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Frontline from Nürnberg, Germany belong to the pioneers of the German hard rock scene. Founded in 1989 by Robert Böbel (guitars, keyboards; Evidence One, Phantom V), Stephan Kämmerer (vocals), Thomas Riess (bass) and Stephan Bayerlein (drums), their debut album ‘The State Of Rock‘ finally hit the stores in 1994 – a true classic which until today still is regarded as the finest album of the band by many. This record also meant the breakthrough for the guys in Japan where they reached # 10 in the rock sales charts. Straightly after the release, Frontline went on tour in Europe and had the honour to open for various great acts such as Gotthard, Crash Test Dummies, Bonfire, Tyketto and Casanova.

In 1995, Frontline pulled out the full acoustic album ‘Two Faced‘. However, personal differences within the band followed and ended up in the departure of Stephan Bayerlein and Thomas Riess in 1996. They were replaced by Thomas ‘Hutch’ Bauer (Bass) and Rami Ali (Drums; Evidence One, Shylock). Still in the same year, Frontline signed a record deal with a new label, recorded the single ‘Man In Motion‘ and the album ‘Heroes‘ which though officially only saw the light of day in Japan since their European label went out of business.

One year later, the band decided to start working on another new album which is well known under it’s working title ‘Heroes II‘ amongst the fans but never saw a release. Due to a complicated contractual situation many labels feared to contact Frontline during the following years and the band went back to the underground again until Georg Siegl at AOR Heaven finally showed his interest in the band in the year 2000 and signed them for the first time. Just one month later, the album ‘Right Attitude‘ was released which can be regarded as a sort of compilation out of both ‘Heroes‘ albums …and ‘Right Attitude‘ became a huge success for the band again! The recordings for their 2002 output ‘Against The World‘ started the same year, and this album finally re-established Frontline on the international hard rock market.

Throughout the months after the release of the best of compilation ‘Almost Unreleased‘ (2003) which also featured a couple of rare tracks for the fans, Frontline again went into the studio and started to work on a new album called ‘The Seventh Sign‘ (2004). In the year 2006, the last studio album the German group called ‘Circles‘ was released.

On May 25th 2018, AOR Heaven will re-issue the former Japanese only release ‘Heroes‘ as a limited edition of 1000 copies. The album was  re-mastered by guitarist Robby Böbel.

Sound clips:

Heroes (Edit)

On The Run (Edit)

Our Love (Edit)

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AOR Heaven will be releasing the new album from Imperium, ‘Beyond The Stars‘ on May 25th 2018.

Imperium is the solo project of drummer Mika Brushane. Mika has been playing drums and percussion in various bands since 1981 in all genres from jazz to metal and composed songs for different genres – and this legacy of mixed genres can be heard in the Imperium sound! The music is Melodic Rock which has a big dose of 80’s feel and sounds in it.

The project started in 2012 when Mika composed a new track for the new Strike record ‘We’re Back‘ and realized that there was more songs in him that needed to be released. In 2016, the debut album by Imperium, ‘Dreamhunter‘, saw the light of day on  AOR Heaven.

In Imperium, Mika is in charge of the song-writing and playing all drums, bass, keyboards and the backing vocals. All lead vocals and guitars are performed by various very talented musicians from the rock/metal scene. 

Also the album’s post production was handled by top professionals, i.e. it was  mixed by Erkka Korhonen (Dark Sarah, Urban Tale, Northern Kings, Ari Koivunen, Raskasta Joulua) and mastered by the legendary Mika Jussila (Nightwish, Children of Bodom, Stratovarius, HIM etc.) ‘Beyond The Stars‘ was produced and mostly recorded during 2017-2018 by Mika himself at his Groovehouse studio in Vantaa, Finland.

Sound clips in advance:

Beyond The Stars (Edit)

Crash And Burn (Edit)

Learning How To Fly (Edit)

Line up:

Mika Brushane – Music, lyrics, drums, vst-bass, keyboards and backing vocals

Erkka Korhonen – Guitars

Samuli Federley – Guitars

Toni Huovinen – Guitars

Susanna Eronen – Backing vocals

Sini Heinilä – Backing vocals

Guest stars on ‘Beyond The Stars‘: Dennis Ward – Lead & backing vocals (Gus G, Khymera, Unisonic, Pink Cream 69, Place Vendome, Sunstrom, etc.); Markku Kuikka – Lead & backing vocals (Crow’s Flight, Agonizer, Kenziner, The Ragged Saints, Status Minor, etc.); Antti Railio – Lead & backing vocals (The Voice of Finland winner, Ex-Celesty, Solo artist, Raskasta Joulua tour etc.), Rob Lundgren – Lead & backing vocals, (solo artist, The Midgard project, Barque of Dante, etc.)

Official Website

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Frontline from Nürnberg, Germany belong to the pioneers of the German hard rock scene. Founded in 1989 by Robert Böbel (guitars, keyboards; Evidence One, Phantom V), Stephan Kämmerer (vocals), Thomas Riess (bass) und Stephan Bayerlein (drums), their debut album ‘The State Of Rock‘ finally hit the stores in 1994 – a true classic which until today still is regarded as the finest album of the band by many. This record also meant the breakthrough for the guys in Japan where they reached # 10 in the rock sales charts. Straightly after the release, Frontline went on tour in Europe and had the honour to open for various great acts such as Gotthard, Crash Test Dummies, Bonfire, Tyketto and Casanova.

In 1995,  Frontline pulled out the full acoustic album „Two Faced“. However, personal differences within the band followed and ended up in the departure of Stephan Bayerlein and Thomas Riess in 1996. They were replaced by Thomas „Hutch“ Bauer (Bass) und Rami Ali (Drums; Evidence One, Shylock). Still in the same year, Frontline signed a record deal with a new label, recorded the single ‘Man In Motion‘ and the album ‘Heroes‘ which though officially only saw the light of day in Japan since their European label went out of business.

One year later, the band decided to start working on another new album which is well known under it’s working title ‘Heroes II‘ amongst the fans but never saw a release. Due to a complicated contractual situation many labels feared to contact Frontline during the following years and the band went back to the underground again until Georg Siegl at AOR Heaven finally showed his interest in the band in the year 2000 and signed them for the first time. Just one month later, the album “Right Attitude” was released which can be regarded as a sort of compilation out of both “Heroes” albums …and ‘Right Attitude‘ became a huge success for the band again! The recordings for their 2002 output “Against The World” started the same year, and this album finally re-established Frontline on the international hard rock market.

Throughout the months after the release of the best of compilation ‘Almost Unreleased‘ (2003) which also featured a couple of rare tracks for the fans, Frontline again went into the studio and started to work on a new album called ‘The Seventh Sign‘ (2004). In the year 2006, the last studio album the German group called ‘Circles‘ was released.

On April 27th 2018, AOR Heaven now will re-issue the rare and out of print album ‘The State Of Rock‘ with two bonus tracks as a Limited Edition of 1000 copies. The album was  re-mastered by guitarist Robby Böbel.

Soundclips in advance:

Frontline – Another Love (Edit)

Frontline – Heaven Knows (Edit)

Frontline – The Night Comes Over You (Edit)

 

 

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With members from bands like Constancia, The Poodles, Token, Narnia and Essence of Sorrow, and with guest stars Nina Söderquist (Bjorn Skifs/Badrock, Champions of Rock a.o.), Janne Stark (Grand Design, Mountain of Power a.o.), and Tåve Wanning (The Voice, Adrenaline Rush, Peaches), new melodic hard rockers Heartwind may come across as one of those one off band projects, but nothing could be more far from the truth. Heartwind is the story of two old friends, with a common love for classical melodic hard rock and AOR, that after fifteen years of friendship started to write the album they always had wanted to listen to themselves. Over a meal in downtown Stockholm, guitar player and songwriter Goran Engvall (former with Hitworks) and progressive/melodic keyboard player and fellow songwriter Mikael Rosengren (Constancia, Token, Scudiero), laid down the vision for what was yet to come. 15 original songs and 12 months later, Mikael started to pull some strings from his many fellow musicians in the Swedish hard rock scene since 20 years back.

The two songwriters were amazed with the positive response they got on their first demos, from hard rock industry people & fans. It became evident that they were going to be able to attract some great talent to the album and the band. Believing in the importance of fellowship and a strong people fit when starting a band, Mikael and Göran started to dig in closest ground: Drummer Peter TrumPeter Svensson (Constancia, Faith) and singer Germán Pascual (Narnia, Dj Mendez, Essence of Sorrow), happily joined the band, and two key pieces of the puzzle came into place. With Peter and Germán onboard, the band knew they had both a powerful backbone and a phenomenal front man in place!

Germán invited his old friends, and former band mates, guitar virtuoso Martin Hall (Germán Pascual band) and bass wizard Germain Leth (The Poodles, Watchmen) to join the band and magic was about to happen. When also the very well respected Fredrik Folkare (Unleashed, Firespawn, Eclipse, Scudiero a.o.), accepted to team up to produce and mix, the band knew they had something special going. Fredrik’s contribution also as a musician on the album (guitar & bass) cannot be underestimated.

With classical albums like Hysteria (Def Leppard), 1987 (Whitesnake) and Escape (Journey) serving as inspiration, the intention from the band has been to get every single track to stand on its own two feet! Timeless melodic hard rock with a modern but still genuine sound!

After publishing a short teaser on Youtube, just before X-mas 2017, Heartwind stood ready as a band and was offered record deals by no less than three (!) different labels. Heartwind was happy to sign with AOR Heaven in early January and making an old dream come true.

Soundclips in advance:

Heartwind – Cry Out Into Space (Edit)

Heartwind – Higher And Higher (Edit)

Heartwind – Ready For The Moonlight (Edit)

The album is mixed and produced by Fredrik Folkare, Chrome Studios, and mastered by Erik Mårtensson, Blowout Productions (Eclipse, Ammunition, WET a.o).

Official Website

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Jari Tiura, former Michael Schenker Group and current Stargazery and Century Lost singer, will release his debut solo album on 23rd March 2018. ‘King Of Lions’ is a bit different than his previous outputs. The solo debut album has a mark of AOR to it, but also offers genuine hard rock feeling at times.
Jari Tiura was born 1968 in Tampere, Finland. He began to sing around the age of 17 when he also formed his first real band Crommer. Two years later the band changed their name to Bourbon and started to play gigs in their hometown.

A big change in Jari Tiura’s musical career happened in the end of the 90´s, when he joined Snakegod, a Finnish power metal band. With Snakegod he released an album called ‘Invitation‘ in 2001.

In 2004 Michael Schenker contacted Jari Tiura and asked him if he would like to fly over to London for an audition gig. Everything went well and Jari even recorded most of his lead vocals for the upcoming MSG release ‘Tales Of Rock N Roll‘ during his stay in London. The first MSG concert featuring Jari Tiura on vocals took place in 2006. The show was broadcasted live from Underground, Cologne and aired on the show ‘Rockpalast‘ on German TV.

Between 2006 and 2007 Jari toured with MSG in Europe, Asia, the USA and Japan, and played big festivals like Wacken Open Air and Sweden Rock to name a few.

After leaving MSG, the singer joined Finnish band Stargazery. With Stargazery, he so far has released two albums, ‘Eye On The Sky‘ (2011) and “Stars Aligned” (2015). He is also a member of a new group called Century Lost which is currently working on a debut album to be released in 2018.

A few years ago Jari Tiura and his good friend and producer Sami Ala-lahti hooked up and started to write music together for his first solo album. ‘King Of Lions‘ is a release that, from the beginning, was meant to sound different from anything he had done in the past. Sami Ala-lahti handled the production and also played rhythm guitars, sang backing vocals and did some programming.

Soundclips in advance:

Jari Tiura – Away From All The Magic And Wonder (Edit)

Jari Tiura – Friends And Foes (Edit)

Jari Tiura – London (Edit)

Line up:

Yrjö Ella – lead guitars

Jaan Wessman – bass and drums

Jussi Kulomaa – keyboards

Jani Kemppinen – keyboards

Mikko Kangasjärvi – keyboards

 

Official Website

Faceboook

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Norwegian rockers Come Taste The Band are currently in the studio working on a brand new album. The record will feature contributions from former Rainbow singers Doogie White and Joe Lynn Turner.

Get ready for a Melodic Hard Rock album with blues & funk influences in the tradition of the great bands from the seventies!

This record will be released world-wide on AOR Heaven in late 2018.

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Johan Kihlberg’s Impera releases ‘Fear‘ lyric video.

‘Fear‘, is taken from the forthcoming album ‘Age Of Discovery‘, which is due for release on February 23rd, on German label Aor Heaven.

Track list:
1. Prelude (intro)
2. That´s The Way That Life Goes
3. Fear
4. Falling
5. The End Of The Road
6. Just A Conversation
7. The Right Stuff
8. Why Does She Care
9. I Am I
10. It´s A Revolution

Official Website

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After three albums with his band Impera, founding drummer Johan Kihlberg decided it was time to spread his wings, and the Swede came up with the idea to record his first solo effort, Johan Kihlberg’s Impera ‘Age Of Discovery.  “I felt this would give me the opportunity to spread my wings a bit and work with some other people,” Johan said. ” I grew up with bands like KISS, Queen, ABBA and The Beatles, who were not afraid to have a wide range of styles on their albums.  I’m obviously a hard rock fan at heart, but I’m also influenced by bands like Simple Minds, Kraftwerk, Manfred Mann’s Earth Band, Human League and many others. I’m also a huge fan of movies and movie soundtracks.”

The first person Johan approached was Lion’s Share guitarist Lars Chriss, who is also a renowned producer and mixer. “Johan and I got together and started writing songs,” Chriss said.”He usually had an idea of the direction and we took it from there. We also had a couple of friends coming up with basic ideas for about half of the album. We had the luxury to cherry-pick the songs we thought would add to what we already had going. For lyrics and melodies we worked closely with singer Mick Devine of the band SEVEN, whom I’ve done a couple albums with the last couple of years. My old friend and Lion’s Share keyboardist Kay Backlund stepped up to the plate and worked with us on a couple of tracks as well.”

Kihlberg and Chriss decided to work with several different singers on the project, while enlisting Kihlberg’s longtime friend and Impera bandmate Mats Vassfjord to lay down the bass tracks. “As soon as we had the songs written, we started thinking about what voice and singer that would fit each individual track the best,” Kihlberg said. “Fortunately, they all agreed and did an amazing job on the album. I even managed to get one of my all-time favorite singers, Michael Sadler from SAGA, to sing a song.”

Johan Kihlberg’s Impera ‘Age Of Discovery‘ features a wide range of musical influences while remaining a very strong, melodic and powerful album. It boasts great production work by Chriss and a stunning artwork by Carl-André Beckston.

Sound clips in advance:

Falling (Edit)

Fear (Edit)

The End Of The Road (Edit)

Line-up:

Johan Kihlberg – Drums/Keyboards

Lars Chriss (Lion’s Share)- Guitars

Mats Vassfjord (220 Volt) – Bass

Michael Sadler (Saga) – Lead & Backing Vocals on 8

Göran Edman (Yngwie Malmsteen, John Norum) – Lead & Backing Vocals on 6

Mick Devine (Seven) – Lead Vocals on 3, 5, 9 – Backing Vocals on 3, 7, 9, bonus track

Nigel Bailey (Bailey) – Lead Vocals on 7, 10, bonus track – Backing Vocals on 5, 10

Nils Patrik Johansson (Lion’s Share, Astral Doors) – Lead & Backing Vocals on 2, 3

Michael J. Scott – Lead & Backing Vocals on 4

Mattias IA Eklundh (Freak Kitchen) – solo on 9

Kay Backlund (Lion’s Share) – Keyboards on 1, 3, 6

Anders Rybank (Coastland Ride) – Keyboards on 8

Official Website

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PAL is a Swedish musical collaboration between guitarist Roger Ljunggren,  Peter Andersson and Peo Pettersson.

Roger and Peter, longtime friends, started writing and play music together way back. They first got to know each other in the early eighties. Growing up in Skara, a small town in the south west of Sweden sharing a passion for music and especially for song-writing. They sweat out together in a small rehearsal studio together with some other local musicians.

The group started in 1987 when a demo was recorded in Peo’s studio Vanäs for a band called Escape which at that moment was short of a singer and Peo helped out.

Now, thirty years later the three musicians are making music together again. The songs on the debut album ‘Prime‘ are a collaboration between the three – where Roger wrote the music and recorded the guitars and solos and Peter arranged, produced and played the bass. Peo then added the vocals. Mauritz Petersson was hired to do the drums.

You can surely hear vintage elements in their music, but this time with a more modern approach and passion for the music they all grew up with. The first label that was invited to listen to the material was AOR Heaven in Germany. A record deal was signed with them shortly after. The release of the debut album ‘Prime‘ is scheduled in Europe for January 26th, 2018.

Sound clips in advance:

Carry On (Edit)

Double Nature (Edit)

Heads Or Tails (Edit)

Line-Up:

Roger Ljunggren – Guitar

Peter Andersson – Bass

Peo Pettersson – Vocals / Keyboard

Mauritz Petersson – Drums

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Following on from their critically acclaimed 2015 independent debut album ‘Speedway‘ Blood Red Saints make a welcome return with a brand new selection of top class hard rock. ‘Love Hate Conspiracies‘ sees the band make a progression into a more focused direction. Pete Godfrey (vocals) tells us more. “The Speedway album was a great debut for us no doubt about that but this new album is a massive step forward. We’ve really found our own sound and identity with this material, it feels a lot more cohesive and is without doubt, heavier in style. This feels like a real band all pulling together”

The new album also sees two new Saints baptised to join original members Pete Godfrey, Rob Naylor (bass) and Lee Revill (guitars). Neil Hibbs (formerly of Arkhams Razor, Shy) joins to add a harder edge with crunching guitars for a tougher approach for both live and studio work. Andy Chemney (drums) was an obvious choice having worked with Rob in their previous band ‘Angels Or Kings‘. Rob takes up the story. “I’ve known Andy nearly all my life, he was the guy I wanted for our band and we are so pleased to have finally got our man”

So, what can we expect from ‘Love Hate Conspiracies?’ Lee Revill told us this “it’s musically in a heavier direction than Speedway. We still wanted big melodic choruses but we wanted to toughen them up a bit too. We’ve got such a strong set of songs here and we are all excited to finally let people hear them, on the album and also live, these songs are gonna kick ass”

The album features a writing and vocal contribution from Paul Laine (The Defiants)  on ‘Is It Over‘ and a track ‘Turn On The Night‘, written by Steve Brown (Trixter, Def Leppard, Tokyo Motor Fist)

Mixing and production was handled by Simon Humphrey who has worked with some of the biggest acts in music over many years and his input was invaluable in producing this record. The release date was set to January 26th, 2018.

Sound clips in advance:

Live & Die (Edit)

Something In Your Kiss (Edit)

Wake Up (Edit)

Catch BRS out and about throughout the year with HRH in North Wales in March and more shows to be announced soon. Check them out on Facebook too.

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