Posted in Gig/Festival Reviews

One of the good news this year was that the organization did everything in their power to keep the same ticket prices as the previous year:50€(quite cheap right?) and at the same time they continued to improve the conditions of the festival; the beer had a reasonable price (1, 5 €), there were more portable toilets, wider variety of food and drinks inside the enclosure and finally there was a box office for photographers/press/guests and best of all: the light didn’t went out on stage like last year. The Security staff was a little tight at the entrance but more tolerant/respectful and better prepared to deal with drunkards, moshers and surf-crowders.

Day 1
Enslaved
Enslaved started playing late in the afternoon, the sunset and the cold breeze of Lake Calvão made itself felt through...

Posted in Interviews

I recently spoke to Eric Peterson, Guitarist with Testament to talk about their new album, and touring.

Festivalphoto: Your new album, Dark roots of earth is due to be released in early August. How would you describe the album?

Eric: Let me turn that around – How would you descibe it?

Festivalphoto: Heavy as hell.

Eric: Alright, first of all it sounds like Testament, and I mean that in a good way. It’s a really good Testament record. It’s a lot more melodic, the songs are a little bit longer, they’re more epic, there’s a lot of solos going on, really shredding stuff.
The cool thing is I’m playing a lot more solos now and that really adds to the colour of things as a guitar team – it doesnt sound like just one style, like Arpeggios and shredding...

Posted in Cd Reviews

After a break of several years, Inner Fear are back with their first album in nine years. The band was originally formed in 1997 by former Cradle of Filth drummer, Marthus.
The music is a cross between death metal and symphonic metal and takes the richness and beauty of symphonic metal and adds the power and brutality of death metal to create a seriously impressive album.

The album is a good length – 10 songs doesnt sound that much, but the songs are a good length so you’ve got around 52 minutes of music here, making this good value.

Musically it’s full of twists and turns, moving seamlessly from brutal death metal to rich warm, but still very heavy symphonic metal. The vocals are largely male death metal style but there are also some lovely female vocals from Vic Anselmo.

The album open...

Posted in Cd Reviews

Zachary Stevens was the singer who took over from Jon Oliva as vocalist for Savatage. Following such a great singer is a feat that would worry most singers but to do so and manage to keep the fans happy too is a very rare feat as changes in singers are usually controversial and hotly debated topics among fans. He recorded four albums during his eight years in Savatage, before leaving in 2000.
After a break of a couple of years, he started work on his new project – Circle II Circle. With the help of both Jon Oliva and guitarist Chris Caffery, he wrote the first album ”Watching in silence”. with five full length albums and three EPs released in the bands ten years of existence, a best of album seems like an obvious step.

”Full circle – the best of” is a double album with all the bands hi...

Posted in Cd Reviews

Fatal Force was formed in 2005 by Fate guitarist Torben Enevoldsen. The band’s first album was released in 2006, but scheduling delays (a sad reality of being involved in more than one band and also doing solo work) meant that the second album wasnt recorded till the end of 2010. Now it’s finally been produced its just been released.

The music feels like 80s heavy metal mixed with melodic rock. It’s clearly guitar driven and the guitars keep things heavy, but the vocals and well written tunes stop it being too heavy and make it something that melodic rock fans will certainly enjoy.

It’s a good solid album, with all the tracks being of a very high standard. An album definitely worth checking out, particularly for fans of bands including Fate, State of rock, Dokken and more.

”Unholy rite...

Posted in Cd Reviews

Sacred Heart are a band that sank without trace in 1991 – one of many bands that for whatever reason didnt quite make it. Sometimes bands fail to make it for the simple reason that they’re rubbish, but often it’s that they’re good but for some reason never quite manaaged to become a success. Sacred Heart are in the latter category. Their EP, ”The vision” was only three tracks long, and its now been re-released along with a number of other unreleased tracks and material from the Brian Nemeth Group to make it a full album.
Guitarist Brian Nemeth is the best known member of the band and has also been in various other groups – Byron Nemeth Group, Amon-Ra, Electro-Motive-Force, Mercury, Prodigy.

For me the biggest problem with this release is the sound quality...

Posted in Cd Reviews

Fantasy Rainbow is an indie band from Manchester led by Oliver Catt. It’s an odd sort of band though as the number of members apparently varies from a one man outfit up to three or four. They have recorded and released the ‘Teens’ EP, the ‘Healthy Lung, Dirty Lung’ cassette and the ‘No Hope. Not Ever’ EP and thanks to regular national airplay from XFM, BBC 6 Music & Amazing Radio, the first two sold out.

Now signed to Heist or Hit records, they have recorded a new single – ”O, Wierdo”. After the single was recorded, Oliver travelled to Nashville, Tennessee to record the debut album at the Sputnik Sound Studios (run by Grammy Award winning producer, Vance Powell). The album is being produced by Ed Spear and is scheduled for release by Heist Or Hit Records in November 2012...

Posted in Gig/Festival Reviews

Unlike many of the UK’s festivals this year, the Cambridge Folk festival actually had good weather – there was sunshine, the site was green and grassy (rather than a muddy swamp as some festivals had), and it was lovely and warm. That sort of weather always helps put people in a good mood for a festival, and that good mood was apparent everywhere you looked.

The first thing to strike me when I arrived was the age range of people there. There were quite a few elderly people enjoying the music, as well as middle aged people, youungsters, teenagers, and lots of families with small children – the festival really does attract a mixed crowd, and the atmosphere was a really good friendly one as a result.

The arena is a small compact site with the main stage having a covered area as well as the...

Posted in Press Releases

Otmar Binder Trio feat BJ Cole & Christian Dozzler
Debut album Boogie Woogie Turnaround
Out September 24th on Jump River Records

Otmar Binder

Boogie Woogie Turnaround fulfils one of contemporary pianist Otmar Binder’s dreams, to ”play with musicians who offer everything they have”. Credited to the Otmar Binder Trio (Binder on piano, Alexander Lackner on bass, and Michael Strasser on drums) the album also features BJ Cole with his pedal steel, and multi instrumentalist Christian Dozzler, who provide their own unique feel to the tracks slicing in folky-bluesy, balladic, reflective, even downright citified airs.

The 17 track album, is made up of all new compositions written by Binder himself or with help of collaborations. This is genuine boogie woogie...

Posted in Press Releases

Bonafide – Ultimate Rebel is now available on pre-sale on itunes

Its hard to believe that its nearly been three years since BONAFIDE´s last full length offering ”Something’s Dripping” was first released.

Above all, BONAFIDE has been building an ever growing audience all over Europe by constant touring. 2 long European tours, covering 12 countries, headlining and as support. Add to this, the countless festival appearances and week long tours of Spain and the UK and it can be easily seen, that these boys are Rock n Roll Road Rats on the up.. Quite simply, BONAFIDE is a band that knows, that success and longevity can only be achieved by hard work, which inevitably means non stop touring and keeping it Live.
The third single from that second album was the song ”Fill your head with Rock”...