When it was originally released in June 1969, Beck-Ola, the Jeff Beck Group's second album, featured a famous sleeve note on its back cover: "Today, with all the hard competition in the music business, it's almost impossible to come up with anything totally original. So we haven't. However, this disc was made with the accent on heavy music. So sit back and listen and try and decide if you can find a small place in your heads for it."…

Over the Hills and Far Away is the first EP by Finnish symphonic metal band Nightwish, released in 2001 through both Spinefarm Records and Drakkar Records. Bassist Sami Vänskä would leave the band after the recording of this CD, due to musical differences between him and Tuomas Holopainen, to be replaced by the current bassist and male vocalist, Marco Hietala…

2010 release from the Italian Prog legends. To celebrate the 40th Anniversary of the release of their album La Buona Novella, PFM has decided to revisit the album they had made in collaboration with Fabrizio de Andre'. La Buona Novella a.a. 2010 does not only contain new arrangements but also new music written specially for this occasion…

"No Mercy," with special effects recorded at Madison Square Garden, has the sentiment of Simon & Garfunkel's "The Boxer." The double entendre being the rock musician oftentimes works on the same stage as the fighter, of course, punching away in the ring of life. Nils Lofgren is a veteran who has performed with Bruce Springsteen, Neil Young, and so many others, working here with producer Bob Ezrin who helped create Pink Floyd's The Wall. As with any great artist, Ezrin brings in his various contacts which color the recordings he makes, insuring a product that is as much the producer's as it is Nils Lofgren's. Dick Wagner co-wrote the hits "Only Women Bleed" and "You And Me" with Alice Cooper…

Recorded live in France in 1982 but not released on CD in the U.S. until 1990, Heart Still Beating isn't quite in a class with Roxy Music's first live album, Viva, but nonetheless gives us a lot to be excited about. Lead singer Bryan Ferry and guitarist Phil Manzanera sound quite inspired much of the time, and Manzanera delivers some excellent solos…

Their new project, In Classic: Da Mozart A Celebration (2013) is a very special one, to the fans and to the band. The double album released by Immaginifica takes PFM to the Classical world! On the 2 discs of In Classic: Da Mozart A Celebration (2013) we have the band celebrating great classic composers such as Mozart, Dvorak, Prokofiev and Verdi with a full orchestra. Not just that, on the second disc they take their own music and give them the full orchestral treatment too…

Flesh + Blood suggested that Roxy Music were at the end of the line, but they regrouped and recorded the lovely Avalon, one of their finest albums. Certainly, the lush, elegant soundscapes of Avalon are far removed from the edgy avant-pop of their early records, yet it represents another landmark in their career. With its stylish, romantic washes of synthesizers and Bryan Ferry's elegant, seductive croon, Avalon simultaneously functioned as sophisticated make-out music for yuppies and as the maturation of synth pop…

Emerson, Lake & Palmer's In the Hot Seat is an album, not unlike their 1978 album Love Beach, which was made for the wrong reasons, at a bad time, and probably shouldn't have been made at all. Speculation is that ELP was contractually obligated to record the third of a three-album deal at a time when Carl Palmer had required minor surgery for carpal tunnel syndrome and Keith Emerson had required major surgery for performance-induced damage to his right arm…

Upon its release, the 1973 LP Brain Salad Surgery had been hailed as Emerson, Lake & Palmer's masterpiece. A long tour ensued that left the trio flushed and begging for time off. Before disbanding for three years, they assembled a three-LP live set (something of a badge of achievement at the time, earned by Yes in 1973 with Yessongs and, somewhat more dubiously, Leon Russell with Leon Live)…

Though not an inspired effort, this double-live album does have its moments. Lofgren's muscular guitar playing is particularly evident on tracks such as "Keith Don't Go" (an ode to Rolling Stone Keith Richards) and "Cry Tough." Lofgren has long been underrated as a guitar player and songwriter, and although this album does not have the dynamic energy that some of his live shows of the '70s had, it does catch the former E Street guitarist playing some fine lead guitar.

Flesh and Blood (stylized as Flesh + Blood) is the seventh studio album by the English rock band Roxy Music. Released in late May 1980, it was an immediate commercial success peaking at No. 1 in the UK for one week in June and then returned to the summit in August for another three weeks, in total spending 60 weeks on the albums chart in the United Kingdom. The album also peaked at No. 35 in the United States and No. 10 in Australia…

Recorded in the Rome during Prog Exhibition, the festival event that has celebrated the fortieth birthday of the Italian progressive rock, this PFM live has the honor of the presence of an Anglo-Saxon music legend Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull. The Magic Flute of Rock has fired up the audience with a superb performance that has amazed audiences giving moments of great intensity…

Emerson, Lake & Palmer's 1970 eponymous LP was only a rehearsal. It hit hard because of the novelty of the act (allegedly the first supergroup in rock history), but felt more like a collection of individual efforts and ideas than a collective work…

Returning to action after four years of solo projects, Roxy Music redefined its sound and agenda on Manifesto. More than ever, Roxy sounds like Bryan Ferry's backing band, as the group strips away its art rock influences, edits out the instrumental interludes in favor of concise pop songs, and adds layers of stylish disco rhythms…