The old punk rock band come back with their fourth album, a re-recording of some of their old songs. Formed in 1979, they released their first two albums by the end of 1980. Greatest Hits 3 came in 1981, along with two or three singles in the years leading up to their demise in the 90s.

As with all punk music, we have very quick, jumpy and almost, just almost, catchy album. The first song Fighting In The Street is a bit disappointing, although moving on to the second one, Bad Man, things look to be picking up slightly. Some Play Dirty has a bit of a bluesy feel to it which is interesting (my reasoning for this being the harmonica!). The sixth song, Here They Come Again, has a slight Sex Pistols feel to it, which gets my thumbs up! The Rocker again picks up the tone of the album, humour wise, with the lyrics "man, I'm into Motorhead" and fast punked up cheesy guitar riffs. I think they are taking the piss here! Headbanger does exactly the same, a song lasting one and a half minutes and consisting of the lyrics "You're a HEADBANGER!" - and that's about it! Very catchy actually. Nearing the end of the album we come to Join The Rejects with the opening lyric "Here come the punks". Says it all really. A very boppy jumpy song which invites you to join the Rejects and let yourself go. Well.. I would do if they weren't all in their 40s and have such big beer bellies! Well, the album finishes off with On The Waterfront, another energetic song about rich kids, tax, and soap!?!

All in all a good all round punk album. 16 tracks lasting not much more than 40 mins, which is really as long as you want to listen to it for, as with any a punk album.

The dark-sounding, heavy songs on this release are very impressive. They manage to mix growling vocals with goth vocals without sounding pompous - a hearty well-done is definitely in order!! That's the reason I'm normally wary about this style of metal, some of the bands sound like they've got their heads stuck up their own arses. Thankfully, Ignorabimus are not one of those bands.

The lead guitar is the dominating instrument throughout this album, taking me back to the likes of Maiden. There's a lot of styles in the guitar work. I even think I hear Eastern influences in some songs. Yeah, cooooool!! Not a groundbreaking album by any means, but it does have a lot of original touches and influences in it. It has more variety in it than a lot of albums of this style. One criticism I have, and it would go for a lot of bands of this style with deathly vocals, is that the songs would work better if the vocals were cleaner. The songs here are clearly strong, and the vocals do work, but I feel the vocal style slightly detracts from the songs' overall sound. But that's just a little point.

Verdict: An enjoyable, high quality album, assuming you like gloomy metal of course.

Here’s another of those albums which has been crying out to be reviewed for a long time. I took it in the hope that I’d get something which I could really sink my teeth into. The cover, the name, the song titles (Prayer of Warriors!), everything screamed shite. But alas, just as I was vexing my critical claws everything crumbled around me.

Skythrone are one of those Euro bands who are trying to infuse classical music, fantasy stories and Heavy Metal. Unlike most of the other bands of this ilk, Skythrone aren’t shit at it. The great strength of Saga of Immortal Heroes is that it generally doesn’t stray into the metal world that much. There’s not a distorted guitar in sight and the vocals are usually either whispered or sung, instead of grunted. Grasses kicks in with some cheesy insect noises and from then on the album simply drips with dairy products of all kinds. The album is more of a soundtrack, with Hercules or Xena springing to mind, than a pummelling metal opus. Skythrone are obviously treading into the world of concept stories, and if you like cheesy keyboards and can be bothered listening to the whole thing then I guess you’ ll like this. Sure it does go on and on, and the tracks all sound the same, and yes the album does make even Helloween seem cool (fuck off - Ed), but damn it, this things still not shite. Arse!

If you like dressing up with armour and swords, and pretending that you’re Conan or something, then Saga of Immortal Heroes could be just the thing to prance about to. It looks like its another one for the specialist bin, sure is crowded in there.

Rating: **********