_{A regular feature highlighting some of the best album releases each month. I don’t do album “reviews” – this is simply a personal recommendation to check out an album - just a few words about the albums that appeal to me and about the artists releasing them. These will also be albums from which I’ll have been playing tracks on the Friday NI Rocks Shows recently. This month it includes albums from Wig Wam, Infinite & Divine, Khymera, Those Damn Crows, Gabrielle De Val, Robin McAuley, First Signal and Godsmack.}

_{Singer Brandon Gibbs and guitarist Joel Hoekstra bring their two man show to the UK and Ireland in April. That tour includes a show in the Diamond Rock Club in Ahoghill on 22^nd April. Brandon Gibbs has fronted bands such as Devil City Angels and Cheap Thrill and has performed with Poison as well as doing his own solo material. Joel Hoekstra currently performs with Whitesnake, Revolution Saints, Trans Siberian Orchestra and Iconic and has played for Cher, Night Ranger and many more. He also has a solo project called Joel Hoekstra’s 13.}

_{I had the opportunity to speak to Joel and Brandon together on Skype on 15^th February and we chatted about the upcoming tour and the various projects that they had been involved in over the past few years. That 30 minute interview along with 10 tracks that they feature on or perform was included on the Friday NI Rocks Show on 17^th February and repeated on 14th April. The interview can be read below and the first Show is available via our MixCloud page -}

_{https://www.mixcloud.com/NIRocks/interview-with-joel-hoekstra-and-brandon-gibbs-on-the-friday-ni-rocks-show-17th-feb-2023/}

_{There are two NI Rocks Shows uploaded each week on Rock Radio NI. These are the playlists for those Shows for the month of January 2023 – all of which are still available from the On Demand Player. There are tracks by around 160 different artists on the Shows this month. There are also monthly Spotify playlists for the Friday NI Rocks Show featuring most of the tracks from each Show that month.}

_{Playlists for December were published previously and those Shows are also still available via the On Demand Player – http://www.rockradioni.co.uk/news/rrni-updates/3863-ni-rocks-playlists-for-december-2022}

_{There were no new interviews on the Friday NI Rocks Show this month. All previous interviews can be found here - http://www.rockradioni.co.uk/interviews.html and on the NI Rocks MixCloud page as well - https://www.mixcloud.com/NIRocks/  .}