At Vance, one of Germany's most consistently satisfying metal bands was formed by vocalist Oliver Hartmann (Centers, Avantasia, Heavenly, Dreamscape, Freedom Call, Edguy) and guitarist Olaf Lenk (Velvet Viper, Zed Yago, Wolfpakk, Seven Thorns) in 1998…

The original 12-song LP has been expanded to 20 tracks for this CD. The original material comprised a very pleasant and diverting psychedelic pop release, strongly reminiscent at times of the early Bee Gees from Horizontal, interspersed with some heavier-sounding tracks that were closer to the World of Oz's actual sound on-stage. The bonus cuts are single edits and mixes of tracks that were already represented on the album, so there's nothing new to hear except for a punchier, more compressed sound on some of the better songs.

Out of print debut by melodic hard rock outfit, The Burnpool (produced by BOB KULICK). Fans of hard hitting, well produced AOR-tinged hard rock/metal (Biloxi's, Tour De Force, Rox Diamond, Jaded Heart, Artica, Intuition, Sic Vikki) will vastly enjoy this masterpiece. The guitars are damn good, the rhythm section is spot on, and the songs have a 'different' ring to them, somewhere between epic, progressive and hair metal. The opening two tracks 'Titan' and 'Snowblind' are a very strong opening pair. Rough and tough approach with melodic agggression. Classy hard'n'heavy, nearly impossible to find today.

Following a 20th anniversary reunion tour in 1989 to promote Viva Santana!, Carlos Santana reorganized the band as a sextet and recorded Spirits Dancing in the Flesh, Santana's 15th and final studio album for Columbia Records. It was an unusually eclectic collection, featuring songs by Curtis Mayfield ("Gypsy Woman"), the Isley Brothers ("Who's That Lady"), and Babatunde Olatunji ("Jin-Go-Lo-Ba"). For all those influences, it was more of a straightforward, guitar-heavy rock album than usual. Coming more than three years after Santana's last new album, Freedom, it sold to the band's core audience only, reaching number 85.

This is the debut of CROSSROADS, a German band founded by Reent Froehlich and Peer Würfel after the split of FACT (two albums in 1984/85). The style is completely different: While FACT played ACCEPT-like, typical German Heavy Metal, CROSSROADS made fine Melodic Metal in the tradition of harder American Hard Rock bands.

Very interesting prog Italian band with a blues-psychedelic feature instead of the usual Italian symphonic style with a good use of flute and totally sung in English. Formed in 1964, Anonima Sound were a beat-pop trio that recorded four singles. In 1970, lead vocalist and guitarist Ivan Graziani left to pursue a career as a solo artist, which would see him become one of the most popular Italian singer-songwriters of the Eighties. At this point, after having recruited new members, the band changed its name in Anonima Sound. In 1972 they released an album, "Red Tape Machine", entirely sung in English and influenced by British psychedelia and progressive rock…