Saxon have never dealt in half-truths or incomplete missions.

With Sacrifice they filled your heads with heavy metal thunder, and now Saxon want nothing more than to crush them with their very own, hand-crafted, not-safe-for-children brand new album, Battering Ram. Not. A. Problem.

With Biff Byford singing as well as he ever has, Paul Quinn and Doug Scarratt making full use of the term ‘shredding’ with their guitars and the lock-steady rhythm of Nibbs Carter’s bass and Nigel Glockler’s drums, the future and the past crash together in an ear-scintillatingly engaging, raucous, melodic-yet-classically heavy ten songs collection which will instantly be hailed as a Saxon classic. The title track, with its delectable twin guitar assault heralding the album’s commencement, gives the listener an instant crack around the chops, whilst traditionalists will be delighted to hear such a perfect marriage of old, classic Saxon with the newer, fresher invective in such riff-fronted fare as “Destroyer” and “Stand Your Ground”, but there are still moments of space and exploration which fans will love.

“This one’s a natural progression from Sacrifice,” says Byford, “There’s a bit less rock’n’roll and a bit more ‘heavy’ on it. We wanted to keep focused on a style rather than moving around too much.”

Through the wonders of the internet, S.O.A. was formed in March of 2011 by George Lohan. All the other pieces just naturally fell into place after Erik Michael and Jason krieger joined and the sings for the debut wrote themself. After a long search, vocalist David kraus was discovered. After a few lineup changes, the current lineup has remained strong since 2013.

Pipe hails from the south side of Chicago and you can hear it in their tough no nonsense hard rock sound. Stephen Favarato (vocals/guitar) responded to a Craigslist ad from Frank Damiano (lead guitar) as he was in search of a muse to ink some songs. Two days and a few emails later they had Two songs finished….ahh the wonders of the internet. They met the next day and found themselves onstage doing an open mic night and laying down some Zep, Alice in Chains thus welding the bond. Their first album entitled “Shovel mouth” was finished in 2008 and brought a modern hard rock/metal sound that is a grinding churn of several influences. Several personnel changes later, Pipe found there cut to the bone core when they added former Well of Souls drummer Paul Brodlo and local Chicago bassist John Sterba . The new sound went back to their true love and style combining all the influences they grew up with. Hard rock, a slather or blues and at times hint of country and western rounds out the knock out punch of Pipe’s sophomore offering “Hit This”. Released in 2014 Hit This was recorded in Chicago but then brought to New York and the doorstep of Sonic Stomp Studio and into the hands of Mike Orlando guitarist/recording engineer for Adrenaline Mob. His take on the music sent it to the next sonic level and brought out the real barn burning sound of Pipe. Their style and sound is most notable in their debut video “Play that Johnny Cash song”, a true life tale of a wild party and heavy dose of the man in black

Hailing from Chicago, Shokker has become one of the most formative and enthralling live acts in recent years, having shared the stage with the likes of Queensryche, Saxon, Y&T, Warrant, Manilla Road, Diamond Rexx, Unleash the Archers, and Striker. With twin guitarists Casey Termont and George Sizos, Jorey Guillermo on bass, Dan Dash on drums, and David Kraus on vocals, the band is a force to be reckoned with.