American band Kickin Valentina released their second full length album “Imaginary Creatures” on 11th August, through the Danish label Mighty Music. The band formed in 2013 and released their debut EP the same year. I can’t remember when or how I got a copy of that EP, but I’ve been a fan of the band ever since and was really looking forward to the release of “Imaginary Creatures”. An album recommendation was pretty much a foregone conclusion! I’ve played the tracks “Imaginary Creatures” and “Devil’s Hand” on the Friday NI Rocks Shows on 30th June and 28th July respectively and will be opening the Show this week with “Eyes”.
Read more: NI ROCKS Recommends "Imaginary Creatures" by KICKIN VALENTINA
Frontiers Music has a long history of bringing together artists to collaborate on projects and a very successful track record of doing so. The latest success is the band Kryptonite who released their debut, self-titled album on 4th August. The key participants this time are singer Jakob Samuels from The Poodles and prolific producer and musician Alesandro Del Vecchio. I featured the track “Chasing Fire” on the Friday NI Rocks Show on 16th June and “This Is The Moment” on 7th July.
British rock band Wraith celebrated the 30th anniversary of their formation with the release of the album “Revelation” through Ice Rain Records / Cargo Records on 4th August. (Much to my despair 30 years actually takes us back to 1987 and not the 70’s – how’d that happen!!!) Wraith worked with some big names during the late 80’s including Pete Way and Lemmy and released 3 albums up to 1997. “Revelation” is the product of the latest evolution of the band and came to us via our friends at Rock ‘n’ Growl promotions. I featured the track “Lifeline” on the Friday NI Rocks Show on 4th August.
“Road Rage” is the first album from Quiet Riot since “10” in 2014. That album featured 6 studio tracks with Jizzy Pearl on vocals along with 4 live tracks recorded during Kevin DuBrow’s final shows in 2007. “Road Rage” was released on 4th August and features James Durbin on vocals. I had chatted with Durbin on the Friday NI Rocks Show back in March; just after the announcements that he was the new singer and that previous recordings for the album were to be scrapped ( http://www.rockradioni.co.uk/interviews/3099-ni-rocks-interview-with-james-durbin-from-quiet-riot.html ) . It seems like no time at all from talking with him about writing the tracks until I was actually playing them on the Friday NI Rocks Show. “Freak Flag” was included on the Show on 23rd June and “The Road” is featured this week.