Album Reviews
Keystone Rock Review creates and/or promotes well-written reviews of full-length albums released by Pennsylvania artists present and past.
Recent Album Reviews
May 5, 2014
Live reached an early peak with their 1994 sophomore album Throwing Copper. With dynamic and dramatic songs laced by lyrical ambiguity and thought-provoking themes, the Pennsylvania group composed a cohesive and memorable record which captured the post-grunge sound of the middle nineties.
October 31, 2013
Seeds and Chains is an engaging new album by Philadelphia area folk artist Up the Chain. Led by frontman and creator Reed Kendall, the album employs some of the most talented musicians in the Philly area for this entertaining and rewarding musical journey.
October 15, 2013
With their latest release, Epiphones and Empty Rooms, The Badlees have fully embraced the “two states” of their group. In fact, they have taken this concept to the extreme with a double album made of two discs which are intentionally distinct from each other.
July 5, 2013
Aside from being an accomplished blues guitarist, Tommy Conwell was keenly tuned into his audience and gave them his all at every live show. Rumble was his first major label record with his band The Young Rumblers and it did a fair job of capturing a bit of the live energy.
April 16, 2013
Out of Body was the fifth studio album by The Hooters, released in 1993, and would be the last before the band’s decade and a half hiatus from recording. As with all Hooters albums, the original material was mainly composed by the team of Eric Bazilian and Rob Hyman.
October 13, 2012
After two years of extensive touring in support of their first major label success, Nervous Night, the Philadelphia based group The Hooters returned to the studio to record One Way Home. Unlike its predecessor, this album was heavily folk and Americana influenced.
May 14, 2012
Originally planned to be The Hooters sixth studio album, Largo became a much larger and more complex project which became a a quasi-concept album and involved top-notch talent from across the rock spectrum in both musical styles and musical eras.
May 6, 2012
Although it was the dawn of his fourth decade of professionally performing, writing, recording, and producing, The Optimist was the debut solo effort by Eric Bazilian in 2000. This indy release is a pleasing assortment of well-crafted hard rock songs with a definite edge.
May 1, 2012
At a time when many in the rock world were in the process of re-imaging from the slick 80’s hair band to the grungy 90s alternative, a young Pennsylvania band called The Badlees was forging their own path with a sound called “roots rock” with their first full length album.
April 7, 2012
The artist unleashed on the unsuspecting world his own heart and souland, although most of this long and winding road of noise is frivilous self-indulgence, it serves as those ruined societies upon which to pave over and build a sonic empire.
January 21, 2012
Pittsburgh’s Pete Bush got his start playing guitar in a hard rock band in the late 1990′s before making the radical transformation to stand-up bass. He next moved up to front man when he formed Pete Bush & the Hoi Polloi, which released their debut Idaho in May 2012, adding some nice sonic additions to the base live sound of the trio.
Past Album Reviews
| 12/07/11 | Miracle On Rock Street | Twelve Twenty-Four |  |
| 11/20/11 | Come Alive | Carmen Magro |  |
| 09/24/11 | The Battle Begins | Vessel | |
| 08/16/11 | The Invisible Man | Chris Nelson | |
| 07/30/11 | Tanker A | Hot Wing Jones | |
| 06/27/11 | Perfect Smile | The Cellarbirds | |
| 05/29/11 | Vengeance | The Rods | |
| 02/02/11 | Broken Machines | Underground Saints | |
| 12/27/10 | This Is Cabinet, Set 1 | Cabinet | |
| 12/20/10 | Love | Mycenea Worley | |
| 12/10/10 | Animal Society | Animal Society |  |
| 07/13/10 | See That My Grave Is Kept Clean | Ed Randazzo & Bret Alexander | |
| 03/31/10 | 112 Beats Per Minute | Craig & Alex Bannon | |
| 03/26/10 | Loneliness Anonymous Review | Darcie Miner |  |
| 02/07/10 | Lucky 7 | Ron Fleeger & the Stranger | |
| 01/24/10 | Dollars for Diane Compilation | Various Artists | |
| 11/05/09 | Love Is Rain | The Badlees | |
| 10/12/09 | We the Broken | Pan.a.ce.a | |
| 05/24/09 | Classics | The Ann Kerstetter Band | |
| 04/20/08 | Not One of You | Hormoans | |
