6/12/2020 Releases of Note/Surprises from Last Week

Last week’s releases turned out pretty well, Dion’s album had enough good tracks it was cheaper to buy the whole album than just the songs I like and I found a cover of Dolly Parton’s “Jolene” in Spanish by Chiquis and Becky G.  Santana and his daughter Cindy Blackman Santana also made a rock version of John Lennon’s “Imagine” for charity, which I would place just under Dolly Parton’s cover as my favorite “Imagine” cover.  Dion also ironically guested on Joe Louis Walker’s album on the same track Eric Gales did, so it was a nice blues jam.  Now it’s time to focus on this week and its releases.

BPMD-American Made: This is the album I teased at the end of last week’s post, I’ve pre-ordered this since early May and been looking forward to it immensely.  BPMD is short for (Bobby) Blitz (Mike) Portnoy (Mark) Menghi (Phil) Demmel, the four members of the band.  It’s a metal supergroup and this is their first release, covers of 1970s rock songs, such as Aerosmith’s “Toys in the Attic,” Cactus’ “Evil,” Van Halen’s “D.O.A.,” Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Saturday Night Special” and of course, Grand Funk Railroad’s “We’re An American Band.”  Toys in the Attic, Evil and We're An American Band have already been released as singles and this band appears more than capable of holding their own among similar rock bands like Black Stone Cherry and The Dead Daisies.

Larkin Poe-Self Made Man: A pair of young women I found through Spotify.  Spotify calls them Blues while amazon.com calls them Alternative Rock, though I’ve noticed many times genre means little as I’ve heard albums where each track is in a radically different style.  However, Larkin Poe do have a bluesy, Southern Rock edge to their music and this album features a guest appearance from Tyler Bryant, who sang the song “Lipstick Wonder Woman,” one of the few blues rock songs to name drop a superheroine.  (Sometimes, when I sang along with it, I’d substitute other DC superheroines to give them additional attention, though “Black Canary” and “Power Girl” were the only ones to fit the rhythm of the song).  The singles thus far have been good and I look forward to the rest of the album.

Michael Angelo Batio-More Machine Than Man: A furious virtuoso guitarist, Michael Angelo Batio is another artist I found through Spotify.  I really like his two covers albums, where he performs (and on occasion, either him or a friend sings) some of the more legendary guitar pieces recorded, usually a medley related to a famous guitarist.  Examples include “Tribute to Randy;” a mashup of “Crazy Train” and “Mr. Crowley,” “EVH;” a medley of “Panama,” “Ain’t Talkin’ ‘Bout Love” and “Unchained,” and “Clapton is God;” a medley of “Layla,” “Badge” and “Sunshine Of Your Love.”  There are also straightforward instrumental covers of Deep Purple’s “Burn” and Aerosmith’s “Dream On.”  His original compositions aren’t as good as these classics, but they are enjoyable instrumental metal, so I look forward to listening to them.