Album Reviews

When people think of heavy music from the continent of Oceania, the first three names on their lips will (more often than not) be AC/DC, Airbourne and Parkway Drive. It’s actually a shame, because New Zealand’s Shihad should be in with a shout every single time. Formed almost thirty years ago in …

After being lucky enough to catch this band live twice this year, firstly tearing up the HMS Hammer cramming so much intensity and energy in a 15 minute slot it was crazy.  Secondly witnessing them whipping the main stage crowd at Graspop into a metal frenzy, I could not wait …

Neal Morse is without doubt one of the maestros of the Progressive Rock genre, and with his latest release, Morsefest 2014, he delivers an astonishingly produced live dvd/cd boxset. This 2 dvd/4 cd release, filmed over the 14th and 15th of November 2014 in Nashville, fully captures the majesty off …

When news broke earlier this year of the return of Chicago metallers Disturbed, it was greeted with excitement and anticipation. Having gone on hiatus in 2011 amid rumours of internal conflicts and after a series of less-than-acclaimed live performances, the band secretly reformed in the January of 2014 and began …

Formed in 1995 when Josh Todd and Keith Nelson met via their tattooist and a shared love of AC/DC, a few line up changes, a few name changes, a brief hiatus and with six studio albums behind them Los Angeles based Rockers Buckcherry, will release their 7th studio album, Rock ‘n’ Roll, …

Possession have been battling away for only three years and already picked up an almighty buzz about them in underground circles. During 2014 they released the well received “Anneliese” 7” which was the story of Anneliese Michel who was considered possessed and died of malnutrition and dehydration brought on as …

Iron Maiden’s new song ‘Speed of Light’ from the upcoming album ‘The Book Of Souls’ was released this morning, and Planet Mosh’s Elliot Leaver gives us his views on the track via his freelance page The Food of Love. He apologises for the quiet audio, however he was trying to ensure …

Los Angeles based blues rock band Vintage Trouble have just been out on tour as special guests to AC/DC see our review of the Dublin, Belfast and London shows here. They have also opened for other big names such as The Who and Paloma Faith. Their second album 1 Hopeful Rd. is due to be …

California’s Bl’ast, one of the “founding father” primal hardcore punk bands, has returned with its first new music in two decades. A five-minutes-and-change listening trek, this two song EP, titled For Those Who’ve Graced the Fire! quickly whets fans’ appetites for more. As before, the band’s core members remain Clifford …

Name me a Russian hard rock band.  Go on.  Gorky Park.  OK, there’s one.  Try another.  Try counting them off on the fingers of one hand.  Tough, isn’t it?  While evil western rock ‘n’ roll music was banned under the communist regime, even in the post-Glasnost era very few bands …

German Speed Rockers Nitrovolt released their third album Dirty Wings via Mausoleum Records earlier this year. Formed in 2004 by vocalist Tom “Voltage” Krämer and bass player Luciano “Louis” Vanini, they started out as a three piece called ‘Hi Octane Rockers’ with Micha on drums completing the threesome. In 2009 long …

Described as ‘Dirty Speed/Thrash Metal with Rock & Roll and NWOBHM influences’ Demolition Train formed in Athens Greece in 2009, making their first live appearance in 2010. They released their first EP ‘Kill Your Boss’ in 2011. When Vasilis and Michalis had to leave the band for a while, Witchkiller …

Everything about this debut full-length album from South Carolina’s Prowler – not to be confused with the now defunct NWOBHMers or the nascent German thrashers or the half a dozen or so US bands of the same name – points to an Eighties B-list thrash re-issue, from the horror movie-inspired …

Swedish-based Thundermother – they draw their members from Ireland and Italy as well as Scandinavia – draw on a heritage of all-female rock ‘n’ roll bands that traces its lineage back to The Runaways, through Girlschool, L7 and Rock Goddess to likes of their modern-day counterparts The Amorettes.  They are …

‘High Country’ could, quite possibly, be described as The Sword‘s “happy album”.  And that’s no mere throwaway descriptive on our part, but a summarization of frontman John Cronise’s take on the opus:  as he explains, when he started to write the songs for ‘High Country’, he found himself at something of …

Oncology is the branch of medicine that deals with the treatment of tumours – and particularly cancerous ones – while a metastasis is a secondary growth of a malignant tumour, separate from the primary one.  However, PM is a music website not a medical one, and therefore the particular branch …

The Burning Crows released their first album “Behind the Veil” back in 2013, and immediately set itself up as one of my albums of the year, now two years later, the boys are back with album number two “Murder at the Gin House”, can they repeat the success that “Behind …

Thrash metal classics should be short, sharp and straight to the point. Slayer proved this with the 1986 release of Reign In Blood at just under the half an hour mark but Los Angeles based did it a year earlier with their debut Vicious Attack. The album has been re-issued …

Some bands treat their debut studio albums as a tentative step in their recording career whilst others go for the throat. Thankfully, County Kildare based quartet Stereo Nasty have taken the latter option with Nasty By Nature.  Early promise was shown by a three track EP just over a year …

Fast and furious. Straight from sunny California to your ears with deep dark apocalyptic sound and brilliant atmosphere. That’s right, it is Cattle Decapitation with their upcoming 7th studio album, called The Anthropocene Extinction. The Anthropocene Extinction is a fine set of 12 fierce and simultaneously depressive tracks with the total …