BRONZ- Taken by storm (1984)

There are some styles of rock I love almost by definition, because of their sound, for example heavy pychedelic rock, southern rock, 70's pomp/AOR, NWOBHM and early 80's hard n' heavy. Bronz manage to combine the pomp/AOR sound of the late 70's-early 80's with the edge of NWOBHM so it didn't take much to fall for them. On their 1984 debut album Max Bacon (who had already delivered the goods on two great Nightwing albums) was the star of the show. Fantastic vocals that wouldn't go unnoticed. In fact briefly after the demise of Bronz Bacon joined GTR, the AOR/prog rock project of Steve Howe (Yes) and Steve Hackett (Genesis). Their self titled debut in 1986 went gold and scored a US top 20 hit with When the heart rules the mind. 1987 would see Bacon taking part in Phenomena's second and best album ''Dreamrunner''. Still ''Taken by storm'' is  the best album Bacon was involved in (closely followed by Nightwings ''My kingdom come'' also in 1984). Great songs throughout, big choruses, solid riffs and Bacon's passionate trademark high pitched vocals do the job. The self titled track has all the values of great, galloping, anthemic 80's heavy metal, while on the other side songs like The cold truth take us back to the magic of 70's Foreigner or Toto. This goes on and on from track to track, so if you like your NWOBHM spiced with keys and tons of melody this will sound like heaven.

ENJOY!!!

http://www.mediafire.com/download/t6w4e1qdt2ci4yo/1984_Taken_by_Storm.rar

FOREIGNER- Foreigner (1977)

 

I never really understood why this band got mocked so much with the whole ''corporate rock'' thing. Unless great music deserves mocking... Anyway, back to adressing reasonable people with good taste: Although their 3 first albums released in the 70's all sold extremely well this one stands high above the other two in terms of songwriting. All songs deliver one way or another. You get a bunch of simplistic but effective and addictive melodic rockers like Feels like the first time, Long, long way from home, Headknocker and I need you, some really nice slower sentimental songs like The damage is done and Woman oh woman and then the real highpoints, the absolute brilliance of pomp AOR anthem Cold as ice, the magic of the spacey ballad Starriders, the ballsy attitude of At war with the world (are you still trying to convince me a wimpy band could deliver such an epic?), the point is there's always something to admire; the vocal power of Lou Gramm, Jones's songwriting, the overall musicianship of the band, the everlasting magic of the 70's AOR sound in its best form. Allthough Foreigner went on to write some of the best known AOR songs in the 80's (Urgent, Waiting for a girl like you, I want to kow what love is), this is their finest moment and sadly their only 70's release of such high level. Both ''Double vision'' and ''Head games'' failed to satisfy me after this early masterpiece. I could surely do with a couple more albums like their debut!

ENJOY!!!
http://www.mediafire.com/?aq92s8o7978cn47