Friday New Releases – February 12, 2021

The last couple of weeks for me haven’t been big on releases. This week changes all that. There are so many I want to check out that it might take a whole week to get through them all. My choices are highlighted in Blue. Now before we go on, lets take a look at something in the list below. Frontiers Records has not 1 or 2 or even 5, they have at least 6 albums coming out this week (could be more, I only put in 6). That is one label releasing that many albums on one day. Kind of shocking. If I was an artist on that label, I would ask how the label can market that many releases at one time. Seems unfair to the releases. And a lot of the label’s albums are similar type of music. There is no way, the public can buy them all, especially in today’s environment. I am not sure I understand their strategy. Enough about that. What albums are you most eager to hear? Let me know what you want and what I may have missed. Thanks and have a great weekend.

  • A1ZVtvdzNFL._SX522_  The Pretty Reckless – Death by Rock And Roll – (Fearless Records): This hard rock band, fronted by Taylor Momsen, is back with another kick ass release. At least I hope it will be kick ass. Taylor has a great rock voice and I have been a fan of her vocals and band since they came out years ago. Can’t wait to dive in to this one.
  • 71R8bsymJzL._SX522_  Durbin – The Beast Awakens – (Frontiers Records): James Durbin has returned after a short stint with Quiet Riot. Glad to see him on his own again. He has brought some heavy hitting friends along and this one is supposed to be balls to the wall heavy and should be right up his alley. Who’da think this boy from American Idol would still be hanging around this long. Good on him.
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Deep Purple – ‘Last Concert in Japan’ – Album Review (The David Coverdale Series)

‘Last Concert in Japan’ only saw a release due to the death of guitarist Tommy Bolin who died in December of 1976.  The album was released shortly after in March of 1977 in Japan.  The record company was in a rush to capitalize on his death is all I can think why this was released. The band was done, all parties had moved on and the record company thought it would be an easy cash grab.  Now I have no proof, this is pure speculation but it is what record companies do.

This album captures the Mark IV line-ups last show in Japan as the title says at the Budokan Hall which I believe they set a record for attendance at that time.  The release is not a full show and it was streamlined down to fit on only one LP.

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There are a lot of problems with this album.  First off, the mix. It is pretty crappy as the release was done in such a hurry that the master tracking really suffered and let me tell you it shows.  And if that wasn’t enough, let me just say the guitar playing is less then stellar and I believe Jon Lord was used a lot more in places that there should have been more guitar.  The reason being is Tommy Bolin had been doing drugs quite heavily the night before and according to Glenn Hughes, he feel asleep on his arm for 8 hours and couldn’t play.  And based on what I hear, I believe he might be telling the truth.

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Deep Purple – ‘Come Taste the Band’ – Album Review (The David Coverdale Series)

Ritchie Blackmore left the band after the last album, ‘Stormbringer’, due to creative differences with David Coverdale and Glenn Hughes.  I find this funny considering Ritchie brought them in to help take the band in a new direction and Ritchie ended up not liking that direction.  So Deep Purple was done…or were they?

David talked Jon Lord and Ian Paice to continue and they did.  Now before they could continue, they needed a new guitar player and in comes Tommy Bolin, a bloody American.  This upset quite a few diehard UK Purple fans.  And probably part of the reason the album didn’t do that well.

David had heard Tommy’s playing on Jazz fusion drummer Billy Cobham’s solo album called ‘Spectrum’ and thought he would be perfect.  And we all know now that David has an ear for great guitarists (can you say John Sykes and Steve Vai to name a couple). Tommy was a great guitar player and it is too bad his heroin addiction would take a life way too soon a little over a year after the album’s release.

Deep Purple would continue and this would end up being the first Deep Purple album to not feature either Ritchie Blackmore or even Ian Gillan.  As a result, a lot of people don’t really consider this a Deep Purple album.  Now that is crazy because if they consider ‘Burn’ to be a Deep Purple album, then this one is as well as the sound and feel is so similar to that album and quite possibly could be better.  I know I might be in the minority, but I really like this album.

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Continue reading “Deep Purple – ‘Come Taste the Band’ – Album Review (The David Coverdale Series)”