I always enjoy St. Divine‘s tonal choices because they are so simple but effective. The arrangements have a real live feel to them and are not overly produced, so it would sound exactly the same if you heard them play live. I have to say I was surprised by that chill xylophone section. The band is clearly open to experimenting with different textures to highlight the song’s narrative, and to push the envelope with the arrangement by creating these tense and hypnotic sections and harmonically using some exceptionally dissonant chords.

The band says “Midnight (to Track)” follows the spirit of “30 Dolls,” an acclaimed track from the album, with a deeper groove and a slightly more measured approach. That makes it feel like a companion piece to The Devil You Know rather than a leftover. They also argue there is far too little political pushback in music today, and this is their answer to that.

Whatever your own politics, the actual ask is modest. The release lists the constitutional amendments that expanded and protected voting rights, from the 14th through the 26th, and the band simply wants people to use them. For St. Divine, a song that nearly went unheard has turned into a timely one.

It opens the project’s second chapter, following the relationships, betrayal, grief and recovery of Blinded By the Blonde: Chapter One, and this time humor takes the lead. The single was recorded through Musiversal with professional session players, among them Joe Bills on lead vocals, Breno Machado on guitars, and Christiano Galvão on drums. Paul oversaw production, though by his own account he mostly stayed out of the professionals’ way.

The song came to life through a process of brainstorming with AI-generated demos, but it’s just to stimulate the creative process, and the final version is fully human recorded. That’s an interesting gray area for using AI, because how different is it from using a preset on a drum machine to inspire the drummer to play a groove in their own way? It’s just a jumping-off point. Human execution is what matters when it comes to art, and here the execution is peak divorced dad rock, pun intended.

The other half of the joke is the video. It’s done in a comic-book style with illustrated scenes, background gags, and a fourth-wall break where Will questions the songwriter responsible for his predicament. According to the press materials, the idea is to add jokes rather than just repeat the lyrics on screen.

Paul’s background as a novelist shows in how the song is put together, as a story that escalates rather than a single mood. A premise this silly only works if the storytelling keeps its footing. Whether Will ever makes it home to feed his cat is left for the listener to find out.

This remix is built on that guitar work. Asha and longtime collaborator Karl Mohr chopped up De Keyzer’s live playing with DJ cut-up techniques, then added AC/DC-style hits and a bassline inspired by 1970s funk band Hot Chocolate. Toronto vocalists Aria Zenua and Erin Reece handle the backing vocals, and Grammy-winning producer Philip Larsen, who cold-contacted Asha after finding his earlier remix on YouTube, reworked other tracks on the EP.

This song obviously has its roots in such classics as Muddy Waters’ “Mannish Boy,” albeit with a more modern sound in the way it’s produced, with claps and breakbeats fusing almost house music elements with the classic blues and rock hits, which is a one-way ticket to a banger in my opinion. It’s addictive to listen to because it takes what is so familiar and makes it sound fresh again.

“Mighty Man” has been with Asha for a while. He first recorded it back in 2013 with a hard electro sound, and the 2022 remix that caught Larsen’s attention was another stop along the way. Hearing it now with a blues guitarist at the centre feels like the direction the song was always heading.

It also doubles as the anthem for Mighty IRL, the movement Asha started to get young men off their screens and into real-world experience. By his own description, the track is gritty and joyful, and that’s a sensible way to carry a message like that. Nobody wants to be lectured over a blues riff, so a song that sounds like it’s having a good time makes sense. With five versions on the EP, there’s room to find the take that suits you best.

Cherry Bomb continues their track record of proving they have command over the 80s sound. This is a colorful album filled with energetic songs, some of them frankly vulgar, like “Your Hole Is My Goal” and “Pussy Pix And Rock ‘n’ Roll,” while others are wholesome and beautifully melodic. That mix is a perfect representation of the 80s.

The title track and “Eyes Like A Tiger” are my favorites from a momentum perspective. They have great pacing, and the rhythmic energy is palpable in those two songs specifically. They feel like Van Halen, with incredibly relentless night jams.

My overall favorite, though, has to be “Silent Night.” It is supremely melodic and Christmassy, and in my opinion it has the best harmony layers on the album. It’s just a blast to listen to. The song is the band’s annual Christmas track, first released in 2024, and it features a group billed as the Cherry Bomb Allstars, including Marco Mendoza of Whitesnake, Thin Lizzy and The Dead Daisies, Eric St. Michaels, Frank Pané, Emmo Acar and Henning Wanner. The band describes it as a nod to the “We Are the World” anthem.

The album has other stories behind it. “Rockin’ Memories” was written for the festival of the same name, which Cherry Bomb headlined in its inaugural year in 2026, performing the song for the first time there. The first single, “Calling Out Your Name,” features Nici Foxx on vocals, the band’s first duet on an album. Work on the record began in 2025, and it was self-produced in guitarist Vince Vixxen’s home studio, sticking to a songwriting process the band calls successful.

That Hollywood, Sunset Strip spirit runs through everything they do, and Midnight Gasoline is built for the same kind of long summer drive that Sunset BLVD suited so well. The band is now working on its first video for the album and on a new Christmas song, so there is more to come soon.

There is a clear affection for the experimental freedom of 60s and 70s rock in the track’s DNA. Repetitive grooves, fuzzy guitars and blues-tinged textures provide a familiar foundation, but FORRM keeps disrupting that familiarity with darker electronic tones and atmospheric passages. The result is energetic without being straightforward, and psychedelic without becoming nostalgic.

The groove is particularly important. Rather than rushing toward an obvious chorus or payoff, “PALAZZO” by FORRM allows repetition to build momentum. The rhythm stays steady while the details around it shift: guitars stretch and recede, electronic textures widen the space, and jazz elements introduce another layer of unpredictability. It gives the track a sense of movement without requiring it to follow a conventional route.

The vocal performance acts as an anchor within all this experimentation. Distinctive and unpolished in the right way, it keeps the track connected to something human while the surrounding instrumentation continues to expand. That balance prevents the atmosphere from becoming purely decorative.

There is also a strong visual sensibility behind the sound. Led by Iranian-French artist, filmmaker and musician Firouz FarmanFarmaian, FORRM operates at the intersection of music, film and contemporary art. Inspired in part by Venice and the Palazzo Dandolo, the track carries an architectural quality: spacious, layered and slightly mysterious, as though each texture opens another room.

“PALAZZO” by FORRM works because it doesn’t treat its influences as boundaries. Rock is the starting point, not the destination. Psychedelia, jazz, electronics and cinematic sound are allowed to intersect freely, producing something that feels exploratory rather than neatly categorised. “PALAZZO” by FORRM isn’t trying to redefine rock, it simply seems more interested in discovering how far beyond it the music can travel!

The track settles comfortably into Cherry Bomb’s Sunset Strip-inspired world. The guitars are energetic without overwhelming the melody, while the production leans into the polished AOR sound that defined the era. It is nostalgic, certainly, but not shy about it.

Featuring Nici Foxx, the song marks Cherry Bomb’s first-ever duet with a female vocalist. Foxx does more than provide contrast; her presence changes the shape of the track. The two voices create a conversational quality that makes the song’s central sentiment feel more immediate; less like a solitary declaration and more like an exchange.

There is also a certain theatricality to the song’s emotional premise. Calling out your name already sounds like something meant to be sung at full volume, and Cherry Bomb lean into that feeling rather than underplay it. The result is dramatic in the best classic-rock sense: melodic, direct, and designed to stick.

The biggest question with any deliberately retro track is whether the music can hold its own once the nostalgia wears off. Here, the songwriting does much of the work. The hooks remain central, while the duet gives the familiar formula an additional layer of character.

As the first taste of Midnight Gasoline, “Calling Out Your Name” by Cherry Bomb featuring Nici Foxx does not attempt to reinvent 1980s rock. Instead, it reminds us why its vocabulary still works: just give us a melody, a guitar, two voices, and somewhere to drive!

For Miller, “More Than a Feeling” was personal long before he ever imagined recording it
himself. It was the sound of his dad coming home. When Miller was a child, his father, Russell Miller, spent long stretches working out of state on pipelines. When Russell finally came home late at night, the next morning carried a familiar ritual: his dad making breakfast, the smell of bacon and eggs filling the house, and BOSTON’s debut album coming through the speakers. When “More Than a Feeling” started playing, Brandon knew exactly what it meant: his family was together again.

Before he understood nostalgia, and long before he knew he would become a singer, Brad
Delp’s voice and Tom Scholz’s unmistakable sound had become attached to one of the
happiest memories of his childhood. “This song means so much to me because it’s a huge part of my childhood,” Miller says. “One of the reasons why I chose to be a singer is because of Brad Delp, and Tom Scholz’s brilliance as an engineer, producer, songwriter and
multi-instrumentalist.”

That history also made Miller acutely aware of what it meant to take on a song this iconic. “Brad Delp and Tom Scholz are two of my biggest heroes, and I wanted to honor them and their legacy,” Miller says. “I was born in 1991, so I’m from a completely different generation, but I understand how important this music is and how it became part of the soundtrack to millions of lives, including mine. If I was going to take on a song this legendary, I wanted to do it right and do it justice.”

The timing brought another unexpected layer to the recording. After AFJ2B had already begun working on the song, Miller realized 2026 marks 50 years since BOSTON’s landmark debut album arrived in 1976. The anniversary hadn’t influenced his decision to record it, but it gave the project an even greater sense of purpose.

AFJ2B also carries a unique connection to BOSTON through guitarist Kimberley Dahme, a former member of BOSTON, who toured internationally with Brad Delp and Tom Scholz and contributed to Corporate America and Life, Love & Hope. Today, Dahme brings that history and experience to A Foreigner’s Journey to Boston.

For Miller, the recording also closes a circle in his own career. An 18-year music veteran with a four-and-a-half-octave vocal range and former touring guitarist with Artimus Pyle of Lynyrd Skynyrd, Miller nearly walked away from music before a life-changing dream in late 2024 inspired what would become A Foreigner’s Journey to Boston.

Now, the journey has come full circle. Written by Tom Scholz, “More Than a Feeling” has
always been rooted in memory and longing; in the strange power of a familiar song to take
someone back to another person, another place and another time.

Half a century later, Miller has his own memory attached to it. Not Marianne walking away. A father coming home. For Brandon Miller, it will always begin in that kitchen: the music starts, breakfast is cooking, and his father is home. And 50 years after BOSTON first showed the world that a song could become inseparable from a memory, “More Than a Feeling” is still doing exactly that.

All nine songs are performed by the exceptionally talented lead vocalist Maria Moon, whose voice anchors the album with both strength and nuance. Dr. M. wrote the music and the majority of the lyrics, programmed the drums and additional instruments, and handled the full mixing process himself. The final polish comes from Grammy-winning mastering engineer Svante Forsbäck, whose work elevates the project with professional clarity and impact.

Follow Me marks the arrival of a self-contained artistic vision: one artist writing, producing, and shaping an entire album that deliberately bridges two traditionally separate worlds. The result is music that aims for both emotional resonance and heavy sonic weight: Adult Metal in its purest form.

Several other highly skilled musicians also contribute to the recordings, adding further texture and energy to Dr. M.’s carefully crafted arrangements.

As a 39-year-old independent creator, Dr. M. has taken complete ownership of every stage of the process, from composition through production. Follow Me stands as both a personal statement and the opening chapter of a new musical direction.

About Dr. M.

Dr. M. is a self-employed songwriter, producer, and multi-instrumentalist. With Follow Me he introduces Adult Metal — a fusion of Adult Contemporary sensibility and Heavy Metal force and establishes himself as the primary architect of the genre’s first full-length statement.

For a solo project of this scope, the arrangements are genuinely incredible. There’s a real ambition to how melodic sensibility and metal’s dramatic weight get folded together here, and it rarely feels like two genres bolted onto each other; it feels like Dr. M. has actually built a coherent third thing out of them. The title track, which also opens the record, is the clearest statement of that intent, laying out exactly what this hybrid sound will be and doing so with enough confidence that it serves as both an introduction and a thesis statement.

“Welcome to Babylon” is the record’s most interesting swerve. Just as the album settles into the tone the opener established, this track pulls hard in a darker, heavier direction, and it plays like a deliberate homage to Rainbow’s “Gates of Babylon,” picking up that song’s sense of doom and grandeur and running it through Dr. M.‘s own production sensibility. It’s the kind of subversion that only works if the rest of the record has first earned the listener’s trust, and by that point in the tracklist, Follow Me has.

Maria Moon’s performance deserves real credit for holding all of this together. Metal vocals this theatrical can easily tip into camp, but she keeps the delivery grounded even as the instrumentation swings between contemporary polish and full metal weight underneath her. Given how much of Follow Me rests on one person’s vision, executed almost entirely in-house, it’s a remarkably assured debut, and “Adult Metal” as a genre concept feels less like a novelty and more like a real lane Dr. M. has carved out for himself.

And that chorus is where the track really earns its comparisons. It’s genuinely psychedelic and high-energy, carrying the hypnotic low-end weight of Queens of the Stone Age but with a looser, more modern swirl to it that leans closer to Tame Impala at points, like the band has taken that desert-rock heaviness and run it through a more contemporary filter. It’s heavy without ever losing its groove, which isn’t an easy balance to strike. The drum work deserves particular credit here, locking in with the riff so precisely that the two feel like a single instrument rather than a rhythm section and guitar operating separately. That tightness is what lets the song swing between claustrophobic and euphoric without ever feeling disjointed.

Lyrically, the record sits with the discomfort of things you can’t take back, of wondering whether you’ve become someone you don’t recognize, and it wisely doesn’t try to resolve that discomfort into anything tidy. Instead it just turns it into momentum. “Wicked Tongue” is a strong marker of where Jetlag are headed next, and if this is the sound of the band leaving their brass section behind, it’s hard to argue with the trade.