Hour of 13 has come to an end as of April 7th of 2014 after three excellent albums of classic horror movie inspired unwholesomeness. The two man whirlwind of Chad Davis and Phil was active from 2006 to 2014 with a progressively improving sense of songwriting skill and atmospheric evocation, culminating in 333, the finest album of 2012 and a watermark for revivalist metal bands that choose to dwell in the hazier gloom of forbidden mysteries. However, many fans will recall Vestal Claret, another band that featured Phil and more than a few songs with the same titles as various earlier Hour of 13 tracks but were executed in a rather different style. However, if anyone ever had any doubts about how this Connecticut band could stand on its own, know that none of said songs make their appearance on The Cult of Vestal Claret. Their most ambitious album to date (the sixteen minute track gives it away), this album is raw proof that they have moved from a promising band unfortunately still stuck in the shadow of its singer’s better known project into the world stage of heavy metal.

At last, after more than 20 years, "Total Fucking Darkness", the infamous third demo from British extreme metallers CRADLE OF FILTH, will be officially released on May 5. Housed in a heavy gatefold sleeve with paintings featuring the twisted visions of BBC Radio One presenter and occult artist Daniel Carter, the release will include some tracks previously unreleased by the band. The demo was officialy re-released by Mordgrimm on may 5th 2014. This remastered new version (engineered in Turan Studio in Oxford) includes as bonus the song "Spattered in Faeces", the only surviving track from the Goetia sessions, the unreleased track "Devil Mayfair (Advocatus Diaboli)", recorded at Samhain 1992, plus other three tracks from that session, along with two short instrumental pieces from the band's former keyboardist, Ben Ryan.

Peter Brendler and guitarist John Abercrombie have developed their playing partnership over a number of years, but The Angle Below is their first duo recording. Brendler—"the guy on the bass" as he's described in Neil Tesser's sleeve notes—is the nominal leader but he refers to the album as a collaboration. He's not wrong. He may be the driving force behind the project, the man who sorted out the studio, booked the dates, contacted the press and made the coffees, but as soon as the bass and guitar open "Downhill Runner" it's clear that this is a joint venture—a very successful joint…

Excellent compilation of the best jazz and gypsy jazz guitarists, highly recommended!

Strauss sits alongside Mahler as a leading conductor – as well as composer - of his age, winning plaudits and support even before the age of 20 from contemporaneous luminaries such as Hans von Bülow. In fact between them, Mahler and Strauss controlled the two most powerful opera houses in the world in their mid-Thirties, with Strauss in Berlin and Mahler in Vienna.

The Prestige label is a byword in jazz circles, founded in 1948 by Bob Weinstock he launched a series of subsidiary labels buoyed by its unprecedented success. One of the more successful of those sister labels was Bluesville, which proceeded to release some truly legendary blues artists in the shape of Lightnin' Hopkins, Victoria Spivey and Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee. Sometimes in acoustic settings and in others with full accompaniment the labels' roster shone brightly no matter how they were presented…

Dmitry Shostakovich • Alfred Schnittke - Piano Quintets (C.Orbelyan | Moscow String Quartet)
Classical | EAC | FLAC, IMG+CUE, LOG | Covers | 1CD, 257 MB
Label: Russian Disc | Catalog Number: RD CD 10 031 | TT: 61'32''

These two pieces make such excellent bedfellows that I’m surprised the coupling is not more common, though as I write this, Naxos have just announced their own recording of the same pairing. The Shostakovich seems to me an unfairly neglected work, considering its instant popularity after the 1940 premiere (the composer with the Beethoven Quartet). It was written in the wake of the Sixth Symphony, and is his last major pre-war piece. It encompasses many of the traits for which the composer is famous; there are the intense, neo-Bachian first and second movements, a playful, heavily ironic scherzo, a pensive, soulful intermezzo, and a finale where probing questions lurk beneath a surface veneer of jovial high spirits.

Violist Brett Dean’s journey with composition started in the late 1980s in Germany, where he was a member of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, but also appeared as an improvising performer and worked on experimental film and radio scores.

Elvis sang about a mess of blues here's a stack of 'em, this 3CD set features some classic blues cuts with searing guitar lines and scorching hot solos. We have the masters John Lee Hooker, Albert King, Muddy Waters et al rubbing shoulders with some modern day blues masters such as Kirk Fletcher and Deborah Coleman. So tune up, plug in and turn that dial all the way to 11.

California Transit Authority released their second full length disc in the spring of 2013. 'Sacred Ground' is an electrifying, jazz-rock set with tasty grooves, razor sharp horn arrangements and great melodies to the fore. The California Transit Authority’s new release is the natural heir to what should have followed Chicago III.

Many listeners were introduced to Ferneyhough's music through his string quartets, the most important statements in the genre since Carter, Bartók, and Berg. His first quartet, Sonatas, is a work of inexhaustible richness: the more than 40 minutes of music is fragmented into short paragraphs that evoke Purcell and Webern by turn. As a confrontation between lyrical and deliberately rationalized music, it is a gripping drama that doesn't let go. As for the Second and Third Quartets, they simply must be heard to be believed. The explosive virtuosity of the Arditti Quartet can only be compared to a musician like Paginini: the notorious demands of Ferneyhough's music upon the performers shook the boundaries of instrumental technique, and classical music hasn't been the same since.

Joshua Cody @ Amazon.com