Hard Rock Reviews
As much as I like to call myself and this site Kevy Metal, my journey into music actually began with hard rock. Seventies and nineties hardrock – plus contemporary bands inspired by these styles – are still a significant part of what I listen to, and therefore, Album of the Week reviews on hard rock bands are published frequently. You can find all of them right here. Overlaps with my heavy metal reviews inevitably exist.
Looking for something specific, but can’t find it by browsing the reviews? Searching by artist name or release title using the search bar might bring up some Album of the Week reviews I have written before I started tagging my reviews properly.
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Album of the Week 15-2020: Dool – Summerland
Three years ago, debut album ‘Here Now, There Then’ by the Rotterdam-based band Dool took me completely by surprise. While it’s not uncommon for dark rock bands to nail the atmosphere associated with the scene, Dool actually has the songwriting chops and the exquisitely arranged guitar tapestries to completely ditch…
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Album of the Week 14-2020: Saxon – Lionheart
Following the departure of original guitarist Graham Oliver, Saxon gradually grew into too much of a German-styled power metal band. This is not to discredit his follow-up Doug Scarratt, who is probably the best musician to ever play with the band, but the beefy, modern production jobs on their later…
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Album of the Week 13-2020: Hibiki – Hands Of Providence
Anyone with a more than casual interest in Japanese metal has undoubtedly heard at least one album that hibiki plays on. Ever since his virtuosic playing first rose to prominence in the progressive power metal band Light Bringer, he has become one of the most in-demand bassists of the Japanese…
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Album of the Week 12-2020: Badlands – Voodoo Highway
Supergroups really worth anything are rare, but Badlands definitely was one. It may help that hardly any of the band members were household names to the rock audience at large, with only guitarist Jake E. Lee having a high profile gig fulfilling the thankless task of replacing Randy Rhoads in…
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Album of the Week 11-2020: Onmyo-za – Hyakki-Ryoran
Only a year had passed between the releases of Onmyo-za’s debut album ‘Kikoku Tensho’ and sophomore record ‘Hyakki-Ryoran’, but you wouldn’t be able to tell from the massive improvement the latter is over the former. Where the debut had promising, but largely underdeveloped material, ‘Hyakki-Ryoran’ features some of the best…
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Album of the Week 07-2020: Bruce Dickinson – Skunkworks
‘Skunkworks’ may just be Bruce Dickinson’s most controversial solo album, as it is quite likely the least metallic album the legendary Iron Maiden frontman ever released. But while the alternative rock on the album is quite a bit different from what Dickinson was known for, it is a much more…
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Album of the Week 04-2020: Rush – A Farewell To Kings
Late seventies Rush has always had a great reputation among fans of progressive rock and metal. And not without reason. Rush managed to inject all the clever twists and melodic touches that the likes of Genesis and Jethro Tull had into their music without ever losing the heavy, Led Zeppelin-esque…
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Album of the Week 48-2019: Avatarium – The Fire I Long For
For a long time, Avatarium was just another Leif Edling project for me. Avatarium stood out due to the charismatic vocals of Jennie-Ann Smith, but a majority of their material still sounded like Candlemass with female vocals. Smith and her husband, veteran guitarist Marcus Jidell, started contributing to the songwriting…
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Album of the Week 43-2019: Ningen Isu – Ogon No Yoake
‘Ogon No Yoake’ is the album on which Ningen Isu matured. That may be a dirty word for some rock bands, but Ningen Isu finally realizes its full potential here. Their debut EP and first two albums contained plenty of excellent songs, but also showed that the band wasn’t quite…
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