Sacred Steel is a trademark in the metal scene: all Metal with attitude, never everybody’s darling - and damn proud of it! For more than 25 years, they have offered the metalhead a deadly trend-free alternative to bloated trigger drums, cheesy keyboards and boring cliché sounds that are hyped year after year as "the next big thing in metal". "Ritual Supremacy" marks their 10th album, a refreshing true metal masterpiece full of hymns and headbangers.

"Songs For Evolution" the only album recorded by the group Anglo-Saxon Brown, considered a much sought-after collectable LP among rare groove music buyers and DJs alike. An expanded edition with one bonus track (the lone 1976 single, "Straighten It Out" released by Atlantic), "Songs For Evolution" was produced & mostly written by the Philadelphia team of Joseph Jefferson & Charles Simmons, who had penned a number of classic ‘70s hits for the Spinners including "Games People Play," "Mighty Love" and "Love Don’t Love Nobody") and recorded at famed Sigma Sound studios in Philly with string arrangements by Jack Faith, featuring the Don Renaldo Strings along with guitarist Bobby Eli. An accomplished ten member band based in Richmond, Virginia.

Following four successful recordings released on the Ricercar, Alpha and Arcana labels, Rome-based Andrea De Carlo and his Ensemble Mare Nostrum continue their exploration of the Roman repertoire and inaugurate here a new series of recordings, with its own distinctive artwork, devoted to the vast and multifaceted musical heritage of the Eternal City.

The Swedish Ensemble Villancico under its conductor Peter Pontvik guide us through the world of Latin American baroque music. This music is a merging of cultures and traditions - Indian, Spanish, and African. The Ensemble Villancico is currently regarded worldwide as one of the most important interpreters of early music from Latin America, uniting Nordic voices and the spirit of Latin American baroque music.

Listeners used to the Hanover Band will need no prompting to buy this excellent series of performances, excellently recorded. They avoid some of the more quirky and, to some, off-putting aspects of period performance. There are no ugly bulges of tone and wirey shafts of under-nourished violin tone. The wind and brass play bang in tune and the instruments are fully under the control of these top players.

Absolute glorious collection of Mellow Soul, Jazz & Funk tunes. Well put together compilation CD from Sony music Japan, features George Duke, Mtume, Webster Lewis, Pattie Labelle, & Alphonso Johnson. Essential collection for any soul music fan.

From the provocative opening track, "She Loves To Be In Love" (which the listener immediatley associates with the cover girl of the album), to the hilarious "Watching T.V." (wittily namechecking many a 1970's t.v. show) this album neatly encapsulates the oh so slightly off kilter and musically mannered sensibilities of this engaging band. Charlie mainstay, Terry Thomas, has a somewhat nasal vocal delivery which is instantly recognizable and brings an idiosyncratic edge to the laid back 70's vibe of the downbeat "L.A. Dreamer" and the impossibly catchy "Life So Cruel." Terry Thomas has a sharp sense of humor and fun and it works well on stuff like the already mentioned "Watching T.V." Equally though, he brings a somewhat obscure sense of class, for lack of a better word, to the proceedings on stylish excursions like "No More Heartache" and "No Strangers In Paradise"…

War Ina Babylon is the 1976 album by Max Romeo & The Upsetters. It was produced by Lee "Scratch" Perry, whose band backed up Romeo for this recording. This is the 2004 Limited Edition, Numbered, Reissue, Remastered, Digipak Edition.

Juanita Hall is best-known for being a stage actress, playing Bloody Mary in South Pacific. However on this 1958 set for Counterpoint she shows that she could effectively sing blues. Mostly sticking to songs from the Bessie Smith songbook (including "You've Been a Good Old Wagon," "Gimme a Pigfoot" and "Nobody Wants You When You're Down and Out"), Hall's extroverted and shouting style fit the music quite well. Pianist Claude Hopkins arranged for the sextet and gathered quite an all-star backup group that includes tenor-saxophonist Coleman Hawkins, clarinetist Buster Bailey and trumpeter Doc Cheatham. Well worth getting.

In fact this is the most complete and most symphonic album by Dutch band Finch from the Hague. Unfortunately there had been this dramatic turn of the tide in which Punk rock flushed away all good music without having been carefully listened to. This appeared to be fatal for a quality band like Finch and "The Galleons Of Passion" sadly sunk away in an ocean of musical oblivion. True progfans however should certainly check out this album, because it shows Finch at their best.

A great issue of some of Billie Holiday's classic sides for the Commodore label - a company she didn't work with often, but home to some of her best material of the early years! The tracks here were mostly recorded in 1944, but the set also features some early bits from 1939 as well - and backing on all numbers is by small combos, with players who include Eddie Heywood on piano, Frankie Newton or Doc Cheatham on trumpet, Tab Smith or Lem Davis on alto, Teddy Walters on guitar, and Kenneth Hollon on tenor sax. Titles include Holiday's seminal "Strange Fruit" - a track that's stunning both for its handling of racial subject matter, and for the fact that it's one of the few penned by Billie herself!

After a long silence, Anekdoten reemerges into the darkness with a record that is both more mature than their debut, Vemod, and yet somewhat less polished than 1995's Nucleus. From Within feels like it was produced on a tighter budget, and the production can have a rehearsal-room feel - although to be sitting in Anekdoten's rehearsal room is no small privilege. The opening title track is a band tour de force of crunching bass, swooping Mellotron, and clattering snare drums; one of the real high points of the album comes with the slowly building instrumental "The Sun Absolute," built around a single pulsing bass guitar note, ghostly Mellotron flutes, and sonar ping keyboards. But this fine album still falls a little short of its predecessor, for although Anna Sofi Dahlberg is still listed in the credits, her cello work is strangely absent from the mix. Its departure only serves to emphasize its importance in the band's sound in previous albums.