Album Reviews

The greatest selection of albums, reviewed and rated

Gloria In Excelsis – Cage

Debut single from Euro/Japan Female Fronted Metal artist is one not to be missed.     Formerly the vocalist with a band called Guren, Gloria has now decided to concentrate her talents on a solo project under the name of Gloria In Excelsis, ‘Cage’ being the debut single release. From …

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Newman-Siren

Newman are back with ‘Siren’ , this is the 10th release from the band, though to be fair Steve Newman does do the lion’s share of the work, partnered up with his usual drummer Rob McEwen. However Touring guitarist Shaun “Da Prawn” Bessaant and Robert Sall both get a track …

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Quireboys – Beautiful Curse

Ever since this band surfaced in the mid to late 80s, their mission statement has been elegantly simple; raw, good time rock n’ roll without any frills. Beautiful Curse, their first new studio album of new material since 2008’s ‘Homewreckers And Heartbreakers,’ is an unapologetic stride in the same direction. Like …

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Totengefluster – Vom Seelensterben

German Black Metal with a Symphonic twist ticks all the right boxes. Released a few months ago now, this is one album that I particularly feel should be worthy of further investigation from your part if you managed to let it slip under the radar upon its release. For a …

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Firewind – Apotheosis Live 2012.

June 24th 2013 was a very important day for the Greek melodic power metal band Firewind as their earthshaking live album Apotheosis was released via Century Media Records. It contains 17 songs (19 on the digital format) taken from their 7 studio albums to celebrate their 10th anniversary. Apotheosis was …

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Pat Travers Band – Can Do

Pat Travers has long been known as a guitar force to be reckoned with. With an illustrious career spanning back at least 37 years, the Canadian-born six-string slinger has more pure life experience to draw on then most. His records Heat In The Street and Makin’ Magic are considered influential …

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Tesseract – Altered State

Having heard a lot of buzz & chatter on various music websites and guitar magazines, I was eager to get a listen to latest release from this 5-piece and find out what all the fuss is about. Although Tesseract have been around with various personnel since 2003 this is only …

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The Poodles – Tour de Force

  Since forming back in 2005, The Poodles have built a substancial following in their home country of Sweden even going on to represent their nation in the Eurovision Song contest. Through extensive touring throughout mainland Europe and growing record sales on their first 4 studio albums, their brand of …

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Cypher16 ‘Determine’ E.P.

Cypher 16 are a young band hailing from london, who fuse electronic and metal influences with hints of industrial to create their own unique musical mix. Yet they are much more than that, as leader Jack Doolan – Vocals/Guitars/Synths and the rest of the band take you on an impressive …

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Sandstone – Delta Viridian

Following the release of their third album “Cultural Dissonance” and a lengthy tour around Europe, it was time for the Northern Irish, melodic metal band; Sandstone to release this fourth release entitled – “Delta Viridian”. After the instrumental introduction, the lads thunder their way into the album the wall shattering …

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Primus – Sailing The Seas Of Cheese

“Primus sucks!” remains the backwards compliment paid by fans to the band, because the first thing to note about these veteran Bay Area, California musicians is that they sure don’t suck. Their sophomore effort, Sailing The Seas Of Cheese, had it’s original heyday and review cluster back before genres like …

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Whitesnake-Made In Britain/The World Record

Whitesnake fans are the reason these cd’s exist, fiercely loyal who know what to expect at a whitesnake show and are never disappointed. So when they requested another live album, David Coverdale decided to go one better, and record every show on the upcoming Forevermore World Tour back in 2011. …

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Tarja – Victim of ritual (single)

Tarja’s new album, Colours in the dark, is due for release on 23rd August, but ahead of that comes the first single from the new album – ‘Victim of ritual’. The song is inspired by a well known piece of classical music, ‘Bolero’ by Maurice Ravel.  You can actually hear …

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Tucana – Tucana

Tucana have their roots in the late 1980’s when the band first formed.  They split in 1992 but in 2008 reformed and started work on writing an album.  The writing and recording was delayed by various injuries, but in spring 2012 the album was recorded and sent to be mixed.  …

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Time Grid – Life

Time Grid was formed in 2001 after three of the members played together in Chrisophe Mattheys metal workshop at the Ecole des Technologies Musicales (ETM) in Geneva.  Although they wrote many of the songs that would eventually form the debut album, between 2001 and 2004, lineup changes were amongst the …

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The Prowlers – Point of no return

Italian band The Prowlers formed in Rome in 1996, intially as a covers band (Iron Maiden covers in case the band name didn’t give you a clue), but after a year or so they switched to writing and playing their own material.  Since then they’ve played more gigs and festivals …

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Egonaut – Mount egonaut

Swedish band Egonaut describe their music as ‘Bastard rock’ – a blend of stoner rock, seventies hard rock and metal.  They released a trilogy of EPs on their own label – Bastard Rock Records, and released their debut album ‘Electric’ in 2011.  Now their second album ‘Mount egonaut’ has just …

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