_{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. December was a fairly quiet month for releases, but there were a few to highlight.}

_{SABU – “Banshee” - Frontiers 9^th Dec}

_{The name Paul Sabu should be familiar to most rock music fans and “Banshee” marks a long overdue return. The album was released on 9^th December by Frontiers Music. The track “Kandi” featured on the Friday NI Rocks Show in October and more tracks will appear over the next few weeks.}

_{Paul Sabu is an American singer, producer, songwriter and musician who has released several great albums as Sabu, Paul Sabu, Kidd Glove or Only Child. He also has a long list of credits as producer or song writer on albums. The first ‘Sabu’ releases in 1979 and 1980 were 5 or 6 track EPs. Those were followed in 1985 by the album “Heartbreak” and two more in the late 90’s (“Sabu” in 1996 and “Between The Light” in 1998). He also released albums as Paul Sabu in 1994 (“Paul Sabu”), 2007 (“Strange Messiah”) and 2012 (“Bangkok Rules”). The self-titled album from Only Child was released in 1988 and was followed by “II” in 1996. There was also a 1984 self-titled album release under the name Kidd Glove. In 2009 he released an album with Tony Martin under the Voices of Rock. The album was called “High & Mighty”.}

_{Paul Sabu co-operated on the new album with Barry Sparks and those two provide all the vocals, backing vocals and instrumentation. Sparks has performed with Yngwie Malmsteen, Michael Schenker, UFO, Dokken, Ted Nugent and many others as well as releasing a couple of solo albums.}

_{Website - https://paulsabu.com/}

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 _{ROB MORATTI – “Epical” - Frontiers 9^th Dec}

_{“Epical” is the latest solo album from Rob Moratti and his first with Frontiers Music who released it on 9^th December. The track “Crash and Burn” was included on the Friday NI Rocks Show on 23^rd December.}

_{Rob Moratti released a solo mini album back in 1995, but went on to front bands such as Moratti (two albums between 1995-96), Final Frontier (four albums between 2002-06) and Saga (a studio album and live album between 2008-11). He also provided vocals on two albums by Phenomena (“Blind Faith” in 2010 and “Awakening” in 2012), on two by Acacia Avenue (“Cold” in 2014 and “Early Warning” in 2016) and on the second Rage of Angels album, “The Devil’s New Tricks” in 2016.}

_{Since 2011 Moratti has issued five solo albums and a “Tribute to Journey” which was released in 2015. The previous solo albums were “Victory” in 2011, “Transcendent” in 2016, “Renaissance” in 2019 and “Paragon” in 2020.}

_{On “Epical”, Moratti is supported by Joel Hoekstra on guitar, Pete Alpenborg on guitar and keyboards, Tony Franklin on bass and Felxi Borg on drums.}

_{Website - https://robmoratti.net/}