When you are a record label president and you wish to budget money for certain projects/ bands to come to fruition, the sky is the limit if all parties are in agreement. So as a result of a meeting between Frontiers Records president Serafino Perugino and vocalist Joe Lynn Turner, we get this quartet RATED X who contain some mighty players throughout classic Hard Rock history. Drummer Carmine Appice has played in VANILLA FUDGE, OZZY OSBOURNE, BLUE MURDER, and KING KOBRA while bassist Tony Franklin has been involved with THE FIRM, BLUD MURDER, and WHITESNAKE- only guitarist Karl Cochran is the relative unknown entity, but that's only going to be for the time being as he certainly wields a mighty, bluesy Hard Rock perspective on this debut 12 song effort.

Much of the material has that respect and reverence for DEEP PURPLE, RAINBOW, WHITESNAKE and the general atmosphere of the mid to late 70's - guitar riffs that almost sing on their own, epic chord structures that feature all the musicians in their best light, and the majestic, multi-octave resonance of Joe Lynn Turner - one of the best golden voices in the Hard Rock business. Whether it's the slithery swing of "I Don't Cry No More" that has that "Gimme All Your Love Tonight" / WHITESNAKE oriented charm or the hard charging opener "Get Back My Crown" piping Hammond organs and guitars in unison while the Franklin/ Appice rhythm section hammer home the groove, RATED X make you think back to 35 plus years of the genre and the wonders of what makes a song so classic, so timeless, so unforgettable.

Karl certainly has respect and admiration for everyone from Blackmore to Sykes, Hendrix to contemporaries like Kotzen in terms of his phrasing, feeling, and execution. Check out the 7-minute epic "Lhasa" or up-tempo boogie number "On the Way to Paradise" and you'll hear some spirited playing from slower building parts to just locked and loaded riffs that entertain and appeal to the deepest of Classic Hard Rock maniacs.

From ballads to hard charging anthems, RATED X delivers an hour long set of material for those who yearn most for a RAINBOW or early WHITESNAKE sound from the 1970's - and these gentlemen more than hit it out of the park.<