Tag Archives: new album

Us rock journalists are supposed to be reasonably savvy types, keeping our fingers on the pulses and knowing exactly what’s happening on this planet we call mosh, so we can impart our knowledge onto you, our millions of devoted and much lover readers. So, imagine my surprise when, completely unannounced …

If you’ve never heard them before, you would be forgiven for thinking, upon first listen, that there is a very Savatage quality to Circle II Circle’s sound:  it’s a comparison that you would be more than justified making, as CIIC frontman Zak Stevens spent eight years at the helm of …

France’s Idols For Dinner actually trace their roots back more than half a decade, forming as Corpse Division back in 2007 but changing their name a few years later as they felt their original monicker did not reflect the style of music they play:   “it sounded like a brutal death …

This fifth studio album from Polish progressive rockers Riverside – their first since 2009’s ‘Anno Domini High Definition’, which charted at number one in their native Poland – is an interesting beast, drawing as it does on a myriad of influences, from underground central European jazz through English folk music …

Since their formation in 2001, Welsh ‘post-hardcore’ crew Funeral For A Friend have literally “been there, done that, sold a million T-shirts”. However, over the past decade or so, their popularity has undeniably waned: following the gold status of their debut ‘Casually Dressed And Deep In Conversation’ in 2003, and …

I must admit, it came as somewhat of a surprise:  flicking through the PM archive, yours truly discovered that, despite the amount of coverage we have given to Plymouth groove metallers Huron over the past 12 months or so, we’ve actually been somewhat remiss in failing to cast our critical …

This second album from France’s Abinaya – their name is Sanskrit for ‘passing on’ – definitely lives up to its conjunctive title, for it most definitely is a ‘Corps’ of work that should be passed on. The problems start early on, with the apologetic Algerian drum line on the opening, …

“The boys are back – and they’re looking for a fight”.  Thus starts this latest album (the eighth) from Boston’s Dropkick Murphys.. one of a handful of bands – alongside the likes of Flogging Molly – who have successfully moulded their Irish heritage onto a hardcore/punk sound. While 2011’s ‘Going …

This unusually named German AOR band trace their roots back a quarter of a century, to 1987, and this is their 11th album – their first in 11 years and also their first with new drummer (formerly the band’s drum tech) Chris Schmidt, who replaced founder member Kosta Zafiriou, who …

It’s probably a bit pat to say – but, then, the band do allude to it in their own press collateral – but a German band playing industrial-tinged metal and singing in their native language are inevitably going to draw comparisons with Rammstein. And, yes, there are other references with …

Five years on from their last outing, 2007’s ‘Liberation=Termination’, Finnish-based melodic death metallers Mors Principium Est have returned with their new, international line up – featuring the twin guitar attack of the UK’s Andy Gillion and Andhe Chandler, all the way from New Zealand – and their eagerly anticipated fourth …

Generation.On.Dope, or G.o.D, trace their roots back a decade, to the Italian sleaze rock outfit Razzle Dazzle, who were starting to make a bit of a name for themselves outside their homeland until the untimely death of bassist Mario Gilardengo forced the band to re-evaluate themselves and start all over …

The name of Tasmanian devils (sic) Ruins may be unfamiliar to many people outside the southern hemisphere, but that should be about to change soon, thanks to the international release of this, their fourth full length studio album. And a bloody fine slice of blackened metal it is – melodic …

For almost exactly two decades (counting from the release of their epoch-defining debut, ‘As The Flower Withers’) Bradford’s My Dying Bride have stood at the very pinnacle of the death-doom genre, not only as its progenitors but its constant innovators and re-inventors. ‘A Map Of All Our Failures’ – their …

There is no doubt about it, Converge have been one of the most influential and imitated extreme bands of the last two and a half decades – their mix of hardcore and heavy metal having been credited as giving birth to what we now know as ‘metalcore’ (fuck, they’ve a …

Briefly, back in the late 1980s, Dare were the darlings of the UK’s FM-friendly scene:  their stunning 1988 debut album, ‘Out Of The Silence’, is quite deservedly remembered as a classic of both the genre and the era:  spawning two minor hit singles, both it and its follow up, ‘Blood …

In Spanish, ‘El Dorado’ means ‘The Golden One’. Originally attributed to an ancient Colombian chieftain who covered himself in gold dust and then committed suicide, it has become much better known as the mythological city sought by the Spanish Conquistadores in the 15th and 16th centuries, which resulted in genocide …

I have to admit it – I’m a child of the Eighties. I mean that in that is when I got into metal: it was the formative years of that historic decade in rock history that, as a lanky-haired rebellious private school-attending teenager that I first discovered bands such as …

This Sicilian combo have been hanging around the edges (sic) of the European power/symphonic metal scene for a little over a decade now, occasionally threatening to move further into the spotlight dominated especially some of their countrymen through offerings such as their two under-rated concept albums to date, ‘Hastings 1066’ …

Your humble PM scribe feels like he has been living in the brilliantly named Voodoo for the best part of a week, as this is my third gig in as many days in the Belfast city centre venue. Industrial thrashers The Obscene Machine must feel the same way, as it …