Nostalgia time for rockers of a certain age. I remember buying the first instalment of this series when I lived in the UK back in ’81. So when I found that there were 2 more instalments in the series, I snapped them up years later.
The premise or subtitle to these compilations was to give groove space to unsung guitar hero’s of the time – courtesy of Mike Varney of Shrapnel records fame. In fact his band Cinema contribute the 2nd track on the album Rockin’ In The US.
If you are like me and love everything guitar, then these are the compilations for you. They do sound a bit dated as the production isn’t great, but these albums are 100% fun and capture the time perfectly when metal bands were coming out of the woodwork. Very early performances by John Ricci (Exciter), Josh Ramos, David “the rock” Feinstein, Mike Batio, Marty Friedman (when he was in a band called Vixen), and Jack Starr. There is no shortage of great players. There are a couple of dodgy tracks namely Culprit who do a very bad Rush impersonation, and the Michael Batio solo piece which is just widdle for widdles sake.
So if you’re of a certain and age and can still headbang without the aid of a walking frame – then this baby is for you.
7/10 from The Grooveman.
