Album Reviews

The greatest selection of albums, reviewed and rated

Kid Klumsy – Spit ya dummy out!

Crash! Bang! Wallop! What was that sound?  Have Kid Klumsy dropped their balls and become conscientious men of punk rock?  No, is the simple answer, because these jelly babies with their vivacious love of in ya face punk rock noise will, never, ever, really grow up!   The infectious and soon …

Read More »

Circle Of Silence – The Crimson Throne

The German quintet Circle Of Silence return with ‘The Crimson Throne’, their first release since 2013’s ‘The Rise Of Resistance’ Right from the off this album simply grabs you by the throat, the mission is plain and simple, to conquer all before it. Track three, ‘Destroyers Of The Earth’ is …

Read More »

Skyryder – Vol. One

Skyryder

Skyryder, hailing from Newcastle Upon Tyne and in my opinion the founder of NWOBHM have released an impressive debut E.P titled Vol. One. Available via their bandcamp page here, the five tracks are £3 for a digital download or £5 for a CD or a limited edition cassette tape.    …

Read More »

FM – Atomic Generation

Atomic Generation, studio album number eleven from the national treasure that is FM, features eleven stunning tracks of premium melodic rock available now via Frontiers Music. Self produced, something I’m a firm believer in with a very in your face mix, point proven by opener ‘Black Magic’. Showing their heavier …

Read More »

Bullet – Dust to gold

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 …

Read More »

Crematory – Oblivion

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 …

Read More »

Lance Lopez – Tell the truth

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 …

Read More »

The Dark Light – Keep off the grass

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 …

Read More »

Axel Rudi Pell – Knight’s call

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 …

Read More »

Auri – Auri

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 …

Read More »

American Valhalla

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 …

Read More »

Dirt Box Disco – Immortals

Can I get a 7!! Dirt box disco bring their high energy burst of post punk rock fuelled selves back for their 7th release and 6th studio album ‘’Immortals!’’ In line with what you would expect to hear from Dirt Box Disco, this album has more ‘whoa’s’ and nah, nah, …

Read More »

Cheap Tissue – Cheap Tissue

Garage Punk ‘n’ Roll band Cheap Tissue from Los Angeles, released their self titled debut album earlier this month via Lolipop! Records. Founded in 2015 when Andrew Taylor and Jesse Youngblood got together and decided to write songs, which they felt, most people wouldn’t like very much! They were soon …

Read More »

Spartan Warrior – Hell To Pay

Finally it’s here! The long awaited album Hell To Pay from NWOBHM stalwarts Spartan Warrior who must have felt like Spartan Worriers as it’s been a long eight year wait since their last studio release. Released via Pure Steel Records with stunning artwork by Timo Wuerz, its ten tracks show …

Read More »

Falling Eden – Falling Eden (Single Review)

Falling Eden, the new kids on the rock block from Crewe impress from the off with their first self penned tune ‘Falling Eden’, due for release on March 23rd 2018 via Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music and Deezer. Backed by a powerful, thought provoking video (which you can view at …

Read More »

Twisted Illusion – Excite The Light Part One

Excite The Light Part One, the first of a soon to be released trilogy of albums by the cosmic Twisted Illusion shows that the song writing suss of Matt Jones has no bounds with another dazzling array of compositions. Six songs stretch out to just under the sixty minute mark …

Read More »

IDestroy – Pure joy of life EP

IDestroy have just released their second EP, Pure joy of life. The Bristol based all-female trio are out on tour at the moment across the UK and Germany. They describe themselves as “party punk”, which really is a perfect description for this EP. It’s got that aggressive and fast paced …

Read More »

Robespierre – Garden Of Hell

Robespierre announce themselves with NWOBHM debut ‘Garden Of Hell’ There are many events throughout history that take time to come to fruition, the universe as we know it is roughly 13.8 billion years old, the Earth, a mere 4.543 billion years. In that time many civilisations have risen and faded …

Read More »

Forbidden Seasons – Promise

Bring Me The Horizon have a lot to answer for. In the years since ‘There is a Hell…’ and ‘Sempiternal’, hundreds of bands have merged elements of electronica into their metal in order to emulate their success, to varying levels of quality. To be a trailblazer in a genre is …

Read More »