Album Reviews

The greatest selection of albums, reviewed and rated

Orden Ogan – Ravenhead

Orden Ogan - Ravenhead

Admittedly I had never heard of Orden Ogan until the video for ‘The Things We Believe In’ caught my eye, which was the single released from their 2012 album ‘To The End’. This was an album that turned out to be a real breakthrough for Orden Ogan as it was …

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Season of Ghosts – The Human Paradox

Season of Ghosts is the new band of singer Sophia Aslanidou.  She was born in Venezuela, grew up in Greece then moved to Japan where she sang with Blood Stain Child before starting this new project. Season of Ghosts is a very new project – it only formed in 2013, …

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Lich King – Do-Over [EP]

lich king - do-over

Part homage, part parody, and all in-your-face, Massachusetts thrash-mongers Lich King‘s seven-song EP, titled Do-Over, is a jungle of fist-pumping, headbanging riffage. Released by Evil Eye Records on Christmas Day 2014 (as a present to the band’s fans old and new), this EP is an advance warning shot, serving to …

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Avenger – The Slaughter Never Stops.

Welcome back Avenger ! Yet another North East based NWOBHM band showing they still have what it takes with the release of their new studio album The Slaughter Never Stops, available now via Rocksector Records. Avenger  formed in 1982 in Newcastle Upon Tyne  but unfortunately only got to record two …

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ACDC Rock or Bust album review

On the Twelfth day of Christmas PlanetMosh gave to me ‘One Drummer Drumming’ on eleven tracks by ACDC on their latest album Rock or Bust released via Columbia records on 28th November 2014. The band celebrated their fortieth anniversary last year after forming in Sydney, Australia in November 1973. After …

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Way of Changes – Honesty

The aptly names Take Off sounds a little like it was recorded in an aircraft hanger situated in the middle of a graveyard, with spacious atmospheric electrics merged with strings. Way of Changes launch into heavy panning riffs a the start of Mistakes accompanied by the deep growling scream vocals …

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Nubian rose – Mental revolution

Swedish band Nubian Rose released their debut album (Mountain) in 2012.  It was a great rock album, and now two years on they’ve jsut released their second album, Mental Revolution.  From the moment you hit play it’s clear that this is a very different album to “Mountain”. This new album …

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Desolate pathway – Valley of the king

Desolate Pathway are a UK Doom Metal band formed by former Pagan Altar guitarist Vince Hempstead. The band have just released their debut album, “Valley of the king”. While I don’t often comment on album covers, this album’s cover deserves mention.  It’s an impressive cover which has a dark feel …

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Vircolac – ‘Codex Perfida’

Having made their debut at the recent Primordial-curated Redemption Festival in their home city of Dublin, Vircolac are a quartet who believe in taking things back to the old school – to the extent that (at the time of writing) this four-track EP is only available on cassette. The result …

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Occultation – ‘Silence In The Ancestral House’

Occultation - 'Silence In The Ancestral House'

This second album from New York trio Occultation is a dark, eerie and esoteric opus which combines classic elements of doom metal, progressive rock and ambient electronics into a package which is atmospheric, thought-provoking and strangely pleasant in more or less equal measures. Ploughing a furrow somewhere between the darkest …

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Sodom – Sacred Warpath

German stalwart thrash metal act Sodom has released it’s latest, a four-song EP titled Sacred Warpath, in 2014 through SPV/Steamhammer. Tom “Angelripper” and his cronies knew as far back as 1982 how to thrash an audience, and they still seem to have that black magic spark. Sodom has a formulaic …

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Miss Behaviour-‘Double Agent’ cd

Sweden’s Miss Behaviour have just released their third full-length record called ‘Double Agent’ and is by far the best work they have done to date, the debut CD ‘Heart Of Midwinter’ was released in 2006, while follow-up ‘Last Woman Standing’ was released in 2011. This latest release is full of …

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Hello=Fire – Parallel [single / video]

Similar to how Bob Dylan‘s “All Along the Watchtower” gained wider attention through Jimi Hendrix‘s incendiary cover, Dean Fertita‘s “Parallel” made music news headlines several years after being laid to tape, through The Dead Weather bandmate Jack White‘s quirky, angular-blues cover version. And that’s a good thing. The original “Parallel” …

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