Spanish Rock and Metal has struggled to break through to worldwide domination the way other European acts have but with Pheonix the band Xtasy are going to seriously challenge that perception.

Corrosion of Conformity releasing an album on Easter weekend feels like the most CoC thing imaginable. Forget chocolate eggs. This is fourteen tracks of resurrection level riff worship.

At the tender age of 75, the rock n roll queen that is Suzi Quatro has released her seventeenth studio album.

A huge favourite on the social media chat pages of 2000 Trees and Arctangent, I will happily admit to knowing nothing about this band. Sure, I’d seen their name around, but not even a toe had been dipped into their musical waters. 

Massive Wagons need no introduction, but sod it, I’m giving them one anyway. Lancashire’s finest riff slinging, stage levitating, sweat powered rock ’n’ roll machine have been hammering out albums since 2009.

Over 15 years unleashing their visceral style of Brazilian thrash metal, Nervosa can, in my view, rightly be regarded as one of the most vital bands in the genre today.

Twelve years. One man. An unbroken torrent of blackened speed metal fury. And now, for the first time, the full weight of Century Media Records behind him — James McBain arrives at his fourth Hellripper album with something profound to say, and Coronach is the most complete and most ambitious statement he has yet committed to record.

20 Years, Two Decades of atmospheric fury but now with something to prove — Winterfylleth have arrived at their landmark anniversary with their ninth album, but The Unyielding Season is not a celebration.

I like to say that Zakk and I go way back. He doesn’t know that, of course. I’ve only ever seen him from the crowd, so “met” might be a stretch.

The discography of Rush can be categorised in 3 parts. The 1970’s sound, guitar heavy with progressive nuances, the synth influenced era of the 1980’s before returning to more guitar orientated sounds thereafter.

Album number six for Tyketto and it has taken some time to get here but Closer to the Sun is more than worth waiting for.

Barring the Young brothers Malcolm and Angus in AC/DC, rock is littered with tales of warring siblings at odds in successful bands, the friction often ripping those bands apart.

Sometimes a band just passes you by and when they finally come to your attention, it is a WOW moment and honestly that one of the best feelings you can get from music...discovering a band that you instantly fall in love with.

Forty years on and the seismic shift that was 5150 — Van Halen’s first album with Sammy Hagar replacing David Lee Roth and also my first introduction to the band still detonates with a force that few records in the hard rock canon can match.

f you love Eighties AOR then Asia will be familiar to many. Originally formed in 1981, this supergroup comprising John Wetton, Steve Howe, Geoff Downes and Carl Palmer took the US charts by storm with their self-titled debut album which contains several hit tracks including `Heat Of The Moment’ in 1982.

27 March sees the release of Reckless, the third album from Welsh Melodic Rock siren Chez Kane on Frontiers Music S.R.L. Once again, she has worked with Danny Rexon from the band Crazy Lixx, who has overseen the project, bringing his encyclopaedic knowledge of 80s Melodic Hard Rock back to the table.