The exploding boy are a Dark Indie band from Stockholm, Sweden. Alarms is their 5th studio album, but in the UK they’re still fairly unknown. Dark Indie – a strange genre description, and Indie is a fairly vague genre anyway which seems to be overrun with more oasis clones than …

German rock band Bonfire have been around since 1986 (a decade or so longer if you count the band Cacumen which evolved into Bonfire), and over that time have released a steady stream of albums – by my count, this is their 15th studio album, but they’ve also released half …

For his new album, Fearless, Gus G has gone with a power-trio setup, working with Dennis Ward (Pink Cream 69/Unisonic), not only as producer, but also playing bass and doing vocals, while Will Hunt (Evanescence, Black Label Society) plays drums. It’s the first time that Gus G has played in …

Black Stone Cherry are releasing their new album – Family Tree on 20th April. It’s their sixth studio album – their first was released 12 years ago. Like me, some of you are probably thinking “Surely that can’t be right, it wasn’t that long ago”, but it really was. Their …

Tonight’s gig was set to be a good one – not only were Testament headlining Koko, but they had Vader and Annihilator on the bill too, so it’s no surprise there was a long queue outside before doors opened. Vader are on very early but the security team have got …

First up tonight were The Amorettes. I’ve seen this all-female trio before and enjoyed their sets, but tonight was rather different – they’ve really lifted their performance a lot in the last year or two and as a result they’re far more impressive than they’ve ever been before. Musically they …

Download Festival, the world’s premier rock event has announced major improvement plans for this year’s festival, pushing to make it the most accessible and greenest Download ever. Viewing platforms across all stages and British Sign Language interpreters lead the way for accessibility improvements to better meet the needs of Download …

Find a light is the sixth studio album from Blackberry smoke. I had to double check that when I first read it – it doesnt seem long since The Whippoorwill was released and that was their third album, but incredibly it’s been six years. Blackberry smoke haven’t just been busy …

In 2016, legendary guitarist Ritchie Blackmore made a long awaited return to rock after years of only playing folky medieval music with his band Blackmore’s night. He played a tiny handful of gigs in Europe and none elsewhere, with a new Rainbow lineup that featured an unknown singer, Ronnie Romero …

In March last year, Beth Hart performed a special intimate show at the Iridium jazz club in New York – a venue that only holds less than 200 people, so far smaller than Beth’s usual shows. The show wasfilmed and featured on the Season 8 premiere episode of Public Television’s …

Tonight’s gig had an early start (normal for a Friday or saturday night at Rock city and many other venues these days), and with three bands on the bill then Oceans of Slumber were due on stage just 15 minutes after doors opened. It soon became clear that things were …

Tonight was Cellar Darling’s first London headline show, having previously only been here supporting Delain. The venue was a lot busier than I’d expected – if not sold out, it was certainly close to sold out, which is good news for a band with only one album and which only …

Bullet are a heavy metal band from Växjö in Sweden. They released their debut album “Heading for the top” in 2006, and have followed this with 4 more albums, with the last being “Storm of blades” in 2014, now after a gap of four years they’re releasing their sixth album …

German gothic metal band Crematory release their latest studio album this April. It’s their 14th album in a 27 year career, and is the first studio album with the new lineup – before the last album clean-vocals singer Matthias Hechler left the band after 17 years in the role and …

Texan blues singer/guitarist Lance Lopez has just released his new solo album, Tell the truth. As well as his 6 solo albums, he’s also performed lead vocals/guitarist as part of Supersonic Blues Machine (and if you haven’t heard their album I strongly recommend you listen to it). This isn’t a …

The Dark Light are a very international band. Formed in London by Italian guitarist Marco Simoncelli, the band contains an English singer (who grew up in New Zealand), a German drummer, and English bassist and a second Italian guitarist. The band formed in 2015 but it wasnt till 2017, shortly …

German guitarist Axel Rudi Pell released his first solo album way back in 1989. Now 29 years later he’s releasing his 17th solo studio album. That’s a lot of albums and doesnt even include live albums or solo albums, so he’s clearly not the type of person to take things …

Auri has three members – Johanna Kurkela, Tuomas Holopainen and Troy Donockley. The last two names are familiar to Nightwish fans – Tuomas being the main composer and keyboard player of Nightwish, and Troy is a longtime collaborator and now full member of Nightwish. Johanna Kurkela is Tuomas’s wife and …

In 2016, Iggy Pop released an album written and recorded with Queens of the stone age frontman Josh Homme – Post pop depression. The album was intended to be something different to the usual rock fare that both men are used to, and in that they succeeded. American Valhalla is …

Tonight’s gig is a great lineup – not only do we have the legendary Stiff Little Fingers, we have a great support act in the form of Ruts DC. Born out of the ashes of The Ruts, they split at the start of the 80s before reforming in 2007 and …