In Flames represent the best of metal's past, present, and future. In Flames are as vital and even more energized today than when they unleashed classics like Come Clarity and Clayman in decades past. Foregone, the furious fourteenth studio album, combines the greatest aggressive, metallic, and melodic strengths of their landmark records with the seasoned songwriting of their postmodern era. The melodic guitars, crushing riffs, and high-speed tempos that define much of the In Flames catalog first crystalized on their second album, The Jester Race (1996), complete with hints of the catchy choruses to come. Whoracle (1997) is the rawest and arguably heaviest In Flames album from the 90s.

Though in step with its time, this release suffers from excessive reliance on ambient synthesizers, which litter much of the recording, rendering it only slightly more interesting than many of the Windham Hill new age recordings of the same era. Unfortunate, because the disc opens with strength and gradually peters out by the end. The disc opens with "He Came From the North," which features a melody based on a traditional Lapp joik from the artist's native Norway and progresses into a longer section with an interplay that is both sparse and rhythmic. The sax line here is astonishingly beautiful. The second piece, "Alchuri, the Song Man," a sax and percussion piece, is energetic and lively as well. And from here the energy gradually diminishes. Much can be attributed to popular styles of the time, but this release simply does not stand up to other music of its genre that came later.

Jean-Michel Jarre has composed and recorded a 52 minute musical score for ‘Amazônia’, a new project by award winning photographer and filmmaker Sebastião Salgado, for the Philharmonic Paris. The exhibition launches on April 7th and will later travel to South America, Roma and London… ‘Amazônia’ is an immersive exhibition focussing on the Brazilian Amazon, featuring more than 200 photographs and other media by Salgado. He travelled the region for six years, capturing the forest, the rivers, the mountains and the people who live there, and most of the work will be seen publicly for the first time. At the heart of the exhibit is an invitation to see, hear and think about the future of biodiversity and the place of humans in the living world.

This 8 CD set includes all the recordings of solo Spanish piano music she made for the Spanish company Hispavox in the 1950s and 60s, as well as a live recording of a concert with the Spanish soprano Victoria de los Angeles in 1971 and a concerto by Montsalvatge made in 1992.

Limited 14CD set. When the 50-year-old Fritz Reiner was appointed conductor of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra in 1938, he was still relatively unfamiliar in his adopted American homeland. This pupil of Bartók at the Academy of Music in his native Budapest, former conductor of the Dresden Royal Opera, where he worked with Richard Strauss, and for the past 16 years music director of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra was still rarely mentioned in the national press and never in record reviews.

When Paul McCartney returned to the studio a year after his wife Linda's death, he wanted to cut loose and have a good time. He gathered a bunch of friends, most notably guitarist David Gilmour, with the intention of cutting a collection of rock & roll oldies with minimal rehearsal and a handful of takes. On the surface, that makes Run Devil Run like Choba B CCCP, but there are subtle differences that make Devil a far superior effort. This time around, there's a real freshness to the performances. Gilmour, in particular, amazes, turning in some of his finest playing in years. Similarly, McCartney is invigorated, leaving behind his vocal schtick, laying back and rocking out with a set of fairly unfamiliar oldies.

Having compromised on her Arista debut and gotten a hit single for her trouble, Jennifer Warnes took charge of the recording of her second Arista album, co-producing it and writing three songs, including the title track. It was hard to miss the point when Warnes covered Dionne Warwick's 1963 hit "Don't Make Me Over" (written by Burt Bacharach and Hal David) that she was finished with having people tell her what to do. On her own, her taste was impeccable, her song choices including the work of Jesse Winchester, Bob Dylan, and Stephen Foster, and her own songwriting was good, too. She also managed to satisfy the commercial expectations aroused by her previous album, with "I Know a Heartache When I See One" rising into the country Top Ten and the pop and adult contemporary Top 40. (She also made it into all three charts with "Don't Make Me Over" and into the pop and AC charts with "When the Feeling Comes Around.") She proved an adept producer, achieving a smooth pop/rock sound. With session stars like Andrew Gold aboard, Warnes succeeded in making what sounded like the great lost Linda Ronstadt album.

It's a bit odd that the four piano sonatas on this recording are almost completely unknown, given that Felix Mendelssohn's 12 string symphonies date from perhaps a year later and are fairly often performed and recorded. The sonatas are indeed youthful works, dating from 1820 when Mendelssohn was just 11. Yet they are already entirely characteristic works. All are in minor keys, and they have the admirable concision of the string symphonies; Mendelssohn avoided the tendency of so many other young composers to go all over the map.