Author:Peter Kearns

There are certain artists who have now become such household names that it’s easy to forget that back in their creative heyday they were regarded as serious players, whose new albums were eagerly awaited and critically acclaimed. A couple that readily spring to mind are Rod Stewart and Elton John, the latter of whom is the subject of this book. This work covers Elton’s prime era, giving a critical overview of the thirteen studio albums and two live sets he released between 1969 and 1979, as well as the treasure trove of non-album B sides. Listening to the albums again, you really have to marvel at the run of albums from 1970’s self titled set through to 1975’s Captain Fantastic, with the possible exception of the previous year’s patchy Caribou. Stand out records for me were and still are Tumbleweed Connection, Madman Across The Water and Honky Chateau, not forgetting of course the sprawling double album Goodbye Yellow Brick Road. It was also interesting to listen again to the Captain Fantastic set, an album that I never particularly rated at the time, but of which I have now had to revise my opinion. As usual with this series, » Continue Reading.

Author:Jo Nesbo

Fans of the Harry Hole (that’s pronunced Hoo-leh by the way) series will be pleased to see the return of this dark and dysfunctional detective. This long running Oslo based crime series goes from strength to strength with this new work, the twelfth in the series. The glimmer of hope offered to Hole in the previous novel is cruelly extinguished by forces beyond his control, leaving him an inebriated depressive mess (again!). As usual he is surrounded by an interesting cast of supporting players who attempt to provide a survival network as he tries to chase down an old adversary from his past. There is the usual plethora of red herrings and misdirections which make these five hundred pages of Scandinavian angst fly by on the way to an unexpected yet satisfying climax This obsessive character continues to engage in this well thought out and cleverly paced novel. It’s a long book, laden with back-story and many characters, but it never feels ponderous, and once it draws you in you can’t put it down. As Hole says near the end ‘It’s up to you how much you want to know.’

Length of Read:Long

Might appeal to people who » Continue Reading.

Author:John Tucker

Judas Priest – long standing British metal stalwarts who I don’t recall ever seeing mentioned on this site. One of those bands who were more successful in the USA than on home soil, and perhaps a left field choice for a book like this, as many of their songs don’t bear in depth analysis really. Nevertheless, in their prime Stained Class/British Steel/Screaming For Vengeance/Defenders of the Faith era they produced some great metal, albeit with tongue firmly in cheek at times.

This book covers what most would consider to be their best years, from their 1974 debut up to 1992’s Painkiller set, after which they parted company with vocalist Rob Halford – for those not familiar with him, a sort of metal version of Freddie Mercury. Indeed, the whole band was somewhat cliché ridden, almost a caricature of a text book metal band: the leather and studs, the onstage Harley, the twin lead guitars, including a Flying V of course, while the lyrics veered between standard rock tropes and the rhyming dictionary. Their early records though were a mixture of straight rock interspersed with longer prog influenced tracks, but this style was abandoned after a few albums to » Continue Reading.

Author:Stuart Macfarlane

2019 marks the fiftieth anniversary of the debut album by Genesis, one of the band’s that made the biggest impression on me in my teenage years, so what better time to take a look at this new book that dissects their huge back catalogue song by song, album by album.

Genesis went through three important phases in their career: the Peter Gabriel era (my personal favourite), when they were at their most creative and inventive, the middle years when there was still a big prog influence in their work, but shorter songs came more to the fore, and finally the later years, when the music became much more commercial and radio friendly, and the prog days were just a distant memory apart from the very rare new sighting, and were largely restricted to a medley in their increasingly massive live shows. Having got over the loss of Gabriel, ‘my’ Genesis really ended with Wind and Wuthering, the subsequent departure of Steve Hackett causing an irreversible sea change in the music. Of course, I kept on dutifully buying the albums, and there was still the occasional high spot, Home By The Sea, Domino, Fading Lights and Dodo for example, » Continue Reading.

Author:Steve Pilkington

I really enjoy the books in this excellent ongoing and ever expanding series, which analyses a band’s output album by album, song by song. This one covers The Stones from their 1963 debut right up to 1980’s rather disappointing Emotional Rescue set, which marked the start of a pretty average run of albums to come in the eighties and beyond. I think all would agree this seventeen year period encompasses the band’s prime era, their absolute imperial years when their music and indeed their image was right at the very cutting edge. Live albums and compilations from this period are touched upon too, but the emphasis is almost exclusively on the studio albums, and rightly so as what a sequence they produced in their heyday, one that was perhaps only paralleled by The Beatles. It also takes the opportunity to clarify the numerous confusing and irritating differences in content between the UK and US editions of their albums which persisted until 1967.

I was actually quite surprised at just how much of the band’s back catalogue I’ve never even heard, particularly from the Aftermath/Between The Buttons era. In fact, even on the classic run of albums from the » Continue Reading.

Author:Michael Koryta

American writer Michael Koryta is not a particularly recognisable name on these shores, but he has a long line of thrillers behind him, usually standalone novels, and they have never yet failed to provide a good few hours of entertaining reading.

The convoluted plot of his latest work begins with a woman being left for dead after a car accident in which the other occupant is killed. In fact, she survives, but when she eventually emerges from a coma it is clear she is suffering from locked in syndrome, fully aware of what’s going on but unable to move or communicate. Meanwhile, an insurance investigator has suspicions that the accident was not what it first appeared, leading to an exciting plot to recover a lost device that was being carried in the vehicle. I won’t give any more away, but suffice to say there are the usual twists and turns along the way in the plot, together with a somewhat surprising ending.

Definitely up to the author’s usual gripping, page turning standard.

Length of Read:Medium

Might appeal to people who enjoyed…

A good read for thriller fans.

One thing you’ve learned

Can there be a much worse ordeal » Continue Reading.

Author:Stuart MacBride

The latest volume in this long running and consistently first class series featuring Inspector Logan McRae, along with his usual cohorts, Steel, Rennie and Quirrell. The plot this time centres around the abduction of a high profile anti Scottish independence campaigner – but are radical pro Nationalists really responsible, or is it the work of someone trying to smear their campaign? There’s a war brewing between the pro and anti independence factions, not to mention infighting in the ranks of the police themselves, and the whole thing is being played out in the relentless glare of the media. Throw in an investigating officer with a chequered past and a turbulent present, who McRae, now working in Professional Standards, has his arm twisted to babysit, and you have all the ingredients for another great story, and one which covers some very topical and current themes.

No-one combines police procedurals with sardonic quirky black humour quite like Mr MacBride, and this excellent novel is certainly well worth your attention – another fine addition to this ongoing series.

Length of Read:Long

Might appeal to people who enjoyed…

If you’re already a fan of these stories then you’ll love this new » Continue Reading.

Author:Stephen Morris

‘Drummers, Stephen, they all end up taking morphine and drinking absinthe. You don’t want to end up like that do you?’ Fatherly advice received by New Order drummer Stephen Morris, who has become the third member of the band to produce an autobiography. Actually though, this entertaining dual narrative is as much a childhood recollection of coming of age as it is rock star memoir. Morris seems a very likeable, self-deprecating character with a wry and dry sense of humour. His affable and engaging reminiscences of growing up in Macclesfield in the sixties and seventies make up the first part of this book, and he’s obviously someone who doesn’t take himself too seriously, recounting tales of schooldays, family life and working (in the loosest sense of the word!) for his father’s business. The second part deals with his introduction to the world of music and bands, first with Warsaw, then mutating into Joy Division and finally, in the closing chapters, New Order. Along the way, there are some very poignant memories of Ian Curtis and his gradual disintegration as the band were on the cusp of major success, as well as interesting insights into the recording process itself » Continue Reading.

Author:John Connolly

John Connolly celebrates twenty years as an author with this new work, a real doorstop of a novel, almost 700 pages in length, and a sequel to last year’s Charlie Parker tale The Woman In The Woods.

For this one, Parker has been taken away from his normal hunting grounds in rural Maine and transplanted to Europe, specifically Amsterdam and London. Again the story revolves around an ancient occult text known as The Fractured Atlas, the pages of which have been scattered around the world for safety. Gradually they are being reassembled with potentially apocalyptic consequences resulting, unless Parker and his cohorts can save the day. Connolly has never been afraid to include supernatural elements in this crime series, and that has never been more apparent than in this novel. However, for all that this still remains a crime novel with elements of horror rather than the other way round, with the epic length of this work allowing the author to fascinatingly explore ancient English folklore, myth and legend alongside the more traditional criminal investigation aspects of the story. The novel eventually, after many twists and turns, reaches an exciting climax, along the way pulling together all the » Continue Reading.

Author:Andrew Wild

I know, I know – does the world really need another Beatles book? Well, I suppose there’s always room for one more to add to the existing collection!

Unlike other books in the On Track series, this one eschews the album by album format, opting instead for an alphabetical listing. So what? Well it covers not only all the songs The Beatles recorded, but also those performed live, going right back to their earliest days in The Cavern and Hamburg. Throw into that solo tracks recorded prior to the band’s dissolution, together with songs they donated to other artists and those they simply guested on or produced and you have a very comprehensive work indeed. Each song has a brief preamble about its origins and musical content, but a formidable listing of details of each take and where it can be heard then follows. Details of any live performances are then added too. As you can gather, this is not a book that you would read cover to cover in one sitting as the content is often really quite dry. It’s far better used as a reference work to dip in and out of to research details of » Continue Reading.

Author:Ben Elton

Ben Elton returns with his first novel in five years, although to be fair he has in the intervening period scripted several series of the excellent TV comedy Upstart Crow.

This novel takes a jaundiced and satirical look at today’s society, and particularly the pervasive influence of social media. Ostensibly it’s a murder mystery, where an old school police officer attempts to investigate a series of killings to find that he simply doesn’t ‘get’ the modern world anymore. One suspects this may well be based on the author’s own views (Elton is 60 now), and at times the novel does read like a list of things he doesn’t like about today’s society thinly disguised as a story. Targets for his ire include Facebook and Twitter, politicians, referendums, trial by social media, historic sex crimes, politically correct language and a kaleidoscope of different identity groups. Elton is certainly not everyone’s cup of tea, but this is a decent and entertaining read, maybe not his very best but still well worth a look, and it does make some contentious, albeit tongue in cheek, points about the society we live in today, which the reader may or may not agree with » Continue Reading.