Tag Archives: album review

It’s taken these four Italian signori nigh on nine years of solid gigging in their homeland to get round to unleashing their particular brand of old-school, straight-through-the-middle metal on the rest of the planet. Taking their name from the twin-peaked mountain in the central Greek Peloponnese, where the sacred altar …

Anger Denial Acceptance is Spineshank’s fourth full length and first one in almost a decade, where has the time gone! The album was released in Europe on the 18th June via Century Media Records. ‘After the End’ starts off with a huge scream and continues on in an angst driven …

Over the past 18 years – and certainly in the decade since the release of their brutal debut album, ‘Ashes of Purification’ – Merrimack have been slowly building a reputation as one of the forerunners of the French black metal movement and have drawn comparison, not unfairly, with the likes …

Fronted by Russian-born guitarist/vocalist Nil Dilian, this Bergen-based quartet have self-released an eight-track debut album that is fairly standard second wave of Norwegian black metal fare, made up of crunchy groove-laden riffs over mixture of clean and deathbeat drumming. Opener ‘Delirium’ is nothing special – the sort of thing the …

Emina is a female rock singer who has formed her own band and released this, her debut album.  Her biography on her website is fairly vague – she moved to Europe (from somewhere unspecified, but presumably the USA as her home town was into folk and line dance).  So really …

For all its many inherent faults, the internet, and especially social media, is a wonderful tool for those of us in the music business who are always on the hunt for new bands, new experiences and new sounds. So, when this quartet from Teesside contacted PM via our Facebook page …

Phantom Antichrist is the thirteenth album from German thrash legends Kreator.  If you’re thinking that after 30 years they might have softened and started to mellow then you couldnt be more wrong – Phantom Antichrist is just as hard, heavy and angry as ever. The album’s title relates to Osama …

“Few against many” is the new album from Greek band Firewind.  Perhaps best known to many music lovers for their extremely talented guitarist, Gus G, who as well as playing in Firewind is also guitarist for Ozzy Osbourne.  That connection means Gus G has had a busy time recently as …

“The Aftermyth” is the debut album from London hard rockers Zodiac N Black.  The band cite influences including Led Zeppelin, Queens of the Stone Age, Soundgarden, and Black Sabbath. Comments on a couple of the tracks… The album opens with a heavy track, Bastinado (Useless trivia – apparently Bastinado is …

Lonewolf are a French power metal band that formed in 1993.  They released a demo and single before splitting in 1996.  In 2000 the band reformed and released their debut album.  Now in 2012 they have just released their fifth studio album – Army of the damned.  France isnt a …

County Fermanagh, nestled in the south-western corner of Northern Ireland and in the elbow crook of its border, is the Province’s equivalent of the Lake District – a haven of quiet and tranquillity, a place of outstanding natural beauty which serves as a retreat away from the hustle and bustle …

Typical, isn’t it? You complain about the apparent lack of decent French metal bands and then, like buses to the mysterious ‘Not In Service’, a whole bunch come along at once. ‘A Perfect Absolution’ is the third full-lengther – and the second on Listenable – from this Bordeaux five-piece and, …

The French heavy metal scene isn’t known for its international impact – personally, and without the aid of Google or Wikipedia, I can count less than a handful bands who have made any sort of significant impact outside their homeland: Trust, of course, who in turn give us the living …

In times of desperation and trouble, people often look to their history and heritage for inspiration, recalling past glories to give them a positive outlook on the travails currently facing them, drawing upon that which has gone before to drive them forward to face up to the challenges before them. …

The phrase “heavy metal as it should be” is one of those throwaway expressions that seems to be pretty de rigeur at c’est moment du temps. Which beggars the question: just how should heavy metal be played? Except loud? And heavy. Fortunately, this Finnish six piece have veered away from …

Dan Beehler was, of course, both the muscle behind and the voice in front of Exciter – a band who, at least as far as this reviewer is concerned, never have truly got the credit they deserve for the role they played in the development of thrash metal. Their ‘World …

Re-issues are an unusual beast – usually there is an overt reason for a band ploughing their back catalogue, such as an anniversary or whatever: occasionally, they come out of the blue (or the black, in this case), without seeming to have any particular explanation for their presence… as appears …

Japanese doomsters Church of Misery – who made a huge impact on UK audiences when they toured with Cathedral in 2010 – were all set to release their debut album, the aptly titled ‘Volume 1’, back in 1997 when they developed what many might see as a decidedly unhealthy interest …

You always want to fight the corner of your hometown heroes, be it your local football team or a band that have helped to put your part of the world on the musical map. You want to stand, as one, with ‘your boys’ and, shoulder to shoulder, take on all …

This debut offering from Dubliners Xerosun actually came out in their Irish homeland back in 2010, to great acclaim on both sides of the border, but now has been picked up, re-packaged and given a worldwide release by Rising Records. And much deserved the development is, as this is – …