Search results: Get Ready!

Review: From the wreckage of Free came Bad Company, the English hard rock supergroup fronted by singer Paul Rodgers and featuring his drummer bandmate Simon Kirke, Mott the Hoople guitarist Mick Ralphs, and King Crimson bassist Boz Burrell. Peter Grant, who managed the rock band Led Zeppelin, also managed Bad Company until 1982. The group's eponymous 1974 album debut decidedly proves the band is proudly not progressive - the details make a difference, as do the pastoral acoustics of the closing 'Seagull' - reducing their rock 'n' roll to a strong, heavy crunch; compare 'Ready For Love,' a tune Ralphs brought over from Mott the Hoople, to the original to see how these quartet members keep their heads down as they do their business. All the hallmarks of a top-notch Analogue Productions reissue are here for your pleasure: mastered directly from the original master tape by Ryan K. Smith at Sterling Sound and cut at 45rpm.

Review: This is real catnip for hardcore fans of The Beatles (is there any other kind)? It is a long awaited, much talked about, often delayed 50th anniversary edition of the Liverpool band's Let It Be album. It is a super special package on 180-gram, half-speed vinyl across four different slabs. There is also a a 45rpm 12-inch vinyl EP as well as a large 105-page book in its own tasty die-cut slipcase. There are 57 tracks in all, all of which are in new stern mix format thanks to some great work by Giles Martin and Sam Okell. What else is there to say other than make suer you cop this true collector's masterpiece?

Review: 'One Year' was solo art rock cornerstone Colin Bluntstone's breakout album. Folky, breathy and full of solo guitar strum and vocal bittersweetness, the album was originally relegated to just 10 tracks, with 'Caroline Goodbye' and 'Smokey Day' being our standouts, being the strange, cinematic cuts that show off Bluntstone's pucklike voice most enjoyably. Now, on this reissue by Sundazed, we're delivered an expanded edition, racking up the numbering to a whopping 24 tracks, adding a previously unheard second part, 'That Same Year', to the album's rear. The new songs are of refreshing mono demo quality, and are testament to an artist that has a wealth of melancholy originals still waiting to be unleashed from the vaults.

Review: Cleveland Francis, the stalwart of US black folk, coined the term "soulfolk" to describe his uniquely bleak style of acoustic music. Growing up and coming to prominence in the state of Virginia, he rarely missed an opportunity to play at every college campus, coffee shop, bar and odd corner he could find. Now some of his earliest and most important recordings get compiled into this double 21-track anthology, 'Beyond The Willow Tree', which, like no other, does wonders in chronicling the experience of black segregated youth in the 60s and 70s.