Boosweet Records 2003
Review by Endre "Bandi" H|bner 9 September 2003

The last time I wrote about Boosweet Records' founder Vernon Neilly was in connection with an album he put together featuring Seymour Duncan endorsers [check our archives for a review of the album] that was rather a promotional affair for the company and not a real album. Now here he is with another album serving similar purposes but what a difference! G-Fire is showcasing four extraordinary guitarists, Kevin Chokan, Morris O'Connor, Miguel Mega, and Vernon himself. The songs are ordered in three four-track blocks, all of them feature a song by each artist, so altogether you get a three-song preview of their style from all the four guys.

All these guys have some unique in their playing, yet they all have common features. The whole album is rather laid back; there are lots of soul, jazz and South-American ethnic influences all over. Imagine Santana with a big dose of soul, jazz, and some rocking here and there. Besides Vernon, Kevin Chokan may be the best-known name in music industry here because of his work with Diana Ross. His tracks appear to be blessed with the biggest dose of soul, not to mention some great arrangements, my personal favorite from him was "Passin' Thru" with its catchy dual trumpet-guitar solo parts. Vernon's songs open each four-track blocks, the opener "Flight To Ecstasy" may be the heaviest track here (if this word ever applies to a conga based track with strong latino influences). The personal favorite from him is "Moonlight In Paradise", probably the catchiest track out of all here, could easily fit into some Caribic nightlife movie or something. Morris O'Connor's songs include the Al Jarreau cover "Little Sunflower", it's as good as it can only get. Personally I think his playing is the most diverse of them all, maybe because of his heavy session musician background. Personal fave would be the acoustic "B-Town". Miguel Mega is the underdog here, the least known name but I must admit I enjoy his tracks the most. Out of the four guys his playing is the closest to the standard rock guitar hero playing, yet it features all those above-mentioned influences that tie these four players together. "Wooded" and "Sundown Blues" qualify as my personal favorites from him.

KICK Music 2003
Review by 15 Mars 2003

Gaeleri is a Swedish rock band signed to the Danish label, Kick Music. "A Brighter Day" is their third release and it's a bit softer, more Pop/Rock inspired, than previous albums. I'm sure that some will find this to be a step in the wrong direction, while I find it to be refreshing somehow.

They decided to move away from the worst 70's riffs and instead it's slick Rock with AOR & Modern Pop influences. The material doesn't really stand the quality test all the way though. However, this may still be something for the opened minded to check out. Since everything is professional done and the production by Anders Theander (Roastinghouse Studio), is top class.

Sound Riot Records/Rock Inc 2003
Review by 21 June 2003

Gaia Epicus is a true power metal band and can best be compared with bands like Helloween, Hammerfall, Edguy, Stratovarius and Gamma Ray. So you can expect high pitched fast vocals, long tracks full of variety, explosive drum kicks, melodic but speedy guitarsolos and very typical lyrics. Furthermore songtitles like “Keepers Of Time”, “Fire & Ice”, “Die For Your King” and “Heavy Metal Heart” speak for themselves and need no further explanation.

Thomas C.Hansen has a very characteristic nasal voice which sometimes sounds like Klaus Meine’s throat of the famous Scorpions. “Fire & Ice” could turn out to become a “famous” powermetal hymn to singalong to after you had a couple of beers.

Lionmusic 2002
Review by 4 September 2002

First of all a warning to all you die-hard rock fans out there!!! This CD doesn't have that much to do with neither 'Heavy Metal' or 'Melodic Hardrock', in the first place. Nah, the latest release by the multi-talanted musician (guitarist/songwriter) Bruce Gaitsch, is very soft westcoast & instrumental guitar music (as always).

Gaitsch was born and raised in Chicago Illinois, he joined Jim "Survivor" Peterik's 'Ides Of March' band in 1975 and recorded more than 3000 sessions before moving to L.A. in 1984. More than 100 rock/pop artists out there, have reorded one of all his songs since and Peter Cetera, Chicago, Kansas, Phillip Bailey, Agnetha Fältskog (ABBA), Richard Marx, Lara Fabian are just some of them.

Sanctuary/Metal-Is 2003
Review by 26 August 2003

"Gamma Ray, Gamma Ray, Gamma, Gamma, Gamma Ray!!!" Nope, the song isn't included and not many from the early days (with vocalist Ralf Scheepers) are actually. The running order or rather the tracklist was decided by the fans, and surely most of them must have been drunk the very day.

Seriously though, it's a very strange and odd bunch of songs they've voted to be included here. Many of them has never even been performed live by the band in the past. Then again, you wont find "that" many tracks from previous live albums, and that's always a good thing I guess?

MTM 1998
Review by Kimmo Toivonen

Garbo Talks is a project built around the core of Jon Gorman (vocals), Al Greenwood (keys, ex-Foreigner) and Tony Bruno (guitars, ex-Saraya). Also heavily involved is Bob Held, a guy who has written a number of songs with Al Greenwood for other artists.

The album starts with the brilliant "Only Love", which is a great poweful AOR song. The same goes for the next two songs; "Hard Times" and "This Could Be The Night". Unfortunately the rest of the material isn't as good as the first few numbers. "Easy Come, Easy Go" and "Give You My Lovin'" are decent enough, but the majority of the remaining songs are really quite average. I was especially expecting that the two songs featuring famous co-writers (Glen Burtnick and Paul Stanley) would have been better. The Held/Burtnick composition "Elenah" reminded me strangely of lighter version of Dio, and the song featuring Stanley ("Game Of Love") sounded like a very average eighties' Kiss number. Maybe the band should have stuck to their own guns...

MTM Music 2002
Review by 8 November 2002

It's almost like time's been standing still in the hands of Hirsh Gardner. Everything is changing but the ex. New England drummer/vocalist, who have totally left out some twenty years of musical influences. This CD could easily have been released back in 1982 and no-one would have noticed the difference in the first place anyway.

In other words, music trends comes and goes but Gardner stands true to his colour until the bitter end. You'll have to respect (?!) someone who doesn't give a crap about what others says or do. It's not a question of turning a blind eye against everything with a fresher sound than the early 80's though. Read our interview with the man and you'll notice that he's out there and enjoys his Pink CD and other 'hip' music :-)

Psychonaut Records
Review by 25 January 2003

At last, after two years of waiting the new album of The Gathering has finally seen the light of day. For those readers who do not know The Gathering I can tell you that this Dutch rockband started in 1989 and that they have made 8 albums since then. Their great breakthrough came in 1994 when singer Anneke van Giersbergen joined the band and they made wondeful albums like “Mandylion” and “Nighttime Birds”. With their fifth album called “How To Measure A Planet?” they invented a new rockgenre, namely "Triprock". Since Anneke joined the band her extravagant and beautiful vocals have dominated the sound of The Gathering and on the new album it is again her extraordinary voice which gives me gooseflesh throughout the whole album.

The first song “These Good People” begins like a soundtrack for a science-fiction movie and turns into a trance/spacy rock song, just like the tracks on “How To Measure A Planet?”. The next song, with the beautiful title “Even The Spirits Are Afraid” is a bit of a gloomy song, with a very dominant guitar riff. “Monsters” is probably the most agressive song and if you are into very relaxed, melodic rocksongs then the titletrack is a song you have to check out. “You Learn About It” is a ballad-like track and is the highlight of Anneke’s performance, what a voice!!

Psychonaut Records 2003
Review by Martien "walrus" Koolen 31 august 2003

Finally we can enjoy the “Monsters” e.p.; the “heaviest” track on their magnificent album “Souvenirs”. I really like this song because of the dominant presence of the drums and the guitar and naturally Anneke’s voice is as wonderful as ever….

This album contains FOUR other versions of “Monsters”; a “Gallion Mix”, a “Gauzy Mix”, “Monsters Go Deep”; a real dance mix and last but not least a promo demo mix. A bit too much in my humble opinion…

Suburban/Century Media 2004
Review by Martien Koolen,
1 February 2004

“Sleepy Buildings” is not really a new album, there is just one brand new song, namely the one that serves as the title for this album. The sub title of this CD is “A semi acoustic evening”, so if you are waiting for those electric guitars, you are going to be disappointed… However for The Gathering most important is the intimate sphere of their mysterious, pop-oriented dark rock music, which they have dubbed trip rock. This new album, recorded live on two nights at the Lux Theatre in Nijmegen(The Netherlands), contains new arrangements of tracks from their first albums(early 90’s), “Mandylion” and the “If-Then-Else” album, which was released in 2000.

So enjoy this rather psychedelic album with songs like: “Saturnine”, “Red Is A Slow Colour”, “Travel”, “My Electricity” or the beautiful “Marooned” and exciting “Eleanor”. Anneke’s voice is doing almost all the work on this album; she puts a spell on you as a listener, of which you wake up when the last song dies away in beauty….

Frontiers 2002
Review by 11 October 2002

You don't have to be a Genius to work it out!!! There's been a bunch of these Rock Operas lately and it seems like every darn label has one nowadays. The latest fashion in the hardrock scene is to find some dude with too much spare time on their hands, and too many hours spent watching Jesus Christ Superstar on the tube. Then all you need is to gather around a bunch of defenceless musicians to perform the whole she-bang and bada-bing, you're pretty much set for... success??? Indeed, the almost unknown Italian musician Daniele Liverani (who?) has written, arranged and produced it. He's apparently known from his work with Italian prog-metal band Empty Tremor (who?), but I must admit that I've never heard of the man.

Liverani also handles all the guitars, bass and keys here and drummer Dario Ciccioni is the only other musician. Well, you have a bunch of vocal characters here and I must admit it's a pretty impressive line-up. Steve Walsh (Kansas), Mark Boals (Malmsteen), John Wetton (Asia, Uriah Heep), Oliver Hartmann (At Vance), Lana Lane, Joe Vana (Mecca), Chris Boltendahl (Grave Digger) all sing their hearts out there. Midnight (ex. Crimson Glory) also returns from the obscurity to sing here. The story is incredibly complex to get into though! To keep a long story short, the character 'Genius' (Mark Boals) becomes captured in a parallel dimension where he discovers the secrets of our dreams. Why do we dream at night and is it only 'dreams' or the door to an parallel world?

Frontiers Records 2004
Review by Martien Koolen,
4 május 2004

After two years of waiting Daniele Liverani brings us his second part of the Genius trilogy called “In Search of the Little Prince”. The first part, released in 2002, was one of the best power metal albums of that year, so I was really eager to listen to this second part.

We left the two main characters Genius(Mark Boals) and Twinspirit 32(Daniel Gildenlow) in the European twinspirit land, trying to find a way to escape from the Maindream soldiers. In this they succeed and during the entire second episode Genius and Twinspirit meet several other characters that will help them solve the various problems caused by Genius presence on the forbidden dream world and ultimately to save King Mc Chaos, wrongly considered responsible for allowing a human being into dream world.

Frontiers 2003
Review by Endre "Bandi" Hübner 25 April 2003

I doubt there is any self-respecting Giant fan who didn't have these bootlegs before they were officially released by Frontiers as they belong to the "cult bootleg by a cult band" category. However due to the illegal copying nature of underground bootleg distribution the sound quality of these recordings varied from bad to worse. The label (or the band?) was wise enough to come up with a pressing where the sound quality is top notch, so this "bootleg" sounds better than many of those "official" live albums.

Having known the album material before this release, there was nothing new to me in it, however those who are buying it for the first time had better be prepared for a far-from-being-as-good-as-on-the- albums vocal performance by Dann Huff (which is absolutely understandable cuz he has to take care of his guitar duties at the same time). Musically the arrangements are "there", the two guitar-keyboards line-up makes the songs sound as thick as on the album, and the backing vocals are also very thick. [To be honest in some of the songs I assume parts of the backing vocals are sampled. Do I mind if that's the case? Not at all!] Being an instrumental fan, I find the two instru tracks included here a welcome addition though I know some will whine about wanting "real" songs for their money. Add that "I'm a Believer" and "Chained" are featured both in the plugged and the unplugged set, and you can bet there'll be people ranting about "rip-off" and "cash-in".

Forbidden Records 1997
Review by Kimmo Toivonen

History lesson: Mike Gibbins used to be the drummer in Badfinger, he has also played with George Harrison and Bonnie Tyler. Now he has put out a solo album of his own compositions.

"A Place In Time" is filled with traditional 70'ies style rock songs with some blues thrown in. Nothing special , and if you add the weak vocals of Mr. Gibbins to that, you have a rather unspectacular and workmanlike album.

Provogue Records 2002
Review by 17 january 2002

Can you imagine Paul Gilbert of Mr.Big and Racer-X fame playing blues? I never would’ve guessed him going this way, but since he left Mr.Big in ’97 he’s released four solo albums and recorded 3 more with Racer-X and now he got together with his uncle to do this album. And Paul even says this is one of his favourite albums he’s ever recorded. I wouldn’t doubt that at all, since blues is lots more fun to play than all that speedy technical stuff he’s been doing for ages.

But since I’m not really into blues, I’m not the best to discribe this album. Sure I have one blues album from Gary Moore, as I’m a huge Gary Moore fan, but that’s it. But even though I’m not into blues I’ve heard it quite a lot from my dad and my brother. And I can tell you from those basis, that Paul and Jimi have captured the blues feeling on this one really well. The album is really relaxed, but still the opening song “Girls Watching” has that blues jamming you always wait to hear when talking about blues. Yeah, blues should be about the blues really, but when have you heard a band that doesn’t have the jams too?

So Paul and Jimi have some battle of the axes here, but still keeping it blues. They even did a Steppenwolf cover here of “Sookie Sookie”, though I can’t recall well enough the original sound, but this one sounds good! Both Paul and Jimi sing on this album too and it was almost completely recorded live with just a bit of rehearsal. Now tell me what Paul couldn’t do! I’ve always admired his playing and I can’t say a bad thing about this album either.

Mascot 2002
Review by 15 December 2002

Gilbert's last album "Alligator Farm" was a mixed bag and so is his latest one, "Burning Organ". There's nothing Racer X- or Mr. Big-like here, although the latter band does pop up in the lyrics a couple of times. Powerpop is the name of the game here - well at least most of the time...

The show is kicked off with "I Like Rock", a furious...ehh...rocker in which Gilbert apparently plays all of his 100+ guitars. The song is really entertaining in a dumb, Andrew WK-like way and it really doesn't matter that the lyrics are absolutely stupid - the song's been playing in my head all week. "My Religion" is a bit less simple song about the same subject (Rock!) with a good melody, while "Bliss" sounds like a tribute to Jimi Hendrix. Not my kinda stuff though.

"Suicide Lover" and "Friday Night" are somewhat mediocre powerpop tracks, but "I Am Satan" is better, with its' tongue-in-cheek lyrics. Gotta love the intro too: "one, two, three, four, five, six-six-six!" Funny.

The second half of the album contains two powerpop gems: "Amy Is Amazing" and "Keep On Keeping On", but unfortunately it contains also two instrumentals and two covers (The Osmonds' "My Drum" and that old disco tune "I Feel Love") I could've done without, and the one remaining original "Muscle Car" isn't one of the highlights either. So, out of the 13 tracks here I really liked 5...somewhat disappointing. You could make a killer compilation out of the best tracks of this album and "Alligator Farm"!

Universal 2003
Review by 14 November 2003

Can anyone wonder why (ex-Mr. Big, Racer X guitarist) Paul Gilbert released his best of album in Japan only where Mr. Big has been extremely popular? I guess we all understand his (and Universal's) reasons, however since his solo albums came out on Mascot Records in Europe, one would think it would be a good idea to release this stuff here as well. Anyway it came out in Japan in May this year and there is still no sign of a European issue, so what else was poor Bandi to do but to get the import version? It is value for your money cuz it comes with an acoustic bonus CD titled Gilbert Hotel.

Even if one had PG's solo albums the 17 track best of is worth getting, it features three totally new tracks and various rarities and alternative versions along with the "hits". Two of the new tracks open the album, the funny "I'm not Afraid of the Police" and a hard rocking cover of Carole King's "I Feel the Earth Move". Both are in the tradition of the solo albums, well arranged, well-produced, raw rock tracks. The third new song(?) closes the album and that's "The Second Loudest Guitar in the World". I always admired PG for his tongue-in-cheek lyrics and some sort-of self-irony. This track is a big bad joke (yet it's very serious): after half a minute of a song-like intro with lyrics and everything, all instruments stop and PG starts a damn fast technical showcase. Though I'm an instrumental freak, I couldn't care less about speed and technicalities (I prefer melodies and memorable songwriting) this took even my breath. I keep listening to speedsters from MacAlpine to Friedman, from Vinnie Moore to Jason Becker, from Malmsteen to you- name-it-whoever-youngster for more than 20 years now but this 3 minutes of guitar wizardry here is really impressive even to me, in its rather lousy, non- serious way. A real winner in my book. On top of all these we get our fave Paul Gilbert tunes like "my Religion", "Superloud", "Kate is a Star" and the recent favorite, the hilarious "I Like Rock", an alternative version of "Girls Who Can Read Your Mind" and the usual Bach acoustics, out of those "Gilberto_Concerto" would not fail to impress anyone with its almost 8 minutes re-arrangements done perfectly to suit to a guitar. If you happened to like anything Paul has done with Mr. Big but do not own his solo albums, this is a great start to catch up on his post-Mr. Big stuff. Everybody who has the solo albums and likes them, can't go wrong with the best of either as there's enough novelty and rarities collected here to please you. Not to mention the acoustic bonus CD Gilbert Hotel…

This CD is damn good. It features 10 tracks but the running order on mine is totally f**ked up compared to the tracklisting. Anyway, there are a couple of great new tracks here all of them with extremely entertaining lyrics. The song "Universal" is probably the best of them all as far as weird lyrics go; it's all about how supportive the label Universal is when he goes solo and about all the promotion, Racer X and stuff. Hilarious, you have to hear it, or search the web for a fan site to read the lyrics cuz Gilbert's site does not have it (or at least I couldn't find it there) or any word about these Japanese releases anyway… "Black Rain Cloud" could please any Mr. Big ballad fan; the "usual" Bach instrumentals are also present here out of the two with the Prelude for Wohltemperiertes Klavier being my favorite. It is called "W.T.R.O." here (in the tradition of his "rip-offs", the title stands for Well-Tempered-Rip-Off). "Lay Off The Morphine" has damn good lyrics again, beginning in a cool ironic way like "what the hell happened to my hair / it used to be long now it's gone somewhere" and parts like "what the hell happened to my song / the verse is pretty cool but the bridge is too long" [note: Paul has his hair cut not that long ago, and this song has a really long bridge…]. Fans of cover-versions will love the Genesis cover "The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway" (I guess Paul's choice was obviously because of its lyrics) and Enuff Z' Nuff's "Time To Let You Go" with Linus of Hollywood and Scott Coogan (percussion) as guests, the latter doing a phenomenal Don Dokken imitation as a joke in the end. The whole track is very "alive" anyway with joking in the beginning about the Enuff Z' Nuff album, definitely a highlight of the album. This is not a million dollar production album but who gives a sh*t anyway? It sounds good, it's very entertaining in its own stripped down way, and that's what acoustic albums should be about anyway. Pure fun, a 10 pointer.

Forbidden Records 1998
Review by Kimmo Toivonen

No need for history lessons with this guy... Compared to the dullness of the Gibbins CD, this is interesting. Gillan doesn't stick with one particular style, he goes from hard rock to folk to country... I can't say I am very impressed with the quality of the songs though. There are some enjoyable moments here and there, like "A Day late And A Dollar Short" and "Country Mile", but all in all this is clearly not an album for me.

Word Records 2003
Review by 16 May 2003

Glassbyrd consists of Christine Glass and Marc Byrd, a wife-husband duo, who share the songwriting and lead vocal duties. They have completely different type of voices, with Marc having a "rock" voice a bit similar to Johnny Reznik of The Goo Goo Dolls, while Christine's voice could be compared to Julee Cruise ("Twin Peaks"), very soft and ethreal. They do mix quite nicely, and thanks to that, Glassbyrd has a quite of an unique sound.

The songs on "Open Wide This Window" could easily crace any episode of "Dawson's Creek" or "Smallville", if it wasn't for the fact that they just happen to be the work of a christian group. Despite the fact that the lyrics here are often more spiritual than preachy, I very much doubt that any musical supervisor would have the courage to use these songs. Still, if you enjoy the sounds of those series, and can tolerate songs that deal with things from a christian perspective, you should give Glassbyrd a try.

The downfall of this album is the fact that most of the songs are quite similar to each other, with nice melodies, delicate arrangements and either Marc's breathy vocals or Christine's soft and "angelic" voice - or both. The tempos are kept quite slow, and after a while the songs seem to melt into each other. Especially towards the end the overall "niceness" starts to get boring. However, there are two tracks that raise above, namely "Weight Of The World" with its' good chorus and excellent use of the two contrasting voices, and the uptempo "Wake Up".

MTG 2003
Review by 21 September 2003

It's my pleasure to tell you about a talented new Finnish band again: originating from Turku, Glitz plays melodic, melancholic hard rock with some gothic and glam elements. There are similarities to our biggest rock export HIM, but lyrically they are a bit more down to earth. Also, to their advantage the band has a less over-dramatic vocalist in Pasi Kuronen. Foreign counterparts were actually quite hard to find, as there's something decidedly Finnish in their sound...but I guess the likes of Bon Jovi and Poison have had some kind of an impact on the guys. The sound might not be carved from the same wood, but similary to those bands, Glitz have plenty of big choruses and good backing vocals.

Outlaw Recordings 2003
Review by 27 November 2003

Like the bumper sticker once said: Honk if you believe in GODZ! Mkay... will the grey haired lady with the white volvo 72', please stop already. We get the picture thank you very much, only mothers and close relatives are still God(z) loving people. :-)

Not a pretty picture and not the entire truth either as I'm sure there are still believers out there. The Godz were an all American band from the late 70's scene (not to be confused with the UK act from the late 60's), with a mean biker image and suiteable nasty music.

Avispa 2001
Review by 5 December 2001

Now, what a nice surprise this album has been to me. A month or so ago, I heard rumours about a new band from Menorca, an island on the Eastern part of Spain, the Balearics (that lately have become a melodic rock refugee kind of a Spanish Japan, so to say). They have released their debut through Avispa, a label that back in the 80's had quite a few Spanish hard rock bands, the whole business very silently done. Production has been held by the band themselves along with David de la Torre.

Angel's tears is a hard AOR album, with a lot of Scando feeling over it. At places it reminds me a bit of Alien, not because there are any obvious resemblances, but the general mood may be in that direction. The songwriting is good, brilliant at places, but as a downside, there are a few, let's say more than obvious resemblances. The opener "I can't tell you" sounds too much like Van Halen's "Dreams" specially on the keyboards dept. And there are some other "too-close-to-other-bands riffs" here and there like in "I need your love" (Yngwie's "Heaven Tonight"). But these guys succeed on giving the songs their particular approach. Toni Menguiano (vocalist) sings in a very particular way, in the mid-low range, and though a bit cold to some (like me), that ain't a bad thing since it's different from what we are used to in Spanish vocalists [see Kimmo's 91 Suite review for hints] and holds the melodies effortlessly and never sounds restrained at all, congrats! Loren Villalonga (guitarist and main man) is strongly influenced by the Swedish school, but doesn't sound like the zillionth Malmsteen clone, his riffs (with the already made exception of borrowed ones) are quite cool and he obviously have talent enough to be in the spotlight. Sergi (keyboardist) delivers some of the best keys I've heard on an Spanish band since La Fase, many moons ago. Almost every track is a highlight for me, but to mention some: "Fire and Ice", "Everything sometimes", the above mentioned "I need your love" (despite it all, it has some awesome keyboards), "All night long", where the Scando influences are mixed with a more Dokken oriented mood (good backing vocals there), and "Why these years", a good mid tempo rocker again in a Dokken/80's US hard rock. The only weaker track I find is "Time after time", a bit dull ballad if you ask me, but the solo is worth of Kee Marcello, though.

All in all, this is a nice AOR CD to have in your collection if you like Scando AOR (Spanish style though) and despite the downside of some borrowed things here and there, (which becomes a minor fault when you listen how well the band melts them into their own style), "Angel's Tears" is a solid release and quite a good introducing card for these Spanish AORsters. Recommended.

Frontiers/Now & Then Productions 2000
Review by Kimmo Toivonen

Good Rats were a somewhat legendary band from the New York Scene, and now the main man Peppi Marchello has put together a new version of the band. Included in the line up are his two sons Gene (guitar, also known from the band Marchello) and Stefan (drums) and bassist Dean Giuffrida.

At best the sound of The Good Rats 2000 could be described as Journey meets Kiss. The vocals of Peppi Marchello sound like a cross between Gene Simmons and Steve Perry, and the music is also very reminiscent of 70'ies Kiss mixed with some AOR overtones of Journey. The first two tracks "Cover Of Night" and "Get It Right" are good examples of this combination, hard-edged catchy melodic rock with rough vocals.

Unfortunately, most of the time Good Rats aren't at their best. Mostly they remind me of Spinal Tap! I know it's a bit harsh, but they do. Maybe it's the fact that there's a strong late 70'ies/early 80'ies influence in the songs, and Spinal Tap took their cues from that era. Anyway, tracks like "Thunder Rocks My Soul", "Football Madness" and the humorous (?) "Major Minor Chord" are something that I could imagine the 'Tap playing. Amps turned to eleven, of course.

It has to be said that the production is quite solid, and the guitar playing is fast and furious, but apart from the first two songs and a couple of other bits and pieces, this music isn't for me.

Indie 2001
Review by Endre "Bandi" Hübner 22 January 2002

It's highly unusual that a project runs under the name of a drummer but this is what we get here. Don't be afraid, this ain't no very-artistic-wannabe instrumental fooling around, this is meat and potato melodic hard rock, and very good at that especially taking into account that this is just a 3-track independent recording aiming to generate some record label interest.

The promo material and the websites keep mentioning Glen Gorowsky, drummer/songwriter's name all over the place, however I'd like to draw your attention to Glen's co-writing partner, Jon Esler, who played all the guitars and bass on the record. And what a great job he has done?! Although the guitar sound is a little bit too transistor-plastic to these ears, the guitar work is just great! The opening "Thoughts of You" starts out with some catchy licks, overall a great rocking track but Doug McGowan's vocals pretty much destroy it, he simply does not live up to the rest of the musicians involved in the project and his performance is bordering being off- key. No worries, the other two tracks feature Larry Jones on vox and he delivers a great performance, reminding me of Steven Tyler's more melodic moments.

Mascot Records 2004
Review by Martien Koolen,
10 May 2004

This is NOT a new album by Masters of Reality, but actually this is a solo album by frontman Chriss Goss. "Give us Barabbas" is a collection of material spanning the best part of 20 years. Recorded both as Chriss Goss and Masters Of Reality, this new album focuses more on the acoustic (yawn, yawn!!!) and psychedelic side of Chris's output. Most of the songs have never been released and in a way stand as unpolished gems waiting to be discovered.

For me the only gems are the John Lennon cover "It's so Hard" and the rather heavy rocker "The Desert Song". The rest of the songs are rather boring un-plugged tracks which remind me of the Alice In Chains album "Jar of Flies". It is really back to basis here and although I liked the Masters Of Reality albums, I really do not like this one.