Keeper of the Seven Keys: Part I is the second studio album by German power metal band Helloween, released in 1987. It marks the first appearance of vocalist Michael Kiske, and is considered the album that created the genre of European-style power metal.

When Kendrick Lamar popped up on two tracks from Baby Keem’s The Melodic Blue (“range brothers” and “family ties”), it felt like one of hip-hop’s prophets had descended a mountain to deliver scripture. His verses were stellar, to be sure, but it also just felt like way too much time had passed since we’d heard his voice. He’d helmed 2018’s Black Panther compilation/soundtrack, but his last proper release was 2017’s DAMN. That kind of scarcity in hip-hop can only serve to deify an artist as beloved as Lamar. But if the Compton MC is broadcasting anything across his fifth proper album Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers, it’s that he’s only human.

With a unique sound founded on a persuasive mix of American and African jazz, Armitage Road, originally released in 1970, was the only studio recording released by South Africa’s Heshoo Beshoo Group. As a highly prized collector’s item, a re-issue and re-appraisal of this lost gem from the apartheid era has been long overdue. Heshoo Beshoo loosely translates from the inter-tribal lingo of the townships as either ‘going by force’, or ‘moving with force’. That is certainly the case here. With its undeniably funky element Armitage Road combines graceful and moving playing with invention and passion, and it does not disappoint from start to finish.

Featuring the Sweden-based pianist, new music pioneer, and former Merce Cunningham-collaborator Kristine Scholz, the album "Scholz plays Otte and Cage" is focusing the music of two composers who over time came to mean a great deal to one another: Hans Otte (1926-2007) and John Cage (1912-1992). On the album, four movements from Otte's seminal work "Das Buch der Klänge" (1979-82) is combined with a stunning interpretation of Cage's "Music for Piano 4-19" (1953).

Famed Hanoi Rocks guitarist/vocalist Andy McCoy taps into the rich musical history that inspired him on this highly addictive covers album! Features an eclectic mix of songs originally by reggae legend Toots & The Maytals, David Bowie, ‘80s hitmakers Squeeze, rockabilly queen Wanda Jackson and more!

Keeper of the Seven Keys: Part II is the third studio album by German power metal band Helloween, released in 1988. The album sold well, and success bloomed all over Europe, Asia, and even the United States. The album went gold in Germany and reached No. 108 in the US. Two singles were released from the album, "Dr. Stein" and "I Want Out". "Dr. Stein" has a very long and moody solo, played with a blues tinge, very unlike other solos on the album, as well as an organ solo. "I Want Out" remains the band's best-known song, and has been covered by several metal bands, such as Gamma Ray (which Kai Hansen formed after leaving Helloween itself), Unisonic, HammerFall, LORD and Sonata Arctica. It is their last album to feature Hansen until 2021's self-titled album.

Bruce Cockburn's self-titled debut's blend of diversity, enthusiasm, and innocence never quite resurfaced again in his work, especially in his more clinical, politically inclined tracts of later decades. The opening number, "Going to the Country," still evokes that hippie-esque, back-to-the-earth movement as well as any song ever recorded, complete with a sly wink that keeps it fresh to this day. And since this was 1970, the album also comes equipped with some of those quaint excesses of the period; try the nasal tone poem gracing "The Bicycle Trip." "Musical Friends" remains a lively, happy-go-lucky classic with piano signature lifted from Paul McCartney's playbook; it's difficult to picture the dour Cockburn of more recent years ever having this much fun. In contrast, "Thoughts on a Rainy Afternoon" offers a trance-like, introspective atmosphere reminiscent of British folkie legend Nick Drake.

The concert works of film composer Nino Rota, best known for his scores for the Godfather trilogy and for a long series of films by Federico Fellini, have increasingly often been finding space in classical recording catalogs. Here's a nicely recorded rendering of Rota's two numbered symphonies, virtually unknown until perhaps the turn of the century, issued on a major British label, Chandos. Both are attractive pieces that could be profitably programmed by any symphony orchestra. They were composed in the 1930s, when Rota was as much American as Italian; he won a scholarship to the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia and studied there for several years. Both reflect the French neo-classic trends that flourished in the U.S. between the wars, and, although Rota sounds nothing like Copland, you do experience in these works an evocation of what annotator Michele Rene Mannucci aptly calls "landscape in sound." Each work is in the conventional four movements, with a slow movement placed second in the Symphony No. 1 in G major and third in the Symphony No. 2 in F major.

This particular Best of Motörhead release is a double-disc set on the Sanctuary subsidiary Metal-Is, and it's one of the very, very few Motörhead collections that tries to draw material from throughout the band's career. The compilers couldn't secure the rights to everything, and as such, there's nothing here from albums like 1916 or Bastards. But there are tracks from the later Overnight Sensation, Snake Bite Love, and We Are Motörhead albums, plus four bonus live tracks dating from various points in the group's career…

Gambling with the Devil is the twelfth studio album by German power metal band Helloween, released in Japan on 24 October 2007, and in Europe on 29 October. The single "As Long as I Fall" is download-only and was released in late September.