Pollini's compelling interpretations — paired with two now legendary conductors - of five piano masterworks performed with the Vienna Philharmonic at home, the Musikverein's magnificent "golden hall" In Mozart and Beethoven the camera captures the pianist's virtuosity as well as his empathy with Karl Bohm as they document the only two Mozart concertos that Pollini has ever released. For the Brahms concerto Pollini is joined by a young Claudio Abbado creating great music-making in which this essential repertoire is joyfully illuminated by two kindred spirits.

Eight-time Grammy Award-nominated multi-platinum singer, songwriter, designer, and philanthropist Avril Lavigne release her new album, Love Sux, via Travis Barker’s DTA Records. The 12-track album is Avril’s seventh studio album and marks the first new music to be released from the star since 2019.

When Udo Dirkschneider sang lead with the West German metal band Accept, it was clear that AC/DC's Bon Scott was his primary influence. And the headbanger took his love of Scott with him when he departed Accept and formed his own band, Udo, in 1987. Though not as strong as his work with Accept, Faceless World is a decent album that employs mildly gothic imagery at times. Not content to simply crank up the volume and hit us with power chords, Dirkschneider and friends make melody a priority on "System of Life," "Stranger," "Blitz of Lightning" and other songs on this exuberant CD. Faceless World may not be Balls to the Wall (one of Accept's best releases), but it isn't anything to be ashamed of either. Who could have predicted that only three year's after Faceless World came out, this type of rock would have lost so much ground to alternative rock?

Although Enigma Records was better known for its connection to the mid-'80s Paisley Underground scene (Rain Parade, Game Theory, etc.), the Los Angeles-based indie was also among the first to document the rebirth of glam metal, which overtook the L.A. club scene at the same time, by issuing the first album by Mötley Crüe, Poison, and others. The glam-poppy Lizzy Borden was also ran in the hair metal sweepstakes, but its debut album, 1985's Love You to Pieces, holds up better than many other documents from the era. The packaging, complete with faux-goth band logo and the requisite hot big-haired chick in lingerie, is crushingly obvious, and the entire album flirts with cliché.

Steve Reich is the self-renewer of his one-time minimalist peers, able to revitalise his output just at the point when accusations of resting on laurels start to surface. By 1980, he had seemingly exhausted the possibilities of eight years of harmony-based writing, and aural wallpaper felt worryingly close. Tehilim changed all that: with its grounding in Hebrew cantilation and complex though always dancing rhythmic surround, this was Reich at his absolute best. The four Psalm texts–never so literal as to be settings–form a half-hour vocal "symphony", in impact though emphatically not in conception.

[Mysliveček] “She is a charming, persuasive advocate … The ECO, too, offer fine support and with a range of tone colours, match de la Vega’s recreative imagination. Pentatone has captured these performances in particularly clear sound … De la Vega offers the first recording of a Concerto in D by Mysliveček, one that displays the utmost craftsmanship and appeal … her fine performance renders it memorable”.

This album presents works for string orchestra by Lithuanian composer Algirdas Martinaitis (b. 1950) from his early breakthrough work Birds of Eden (1981) to a recent Valse triste (2020), giving a very broad vision of this composer. This programme is performed by Lithuanian musicians of the St. Christopher Chamber Orchestra conducted by Modestas Barkauskas and featuring violinist Rūta Lipinaitytė and soprano Asta Krikščiūnaitė. For keen fans of music within the Baltic states, Algirdas Martinaitis is quite known for his works dancing between a serene beauty and sincerity before collapsing into an almost sarcastic nihilism, a style which he describes as 'new animality'. Within this style, much like Henryk Górecki’s ‘circus pieces’, sarcasm, irony, and subversion of expectations become central to the music making.

Hasse Fröberg & Musical Companion is a band formed by its namesake, Hasse Fröberg. Hasse is most famous for his work as a vocalist and occasional guitarist of symph-prog titans The Flower Kings. After TFK went on hiatus around 2008, Hasse decided to form a new band in order to present 'songs that [he has] written through the years that don't fit the T.F.K formula.' "Powerplay" (2012) is their second studio album. What we have here is pretty solid music, sometimes very close to what The Flower Kings done in past years but this time this style is melted with hard rock elements, giving in the end a heavy prog album quite spectacular in places. There are lots of melodic hooks, nice instrumental passages, and keyboard driven arrangements. Also the voice of Hasse is very strong, he has a warm vocal tone who is fiting perfectly into this type of music. The musicianship and songwritting is top toch, every musician involved here truly shining.

After the harrowing Plastic Ono Band, John Lennon returned to calmer, more conventional territory with Imagine. While the album had a softer surface, it was only marginally less confessional than its predecessor. Underneath the sweet strings of "Jealous Guy" lies a broken and scared man, the jaunty "Crippled Inside" is a mocking assault at an acquaintance, and "Imagine" is a paean for peace in a world with no gods, possessions, or classes, where everyone is equal…

This album is definitely a transitional one for Anita O'Day. Four of the dozen performances are taken from June 1963. Her trio joins the singer on four of her "hits" ("Sweet Georgia Brown," "Boogie Blues," "Tea for Two" and "A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square"), which were O'Day's final recordings until 1970 due to personal problems. The remainder of this set is from 1975-76, with several trios backing O'Day on a repertoire dominated by swing standards. Although her voice was not as young, O'Day was still in good form at that point, making this album a worthwhile acquisition for her fans.

If you're going to pillage someone else's ideas, then go for broke. Because even if you find yourself crammed between the barriers of creative space, utterly at a loss for ideas, expression, or thought, you'd still have a self-respect buzzing in your ear like a mad angelic insect, putting down the newspaper and taking out a cigar to remind you that, hell, if want to sound like Radiohead when even Thom Yorke doesn't want to sound like Radiohead, you might as well take it to preposterous, bombastic, over-the-top levels…