Album Reviews

It's a waspish, angry, drunken rabble of a band throwing themselves around with an evil undercurrent. This takes you back to early days of thrash infancy. There's an aggressively punkish streak running through the whole album. There's raw power and energy here by the bucketload and the album is unsurprisingly reminiscent of DRI thanks in no small part to Brecht's vocals and style that still stand out to this day.

My, how things have changed since I first saw Mike Tramp performing with White Lion all those years ago on the rock and metal programmes on TV! Then along came the grungy Freak of Nature and Mike Tramp solo career. Now this album pretty much has Mike stripping everything down …

Finnish heavy metal band Battle Beast are back with their second album

Mr Udo Dirkschneider is back! The hard working gravel voiced front man will be releasing the 24th album of his career,surely one of the most prolific writers in metal and his latest solo effort is Steelhammer,released on May 24th 2013 via AFM Records. Many metal fans will know his name …

Burnley’s Exit State have previously released two albums to critical acclaim, can this 3rd release match the success of the others? It was recorded in January 2013 and is produced, engineered, mixed and mastered by Matt Elliss at Axis Studios, Doncaster. ‘Let’s See It All’ follows hot on the heels …

Opinions are extremely mixed on the validity of sample CDs given away free with the vast majority of music magazines… personally speaking, I’m actually quite a fan of them:  they are a good way of obtaining free samples of new work by established artists, and of checking out shed loads …

Although Reign Of The Architect only fully coalesced as a band last year, this ambitious, Israeli-based progressive metal project has been five years in the making, with this album tracing its roots right back as far as 2008, when guitarist Yuval Kramer initially started work on this concept work, along …

This is a strong debut from seasoned musicians. The guitar work, backed up nicely by a strong but never overbearing rhythm section, drives everything along at a good speed

Amaze Me are a duo consisting of Peter Broman, who plays all the instruments and wrote all the songs and vocalist Conny Lind. They released three pretty decent AOR albums back in the 90s, Amaze Me (1995), Dream On (1997), Wonderland (1998) and that was the end of that. Now …

Back in 2002, a guest appearance by Scott Gorham on the title track of ex-Almighty main man Ricky Warwick’s debut solo album “Tattoos and Alibis” may have gone unnoticed by many. To those who took note, there was a notable spark, and a creative seed was sown deep in the …

Goth masters return with a vengeance   I genuinely can not believe that Lacrimas are now in their twentieth year, a band that have consistently produced a brand of Gothic orientated Metal that has always been uncompromising and from the heart, delivered with style and panache and maintaining a musical …

‘Utopia’, Norwegian darkened industrialists Gothminister’s fifth album, is a concept work based around the concept of ‘Mr Jekyll And Dr Hyde’ – with, on this occasion, the inspiration coming from band leader Bjørn Alexander Brem and the duality of his existence as a lawyer by day and heavy metal musician …

Astralnaut are from the dark wet plains of Northern Ireland and trade in big riffs.Formed in late 2011 the band have been gigging the length and breadth of the Island dishing out their brand of Stoner rock which is influenced by the likes of Down, AIC, Solace and even a …

Apparently Alea Jacta have been on the go since 1994 according to their Facebook page and hail from the sunny isle of Tenerife. With the island better known for its holiday beats than metal, the band have been trying to rectify this over the years locally with their own brand …

Swiss Rockers deliver a trump card with this killer album. I must admit, a certain description I came across of the band, namely “ a mix of AC/DC, Airbourne and Motorhead…” got my eyebrow a twitching, more with incredulous disbelief than anything else. However, I can definitely see the sense …

When a metal band features 2 ex members of Venom, one of whom was in the original line up then you can expect full on metal. Original member Mantas on guitar and Tony “demoltion man” Dolan on vocals/bass released their debut album Hell To The Holy in March 2012, a …

Hang on to your hena’s as Chthonic return with their strongest album to date.   The band responsible for getting us all off our arses and playing the Zheng and Pgaku flute are back, wielding their seventh studio album as they continue on a quest to spread the word of …

At present this EP release feels like it is from a young band who still need to find their own groove and own mark of originality in what is an already very crowded genre. They have the potential here, that is without question.

Obsessive Compulsive hit the heights with a mix of songs that will have you salivating for more.   Manchester’s best loved Alternative Rock band are back with their second album which follows on from the very well received ’Dreams Of Death And The Death Of Dreams’ debut which hit the …

This is the second full length from this Chilean band now based in Europe. Procession offer up Doom in the tradition of bands like Solstice and Candlemass –  epic , melodic and with plenty of weight. The band knows when to apply the pressure and when to hold back and …