In this summary you will find reviews for D’Ercole’s Hard Core album, and some more words on Age Of Aquarius’ Out There as well as Earthshine’s Bridge to Infinity album.
81/100 for D’Ercole on Zware Metalen (Heavy Metal) with compliments on vocals, sound, songs and the experienced musicians
17/20 for D’Ercole on Metal Integral “hard rock the way we like it”
White Room Reviews compliments D’Ercole for showcasing the width of the rock genre
8.5 / 10 from Crossfire for D’Ercole “strong vocals and catchy tunes”
a recommended for a strong album from D’Ercole comes from Rockportaal
many compliments for Age Of Aquarius from White Room Reviews “a nice approach to progressive rock in which the balance is well guarded on many fronts. Those who set up and work out all of this themselves, deserve the compliments”.
Heavy Metal Webzine took time to discuss the instrumental electronic music of Earthshine. The editor gives it a 6.5, where as readers appoint no less that 7.5 points to the album!
The Dutch Progressive Rock Pages also wrote about the Earthshine album. Find that here.
The past year(s) have been pretty crazy, so it is way beyond time to reflect on the many great reviews our releases received. It will take a couple of posts, so here we go! (hit the links for full details)
The Rocker describes the latest Legion album as “another excellent release”
White Room Reviews says Tragik’s Faith Healer is a fine album which will please any lover of melodic hard rock
White Room Reviews writes about Phil Vincent’s Today Tomorrow Yesterday: “a CD that celebrates the diversity of PHil Vincent within the hard rock domain”
The Rocker, a self proclaimed child of the Eighties says about Tragik’s Faith Healer: “It’s the sound of rock the way it used to be. And the way it should be. A gem.”
Janne Stark writes about Phil’s TTY album: “a really good album. I must also point out that Phil is a kick-ass singer who deserves to be heard! “
Metal Integral from France describe D’Ercole’s HArd Core album as “Hard US rock the way I like it” and rewards it with 17.5 / 20 points!
An extensive review of the second Age Of Aquarius album Out There kan be found on Muzikman: “Out There offers a combination of action-packed, comic book imagery, along with surprise hints of pop-up styles inside the effects of progressive-rock. “
Woody’s praises the D’Ercole album as “A top notch melodic hard rock album, get it, enjoy it, smile and Crank it Up!”
the 4.5 / 5 stars for Tragik’s Faith Healer from DMME tells you everything. At least it should 🙂
rockerhead wastes few words on the Age Of Aquarius album: “great piece of work”
For DMME, Phil’s TTY album is “impressive: arguably, the best Vincent’s album to date.”
March 3 will see the relese of the second album by Age Of Aquarius: … Out There …
After exploring the changes we were bound to experience in this Age Of Aquarius on their 2017 debut Dawn Of The Age Of Aquarius, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Peter Cox and singer Nakoma Z are back with their second effort: … Out There…
With music building on their progressive and rock music roots, yet with a healthy dose of pop melodies thrown in for good measure, the duo are back with a vengeance and deliver 10 compelling songs that discuss various UFO / Alien topics. Sometimes tongue in cheek, sometimes serious, sometimes… well find out for yourself.
With the album taking more time than originally anticipated, Peter and Nakoma Z experienced first hand that changes can come unexpectedly. These changes also opened the door for Peter to add voices and vocals. Parts of the in between storytelling were inspired by documentaries on the subject.
Age Of Aquarius:
Nakoma Z: vocals, lyrics for 1, 2, 3, 7 and 9
Peter Cox: all songs, additional vocals and voices, all instruments and programming, words and lyrics for 3, 4, 5, 6, 8 and 10
Recorded, mixed and mastered by Peter at Down The Road NL
It is about time to give you an overview of reviews for our releases!
Musipedia of Metal gives Sky Empire a 7/10 and calls it a fairly impressive chunk of prog that will certainly entertain fans of the genre
DMME gives 3 4/5 stars to Still Living’s Ymmij album and likes the band best in the heavier songs
Rockportaal really enjoy the Souls Of Deaf album and call it a damn fine album with catchy and fast metal
Dmitry from DMME also had some nice things to say about last years Age Of Aquarius release and adds several new genre descriptions to the varied sound of the album
Zeitgeist / the Rocker have lots of praise for the Marenna live album and state that Melodic hard rock fans should definitely be giving it a listen
Belgian Metal Shredder found several favourites on the Souls Of Deaf album and describe it as an old-school album that aims to bring some of that classic Motörhead vibe to you but with a typically Dutch flavor
Metal Temple are very impressed by the Sky Empire album and give a 10 for songwriting and a 9 for originality!
And in Empire 127 Martin Dambeck wrote several impressions. For Chinawhite, Souls Of Deaf and Sunrise Auranaut. Read in the next documents:
And last but not least the kind words of Mr. H. for Chinawhite:
CHINAWHITE Different Rock Company
Another release from the men who never sleep. Yes, Peter Cox (not that one) and Phil Vincent have made another record to go with all their CranstoN / Forest Field endeavours.
Chinawhite, though, is all about the songs of Peter Cox. With all the vocals taken care of by Vincent and the drums coming from Praying Mantis man Hans in´t Zandt they’ve certainly put together a quality product. It’s mainly eighties styled melodic hard rock but they’ve also thrown in a few prog elements as well. It would be no surprise to find some mid-period Asia albums in the collection of Mr Cox.
They kick things off with one of the album highlights – ‘Kiss Of Fire’ – which is as hard rock as they get. The prog starts to arrive with ‘Hello To The World’ and from then on they mix and match as they please. When it works, it’s really enjoyable, although a couple of songs just miss. And just to reinforce the prog credentials the album closes with an eight minute instrumental. Hey! It’s my album and I’ll do what I like. A good one.
US site Sea Of Tranquility have done a review of our album. Writer Jon Neudorf gives his honest view and the admirable advice to go listen for yourself. This because he likes the music and musicianship more than the vocals, with the exception of a couple of tracks.
Some excerpts:
For me the strong point of the album is definitely the musicianship of Peter Cox. He is an excellent musician.
Ehinger fares better in the melancholic “The Water Bearer”, lush with keyboards and strings and defined by pretty piano and lead vocals.
The disc does include three instrumentals with each showcasing the talent Cox possesses both as a musician and as a highly skilled melodicist.
On a whole the album still got 3/5 stars. Read the full review here. Thank you Jon!
Dutch site Rockportaal has written a rather nice review of the Age Of Aquarius album. Here the English translation:
Rock Company is a Dutch record label that was founded in 1987 and has the primary goal of promoting music in every way possible. The label does this by, among other things, releasing music, writing about music and broadcasting music via the internet. Thereby one focuses on progressive rock and related genres.
One of the bands – or even better duo – on this label is Age Of Aquarius. They consist of the Dutchman Peter Cox, who plays all the instruments on this album and the British singer Zoe Ehinger, responsible for all lyrics. Multi-instrumentalist and singer Peter Cox is a name unknown to me in the music business. Nevertheless, the man has been making his mark on the genre for quite some time, as evidenced by his involvement with the groups Chinawhite, Forest Field and Earthshine.
Dawn Of The Age Of Aquarius is about big changes and the destruction of the old, which will eventually create the new. Uranus, God of heaven and heavens, is the ruler of Aquarius. Destruction and change are the most important parts of this sign, which then brings new thinking, creativity and brings people back to life. Reasonably spicy food that you have to be open to.
Musically the album is a lot easier to digest. The ten generally melancholic songs, three of which are instrumental, listen pleasantly and simply. The song structures are generally simple, with the strong guitar playing of Peter Cox having the upper hand. I do not always appreciate the vocals of Zoe Ehinger. In my opinion, her vocals come into its own in more dark-colored songs such as The Water Bearer, Uranian Utopia and the beautiful Mercury Rising. Sometimes she tends to bite off more than she can chew. This is at the expense of purity, such as the more up-tempo Darling Jupiter. The album has a strong final chord with Saturnian Chaos. In addition to the three instrumental numbers, I think the best song. The guitar playing is firmer and more pointed, the rhythm is tighter and the vocals of Zoe Ehinger, who reminds of Grace Jones, are simply very strong.
German metal site Crossfire have been busy writing about our artists.
They really liked the Holly Montgomery album. It ended with an 8 out of 10 score with the main complaint being it was too short. Well, we would love to hear more of this awesome artist too, so it is a great review. You can find that here.
The next album to get a feature is the Dawn Of The Age Of Aquarius album by, well Age Of Aquarius of course. Even when it ended with a 6/10 score, the words only seem to contain positives. Well, we are happy that Markus took the time to listen to it carefully, which is what the album needs and deserves! You can find it here.
And the last album is The Ocean Of Unspoken Words from Sunrise Auranaut. Alas the reviewer did not like it much. But maybe an instrumental progressive rock album is just too much for a metalzine? You can find it here.
Seems our artists still fare well in the One World Music RadioRockTop30!
Cranston with Phil Vincent and Paul Sabu refuse to give in and even rise 2 places and now finds itself at #19,
Age Of Aquarius landed on #14,
Forest Field rises back into the top 10 and holds the #7 position and last but not least,
Sunrise Auranaut rise an astonishing 16 positions and find themselves at number 3!
Now who said that rock and prog are dead?
Thanks to all the listeners and presenters!
Of course you can find all these releases at our website www.rockcompany.nl and also online or at your favourite shop!
As you may have noticed, here at Rock Company we like to keep busy. So slowly but surely the number of titles available from us is rising! All independent artists, who need your support. Hugs and kudos for everyone who buys an album (often limited editions) or download! But if you are wondering what the label is about, here a sure fire way to introduce a lot of recent releases to you, this podcast. Have fun and never mind the ramblings of Dr. Schultz 🙂
