Faith and the Muse - The Burning Season

It's the rare artist who can really rock hard as well as really make pretty (for lack of a better word) music. I don't mean a mellow act that does the occasional uptempo number. I mean musicians that can create beautiful music that stops you in your tracks; the same musicians that just a few songs earlier were making you play air guitar. Faith and the Muse achieve just that with The Burning Season. The album opens up with full-on rocker Sredni Vashtar. A few songs later In the Amber Room wafts out, a 180-degree turn. Many artists talk the talk of expanding their sound. Faith and the Muse walk the walk.

Blitzkrieg - A Time of Changes

Of all the cover songs Metallica has done, my favorite still is Blitzkrieg by New Wave of British Heavy Metal (NWOBHM) band Blitzkrieg. I had heard the original song years ago and I recently decided to take the plunge and get A Time of Changes, which collects pretty much everything the original incarnation of Blitzkrieg put on tape. Harder and faster than the seventies hard rock of Kiss and Deep Purple, bands like Blitzkrieg opened the door for the thrash of Metallica and Megadeth to take things even further. During the NWOBHM of the late seventies and early eighties heavy metal was back underground, in the U.S. at least, so there was a lot of material that was overlooked. Decent songs, including Inferno and four different versions of Blitzkrieg and a singer with a Halford-quality scream make this an archetype of NWOBHM and an excellent place to start if you are interested in it.

Adam West - Right On!

Washington, D.C. rockers Adam West are in that nether region which Mötorhead fans are all too familiar with: too good to be a bar band, too hard to get airplay. Take a listen to C'mon and Bludgeon Me to hear what I'm on about: 1 minutes and 55 seconds of no frills, full-throttle rock and roll. They are exactly the kind of band that should be opening for Mötorhead on a regular basis. Hey, Lemmy! Check out Shield Your Eyes if you're still not convinced. Sometimes you just have to rock out. For those times, there is Adam West.

Israel Kamakawiwo'ole - Facing Future

I learned the story of the late Israel Kamakawiwo'ole from a news article a few months ago but I thought, "That's a nice story--too bad I don't like Hawaiian music." Recently, however, somebody asked me about getting some Hawaiian songs for a party they were to provide music for. Remembering Iz's story, I went over to iTunes, played samples from his album Facing Future, and then sent my friend the link. The songs weren't so bad. Pleasant and, at times, even catchy. I figured with 18,000 songs in my iTunes collection, shouldn't I have some Hawaiian music, too? I'm no expert on the genre but this is definitely a good place to start. Listen to Hawaii '78 and Ka Pua U'i. You'll also want to check out Somewhere Over the Rainbow/What A Wonderful World, the song that sparked the Iz revival.

Jeffrey Naness - Frenetic Passages

I swear I found out about Jeffrey Naness from an email he sent me but I can't find it anywhere. I even have an unreleased track of his in iTunes--how else could I have gotten it unless we corresponded? He doesn't have a website, either (note to all artists out there who have CDs for sale: you must have your own website). Weird. In any event, Jeffrey Naness, (attorney by day, daddy by evening, keyboard wizard by night) has put together an EP of his synth compositions and named it Frenetic Passages. According to him, his major influences are early Rush (which scores him big points on my cool-o-meter) and J.S. Bach. His music, though, has neither guitars nor an orchestra so he ends up sounding like his other big influence: Wendy Carlos (disclosure: I never got past the Switched on Bach albums so that could be an overly broad comparison). I like it. It's a nice change of pace for me plus I'm a sucker for albums by people toiling away in their spare time. Check out the title track, Frenetic Passage, and Broken Light.

Red Delicious - Addictions & Scars

One of the nice things about the Internet bubble was MP3.com. No, not that silly site that is there now. MP3.com was where known and unknown bands could post MP3s of full-length songs that you could download for free. The bands were even getting paid if they were popular (for a while, at least). I discovered some signed bands (Lacuna Coil, Blind Guardian, Strapping Young Lad) and a bunch of unsigned ones (The Fur Ones, Volition, Borgo Pass, Ohm (Boston)). MP3.com would make CDs you could buy from music and artwork the bands uploaded. Red Delicious was one of the unsigned bands and I bought the full-length CD and the two EP-length CDs they had for sale. Good stuff: really outstanding songs and fabulous singing. They had quite a following online which resulted in their being signed to a small label. Production on their album was proceding when the label went belly up, which meant the masters were in legal limbo for a while. Well, Red Delicious are back from record industry hell with the self-released Addictions & Scars. It has remakes of some of their MP3.com "hits", such as the five-star Casualties, as well as new songs like Blues & Stars. Are you looking for a rock band with strong female vocals and great songs? Look no further.