_{“20/20” is the debut album from Finnish melodic metal band Smackbound and it was released on 12th June by Frontiers Music. The band was formed in 2015 by singer and actress Netta Laurenne and at times performed as a covers band whilst working on their first album. The tracks “Drive It Like You Stole It”, “Those Who Burn” and “Date With The Devil” have been featured on the Friday NI Rocks Show over the past few weeks.}

_{Netta Laurenne combines a career as an actress and singer. She has performed on albums by bands such as Amorphis, Lordi, Black Sun and Elvenking. In 2015 she decided to form her own band and started to find musicians for the project. When they got together they started performing as ‘Run For Cover’, playing the local venues as a covers band; to ensure that Smackbound would be a tightly knit unit when they started playing their own tracks.}

_{Joining Laurenne are guitarist Teemu Mäntysaari from Wintersun, drummer Rolf Pilve from Stratovarius and Dark Element, keyboard player Vili Itäpelto form Tracedown and bass player Tuomas Yli-Jaskari from Tracedown. The latter also producer the album which was recorded at Sonic Pump Studios.}

_{Check out the band’s Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/smackbound/}

_{About “NI Rocks Recommends”}

_{This is purely a personal recommendation and some information about the artist and the album; not a traditional ‘review’. Most of the recommendations posted are for albums that have been sent to us digitally by the record label or promoter. Quite often I’ve also bought the album on CD or vinyl as well and sometimes I just feel the need to post a recommendation for an album that I’ve bought myself. Essentially these are albums that I like and which I’ve played some tracks from on the Shows on Rock Radio NI!}