Regular readers will be fully aware of the high level of praise thrown Holy Roar’s way throughout 2018 so far, and with good reason, because their roster continues to produce some of this year’s most exciting, aggressive, and forward-thinking music. So when it was announced that the label would be helping Secret Cutter get their second record, Quantum Eraser, to the UK faithful you could almost hear the sound of this little island’s collective jaw hitting the floor.Continue reading
The use of cultural elements in heavy music is, by now, a pretty familiar concept with a plethora of bands, ethnicities, and nations bringing such into their sound, whether conceptually or through unique instrumentation, techniques or structures. Very few bands do so quite so vividly and entirely as Greek progressive metallers Raw In Sect have done, however. With a starkly ever-changing sound across previous releases, latest effort Kitro (self-released) sees a bold direction which fully embraces Greece in both terms of lyrical content and the nations more traditional music.Continue reading
1968: the year following the Summer of Love, and the year before I was born. It’s 50 years ago now of course, and the Cheshire quartet bearing that year as its name is steeped in the Proto sound of that era. Having relentlessly gigged and released two EPs since their 2013 inception, Ballads of the Godless (HeviSike) is the band’s first foray into long-playing territory.Continue reading
All good things come to an end, and as of March 2015, the legendary Black Metal double act of Abbath Doom Occulta (real name Olve Eikemo) and Demonaz Doom Occulta (real name Harald Nævdal) reached its disappointing and unfortunate conclusion. For years, Demonaz had acted the straight man, a perfect foil for his gurning, crab-walking, tongue-waggling partner, but since the pair went their separate ways, he has now chosen to step forward and take centre stage in what appears to be a more focused and serious vision of Immortal.Continue reading
At its molten heart, Rock music should be a very simple beating beast indeed. It should inspire and excite, yes, but it doesn’t need complicated rhythms, progressive tendencies, cerebral lyrics, analysis, politics or a whole plethora of interesting and additional ingredients to be successful or do what it sets out to do. And that is to, unequivocally, “Rock”.Continue reading
Overlooking their first three widely celebrated albums (at least for now), the latest remasters courtesy of Noise Records arrive in the form of the final two studio releases from thrashers, Coroner. Continue reading
Formed in 2006, and including members past and present of Soilwork, Arch Enemy and Spiritual Beggars, are The Night Flight Orchestra. Despite their heavy origins they are anything but, this Swedish sextet are enamoured with the sounds of the late 70’s and early 80s – so expect big riffs, huge choruses, corny lyrics and artery-clogging amounts of cheese. Continue reading
In 1994 Bruce Dickinson, at the time formerly of Iron Maiden, was on tour with his band Skunkworks promoting his solo album Balls To Picasso (Mercury). Dickinson was invited to perform in war-torn Sarajevo, the capital city during the“Siege of Sarajevo”, the longest theater of fighting during the war of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Having a big heart and a soft spot for charity, Dickinson with a wife and small children at home, and his band set off for what they were told was a cooling down war zone. The opposite was true, and at considerable risk that saw their lives in constant peril, managed to miraculously put on a concert for the locals desperate for any kind of relief from reality. This is the basis of Scream For Me Sarajevo (Eagle Rock Entertainment). I managed to catch the film during its exclusive New York premiere, at the Landmark 57 Theater. Continue reading
This is the part of the review where I’m supposed to dazzle you with my knowledge of a band’s history, to both set the scene and establish my credibility – the equivalent of the bit at work conferences that always go on way too long, where the speaker thinks it’s necessary to go through their CV, telling you all about why they get to speak to you, rather than telling you stuff you might actually need to know, or find interesting. Continue reading
What a ride Bullet For My Valentine (BFMV) have been on thus far, having gone from being part of a newly anointed ‘New Big 4 of Thrash’, and heralded in the same breaths of Metal’s greatest bands upon the release of their debut album The Poison (Visible Noise) to the flip side of the real lows felt after the release of their fourth record Temper, Temper (RCA) which saw creative levels dip to point where many wrote the band off completely. They attempted a return with 2015’s Venom (RCA) and seemed to be slowly kicking in the Metal cogs into motion again and saw a kind of spluttering rebirth. Continue reading