Spoken | en

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It won't take long for listeners of Spoken's sixth studio album to be reminded of how hard and fast the band can rock. The three songs that open the album, "History Erased," "Close Your Eyes" and "Not Soon Forgotten," start things off with nine minutes of blazing fast guitar riffs and loud and quick-rising vocals, all bounded by a full-sounding rhythm section. After two albums for Tooth and Nail where the band explored more anthemic avenues, the quintet found itself re-examining its hard rock and metal roots on its third record for the label. The resulting album is an 11-song...

Outspoken was formed in 1990 when longtime friends John Coyle and Mike Hartsfield started writing songs together John had just finished with his band Stand Alone and Mike was done with Against the Wall. They enlisted drummer Dennis Remsing and Dan Adair to play bass, with Hartsfield handling guitar duties and Coyle covering the vocals. The band quickly recorded the Survival 7" and then followed that up with the A Light In the Dark full length 12" and CD, both of which came out on the combined labels New Age and Conversion Records. "In those days the scene was different,...