Tag Archives: new album

Following the huge success of their big label debut, ‘The Mouths Of Madness’, earlier this year, this timely re-issue brings together san Francisco psych-doomsters Zodiac’s two pre-Nuclear Blast releases – the ‘The Through The Devil’s Doorway’ EP and 2011’s full-lengther ‘Capricorn’, both originally released on The Church Within Records – …

This 14th album from the pioneering stalwarts of the New York hardcore scene is a return to their crossover roots, following last year’s somewhat thrashier ‘Straight To The Dome’, with its mixture of hard-hitting street metal riffage and confrontational punk punkiness. With frontman Gary Meskil once again in charge of …

His first solo album in more than 14 years, this opus from Helloween frontman Andi Deris certainly will take many fans by surprise, as it is about as far from the power metal ethos for which he is best known as it is possible to imagine… Inspired by the ongoing …

This sophomore album from Norwegian quintet Fatal Fusion – their first for the boutique Karisma Records label – draws heavily on the prog influences of the early 1970s, unashamedly referencing the likes of Peter Gabriel-era Genesis, pre-‘Dark Side…’ Floyd, Camel, Colosseum, Focus and Van der Graaf Generator, as well as …

This third album from Canada’s DTR is as good a slice of death metal mayhem as you are going to hear this year. Packed solid with soaring riffs, which succeed in holding the right mix of melody within their overall context of bombastic beatdowns and crushing themes, the band also …

Whether we believe in it or not, like it or otherwise, the so-called “festive season” – when everyone is supposed to be nice to each people we loathe and despise for the rest of the year, indulge in rampant consumerism, eat horribly overcooked poultry for days on end, and whatever …

Breaking a silence which has lasted nigh on 15 years, Austrian progsters Mayfair should really have stayed in a state of hibernation, as this is a truly awful album with very little to recommend it to more than the casual listener. Yes, the four musicians are most definitely accomplished (vocalist …

Hailing from Scunthorpe (“The Industrial Garden Town Of The North” as he describes it), AOT70FB is the work of one Wayne Goodchild, who perhaps can perhaps best be described as a “bedroom producer”.  Having previously enjoyed moderate success under the monicker of Cardboard Dead Boy, he has sought to refine …

With their latest album, ‘American Illusion’, kicking up dust and the band preparing to bang heads and take names across the UK and Ireland at the end of November, opening for Buckcherry and Hardcore Superstar, PM catches up with Ven Venrez, front man of the band who take his name, …

There aren’t many bands who hang around for 30 years before releasing their first album, but German progressive power metallers Javelin most certainly fall into that category:  despite having previously released two EPs (with a 12 year gap between them, it must be said), the quintet have certainly taken their …

Music journalists are not supposed to get personal about things – but, then, a review is a personal opinion on the subject thereof, so we can’t really help but do what we’re not supposed to do, can we?  So, to speak personally at the outset, I find compilation albums both …

Italian quintet Holy Cross claim to be “breaking new ground” by attempting to cross traditional power metal and classic thrash: unfortunately for them it’s a cross-pollination which has been attempted many times before – with varying degrees of success. Equally unfortunately for Holy Cross, their attempt is by far one …

Over the past half a decade, Los Angeles’ Warbringer have produced three of the best new age thrash albums of recent years – a triptych of work which has taken its inspiration from the sound of genre pioneers such as Exodus, Exciter and Testament and brought it up to date …

Berkshire five piece Primitai have been honing their particular brand of 80s-inspired traditional heavy metal riffery for a little over a decade years now, and this, their third album, is further consolidation of their position of the best young bands purveying this particular style of metal-foolery. While their 2007 debut …

Even given the huge amount of releases which a website such as ours gets sent on a daily, never mind weekly or even monthly, basis, it’s hard to imagine that this fifth album by US power metal innovators Attacker fell through our net when it first surfaced earlier this year.  …

Looking from the outside in, or from west to east if you want to be geographic, it would appear that the Indian death metal scene is very much dominated by one person:  we could be (and probably are) very much mistaken in this assumption, but given that a certain Demonstealer …

This third album from Australia’s Claim The Throne is very much in the blackened, melodic death metal meets folk vein of Amon Amarth, and most definitely will appeal to fans of the Swedish overlords. While Australia itself may not have a long folk tradition of its own – drawing as …

This fourth album from French blackened death metallers Aosoth is suitably dark, punishingly brutal and apocalyptically nihilistic. Built on barbaric rhythms and crushing riffs, topped with the sort of evil vocal that the Lord of Hades himself would struggle to imitate, it’s by turns depressively dirge-like and neck-snappingly fast, but …

The word emotional has been denigrated in recent years by it’s association with the dreaded ‘core scene, and its attribution to a raft of bands who have used the pretence of caring what goes on in the world about them to worm their way into the hearts, and souls, of …

Oxford trio Headcount’s sound has previously been described, elsewhere I hasten to add, as “Adam And The Ants being sodomized by Therapy?”. Certainly, on the basis of this new album, I can see the former comparison, as well as to the likes of Teardrop Explodes and maybe early, commercialized, stoner, …