(54:15, Final Gravity) Track list: 1. New Day 8:23 2. Sincerely Satan 5:11 3. Hollow Days 9:52 4. Hello, Hello (Bleeding Sadness) 4:15 5. Leaving 6:49 6. No Love 6:50 7. My Eternity 6:07 8. Phoenix 6:48 Line-up: Melissa Jane Dichiera - vocals Michael Clark - guitars, keyboards, vocals Charles Mumford - bass John Chominsky - drums with Paula Yoo - violin Prolusion. US band FINAL GRAVITY started out back in 2007, and released their debut album two years later, followed by an EP in 2010. Following this the band went into a fairly long hiatus as a recording unit, but returned with their self released second album "Surviving Humanity" at the start of 2021. Analysis. Final Gravity is a band marketed towards a progressive rock and progressive metal crowd, presumably a decision made by the band members, and while I can understand where they are coming from here my view is that on this album at least the progressive rock aspects of it is more of a supplemental feature. Classic rock is...

(54:54; John Holden) Last year I was fortunate enough to hear John’s second album, ‘Rise and Fall’, and it is safe to say I was blown away by what I was hearing. Here was a multi-instrumentalist who had brought together a group of singers and additional musicians to deliver an album that was simply epic. John and I got to talking afterwards, and that of course led to me wondering what was the debut like? Well, I can honestly say that it is another absolute delight. As well as providing all the material and producing the album, John also provides guitars, bass, keyboards, and programming, but he has also brought in a host of star names to assist including the likes of Emily Dolan Davies, Gary O’Toole, Billy Sherwood, Oliver Wakeman, Peter Jones etc. Then to cap it all he some wonderful singers in Joe Payne (The Enid), Jean Pageau (Mystery) and Julie Gater. Although the album is fairly split between male and female vocals, Julie had a huge part to play as she sang the vast majority of ...

(69:13; Kinetic Element) One of the issues of being known as a reviewer, plus also taking some years out of the scene to concentrate on collating some books, is that material can build up. In the end I decided to keep up to date with the most recent material and delve into the older material when I had time. Due to multiple reasons neither of these approaches have worked, and I now find myself in a position where I still have albums to review which were sent to me years ago as well as being somewhat behind on the more recent albums (although I have committed to reviewing every single album ever sent to me). One way of slowly dealing with this is that when I am sent an album by a band, and I have yet to review the old one, then I do both at once. That is what has happened here, as I am pretty sure keyboard player/singer Mike Visaggio sent this to me nearly 7 years ago but given I have recently received the new live release, I dug this out of the vaults and put it into the pile, which ...

(75:08; Melodic Revolution Records) After three studio albums, a decision was made to record a gig at the famous venue My Father’s Place in October 2019. Somewhat unsurprisingly the line-up is the same as that on the ‘The Face of Life’ album earlier that year, namely Mike Visaggio (piano, organ synth, harmony vocals), Saint John Coleman (vocals), Peter Matuchniak (guitar), Mark Tupko (bass) and Michael Murray (drums, harmony vocals). Now, I enjoyed the previous album, and I was looking forward to this, and in some ways, I was certainly not disappointed, while others very much so. Musically this is a complex outfit, with a rhythm section that provides multiple patterns and elements so that the two lead instruments can go off and play, although both drums and bass also push their way into the limelight when the time is right. Peter Matuchniak is one of my favourite guitarists, seemingly able to play in whatever style is required, which makes him such as in-demand session man as well as...