Formed in Colorado in 2007, The Flight of Sleipnir have been plugging away with their blend of doom, folk and stoner metal ever since.
The Night breeze sending a gray wraith of smoke up the slopes as The Flight of Sleipnir return with their 7th album. "Eventide" is an audial rumination on the vast mysteries of nighttime intertwined by the roaring fireytones of Doom, Prog, Black Metal, Folk, and Post-Rock.

The third release by Kim Simmonds and company, but the first to feature the most memorable lineup of the group: Simmonds, "Lonesome" Dave Peverett, Tony "Tone" Stevens, Roger Earl, and charismatic singer Chris Youlden. This one serves up a nice mixture of blues covers and originals, with the first side devoted to studio cuts and the second a live club date recording. Certainly the standout track, indeed a signature song by the band, is the tour de force "Train to Nowhere," with its patient, insistent buildup and pounding train-whistle climax. Additionally, David Anstey's detailed, imaginative sleeve art further boosts this a notch above most other British blues efforts.

With albums as tightly constructed as Minus the Bear's, it's hard to imagine that there's much left over after the recording process is over and done with. Those knotty, intricate albums come at a cost, and songs that once paid the ultimate price in the name of consistency get a second chance on Lost Loves. Resurrecting songs from the recording sessions that spawned 2007's Planet of Ice, 2010's Omni, and 2012's Infinity Overhead, the collection lovingly compiles these nearly forgotten (or at the very least hard to find) gems into what feels more or less like a complete album. And unlike a lot of odds and ends compilations, which often contain at least a few tracks where it's obvious why they were jettisoned from an album, the quality of the tracks on Lost Loves easily stands up to the rest of the band's body of work.

Finnish composer Kalevi Aho’s Fourth Symphony (1972) contains, in its three movements, elements both typical of his early work and prophetic of things to come. The first movement’s fugal exposition reveals a continuation of that concern with musical shape and form already quite evident in Aho’s previous symphonies. His skillful use of counterpoint to convey an impression of sadness or dread echoes that great master of creepy fugue writing, Bartók. The second movement unleashes a violent whirlwind of sound very much in the spirit of Mahler’s or Shostakovich’s more nihilistic moments, and its instrumental virtuosity very much anticipates the composer’s most recent, concertante-style symphonic writing.

Ultimate & most wanted japanese rare groove recorded by the saxophonist Jiro Inagaki, one of the main actor of the Japanese Jazz Rock & Progressive scene. In 1963, Jiro Inagaki was recruited by Helen Merrill for her first album recorded in Japan, "In Tokyo" with the Takeshi Inomata's West Liners group, and later formed various jazz band as the All-Stars, The (Black) Rhythm Machine or, of course, The Soul Media. Recorded in 1969 and released under the famous Takt Jazz Series from Nippon Columbia, Head Rock includes psychedelic guitar effects, great drum breaks, acid & electronic organ sounds, performed by The Soul Media, featuring some future japanese jazz great names, such as Ryo Kawasaki (in his first professional appearance), Yasuo Arakawa, Masaru Imada or Tetsuo Fushimi. Titles includes cover & original songs from Hal Galper (The Vamp), and Willie Dixon (an amazing version of Spoonful), five composed by Ryo Kawasaki (Twenty One), Masaru Imada (High Jack), Yasuo Arakawa (The Ground For Peace) and Jiro (Head Rock). All tracks arranged by Jiro Inagaki.

These CDs have been issued by Decca in their "Legendary Performances" series; the recording was originally issued on the Ace of Diamonds label in 1960. Fritz Reiner belonged to that era of revered authoritarian conductors (including Toscanini, Klemperer and Beecham) who dominated the pre-Second World War orchestral scene. His reputation was achieved very largely through his interpretations of Wagner opera in America and Europe and his orchestral directorships in Cincinnati, Pittsburgh and Chicago. This recording of the Verdi Requiem came towards the very end of his conducting career and only 3 years before his death.

Always aware of the import of even their slightest movement, Manic Street Preachers place a lot of weight on their album titles and 2014's Futurology is designed as a conscious counterpoint to 2013's Rewind the Film. That record wound up closing an era where the Manics looked back toward their own history as a way of moving forward, but Futurology definitively opens a new chapter for the Welsh trio, one where they're pushing into uncharted territory. Never mind that, by most standards this charge toward the future is also predicated on the past, with the group finding fuel within the robotic rhythms of Krautrock and the arty fallout of punk; within the context of the Manics, this is a bracing, necessary shift in direction. All the death disco, free-range electronics, Low homages, and Teutonic grooves, suit the situational politics of the Manics, perhaps even better than the AOR-inspired anthems that have been their stock in trade, but the words – crafted, as ever, by Nicky Wire, who remains obsessed with self-recriminations, injustice and rallying cries – aren't the focus here. Unique among Manics albums, Futurology is primarily about the music, with the surging synthesizers and jagged arrangements providing not an emotional blood-letting or call to arms, but rather an internal journey.

Rising from the ashes of pub rock band Ducks Deluxe, the Motors began life as Status Quo lite, a boogie band with better ideas and hooks than other bands in the same mold. Led by talented singer/songwriters Nick Garvey and Andy McMaster, the Motors' 1977 self-titled debut sounded better on paper than it did on the home stereo. Scoring a semihit with the single "Dancing the Night Away" was a surprise to all, but certainly gave Virgin enough confidence to back a second album. When Approved by the Motors hit the shelves in 1978, the band had become one of the finest pop/rock bands in the U.K., refining their sound (the boogie was nowhere to be found) and writing songs filled with great melodies. Garvey and McMaster's harmonies had become as unique as fellow popsters Difford & Tilbrook's, although the Motors sound was far more gritty than the duo from Squeeze. Even lead guitarist Bram Tchaikovsky and drummer Ricky Slaughter seemed to have an expanded role in the sound of the band. Standout tracks like "Forget About You," "Sensation," "Soul Redeemer," and the beautiful "Today" were the heart and soul of this fabulous sophomore release, and the album even garnered them a bonafide hit with "Airport".

Seventeen-track anthology focuses mostly on their popular 1963-66 recordings, including "Deep Purple," "Whispering," "Stardust," "All Strung Out," several lower-charting items, and some LP tracks. They milked the "Deep Purple" formula too many times, but this is enjoyably frothy pop, and "All Strung Out" is a genuinely soulful, accurate approximation of Phil Spector's work with the Righteous Brothers. The disc also includes Stevens's 1959 solo single "Teach Me Tiger," a bizarre cover of "I Love How You Love Me" (with battling bagpipes and fuzzy guitars), and one undistinguished track each from 1985 and 1996.

Since he had joined Santana in 1972, keyboard player Tom Coster had been Carlos Santana's right-hand man, playing, co-writing, co-producing, and generally taking the place of founding member Greg Rolie. But Coster left the band in the spring of 1978, to be replaced by keyboardist/guitarist Chris Solberg and keyboardist Chris Rhyme. Despite the change, the band soldiered on, and with Inner Secrets, they scored three chart singles: the disco-ish "One Chain (Don't Make No Prison)" (#59), "Stormy" (#32), and a cover of Buddy Holly's "Well All Right" (#69), done in the Blind Faith arrangement. (There seems to be a Steve Winwood fixation here. The album also featured a cover of Traffic's "Dealer.") The singles kept the album on the charts longer than any Santana LP since 1971, but it was still a minor disappointment after Moonflower, and in retrospect seems like one of the band's more compromised efforts.