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 25-2021: Helloween – Helloween
It would be tempting to compare Helloween’s first album after the return of singer Michael Kiske and founding guitarist Kai Hansen to the reunion that made Iron Maiden a three-guitar band. A better comparison would be Testament’s reunion with Alex Skolnick and Greg Christian. Maybe a weird comparison, but like…
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Album of the Week 17-2021: Gamma Ray – Sigh No More
Gamma Ray’s second album ‘Sigh No More’ is generally considered the black sheep of their discography. That probably has to do with the album’s relatively dark, somewhat cynical tone rather than with its actual musical content. No one will ever hear me say that ‘Sigh No More’ is the best…
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Album of the Week 12-2021: Smith/Kotzen – Smith/Kotzen
From the first notes I heard from the project of Iron Maiden guitarist Adrian Smith and multi-genre guitar virtuoso Richie Kotzen, I was looking forward to their self-titled debut album. It is always interesting to me that Smith’s side projects generally tend to sound nothing like Iron Maiden and Smith/Kotzen…
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Album of the Week 10-2021: Thunder – All The Right Noises
Despite breaking up twice over the course of three decades, Thunder is still around and more miraculously, they continue to release material that is comparable in quality to what is considered their classic material. On ‘All The Right Noises’, guitarist Luke Morley continues to be one of the greatest post-seventies…
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Album of the Week 02-2021: Alice In Chains – Dirt
You probably don’t need me to tell you that ‘Dirt’ is a masterpiece. And yet, that is what I will be doing in the next five hundred words or so. It will be an impossible task to find the words for how much I love this album, but if one…
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Album of the Week 01-2021: Arouge – Arouge ~Bogyaku No Kikoshi~
Arouge started out as the high school band Sleazy Luster when the members were still in their mid-teens. Kitsutaka and bassist Jun Fukuda quickly proved to be extremely capable songwriters. Their debut album offers more than enough evidence for that. Somehow, Arouge managed to combine the powerful, riffy bottom-end of…
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Album of the Week 52-2020: Merry – Modern Garde
By its title alone, Merry’s second album ‘Modern Garde’ already serves as a bit of a mission statement for the Tokyo-based band. Even in their early days, Merry was a band that stood out among their early twenty-first century visual kei peers by having some thought behind their concept, alluring…
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Album of the Week 51-2020: Aria – Noch’ Koroche Dnya
‘Noch’ Koroche Dnya’ was Aria’s first release after their string of classic albums (‘Geroy Asfalta’, ‘Igra S Ognëm’ and ‘Krov’ Za Krov”) and arguably their last great album with singer Valery Kipelov. Given the circumstances under which the album was recorded, it is a small miracle that the album came…
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Album of the Week 50-2020: Ningen Isu – Mandoro
Ningen Isu has been around for over thirty years. But even in their native country of Japan, they did not really get the audience they deserved until a few years ago. In a way, I can understand their cult status. Their heavily Black Sabbath-inspired music is a bit of an…
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