Posted in Cd Reviews

Frontiers/BAM

Swedish band CRAZY LIXX has been in the spotlight since 2007, when they debuted with “Loud Minority”. Formed in Malmoe in 2002 they were a part of the New Wave of Swedish Sleaze alongside the likes of CRASHDIET and HARDCORE SUPERSTAR. Up to date they have released three albums, of which their second effort, “New Religion” had potential but also flaws. Sporting influences like KISS and GUNS´N`ROSES they go for the throat with “Riot Avenue”.
Opener “Whisky Tango Foxtrot” has balls and cocky lyrics, just like I expected.

It´s not a bad opener at all, but “Rock and a Hard Place” off “New Religion” was in all honesty better. This album has more balls than a lorry of male birds, but also some serious experiences of having heard it all before...

Posted in Press Releases

”As some of you probably already know, we’re currently in the studio recording the follow-up to the ”Generation Wild” album – to be released in late January 2013!”- readable in the official newsletter on Crashdiet website. Promise is enticing.

”Alright, now listen up 🙂

We wanted to let you decide what the next CRASHDÏET album release is worth!

We offer four price levels – same CD, different price :

Low – Our ideal album price
Mid – Support the band with what you’ve got
High – Get your name printed in the booklet
Overkill – Get your name tattooed on london’s ass…”

So.. waiting for the new hits of legendic sleeze rock band, we can look in a bit to the workhours in studio with their newest video. Album works are not ready yet, but preorders started on Friday already.RQ

Posted in Gig/Festival Reviews

DIMMU, HAMMERFALL ON THE TOP- METALDAY IN SZIGET FESTIVAL

On the first day of 20th birthday celebrated Sziget Festival, city of Budapest was thrilled by Scandinavian soul, since that day called The Metal Day…

Started in the early afternoon Sziget’s island filled up with real music lovers, waiting for the best metal artists, mostly legendically from Scandinavia. But trying to not get any one-lined stereotypes, check all the great bands out, who played fantastic gigs at that big Hungarian Metal Day. Hungarian all-music festival, called Sziget won the best European major festival award int he year, celebrated its 20th year. Every time Sziget Festival renew itself, to show something more nd more from year to year for thousands of visitors, coming to party an enermous int he middle of summer...

Posted in Gig/Festival Reviews

The second edition of the fresh Bucharest-based Romanian festival Summer Well started not so well and ended really bad.

The lineup announced included The Stone Roses, Hurts, The Vaccines, Patrick Wolf, Wolf Gang, Zulu Winter and many others, but the joy of being able to see Hurts (again in Bucharest) and The Stone Roses for the first time in Romania soon turned into a very frustrating experience.

Let’s start with the beginning. The festival takes place in a superb location, 20 km outside Bucharest, near a 150 year old palace and all over the forest surrounding it (including a pond populated by swans and ducks). Sounds (and really is) dreamy, which is why the tagline of the event is ”a festival like a holiday”.

Last year it was great, but unfortunately this year it rained hard in Bucharest...

Posted in Gig/Festival Reviews

Vädret: stekhett, soligt, varmt, svettigt, regnigt, blåst, blixtar, moln, kallt, fullmåne
Summering: Woodstock bjöd på allt förutom snö och storm, men mestadels 30 grader och sol 🙂

Folk: 800 000st Polacker (så långt ögat kunde nå), en och annan tysk och så några få procent svenska, vietnameser, fransmän och ryssar. Mer internationellt önskar emellertid både från civila som från ledningen.

Stämning: trevlig, glad, välkomnande, fredfull, öppen, spexig, festlig, magisk och allt annat kul man kan förknippa med en festival under namnet Woodstock. En festival som värnar om öppenfrihet och ickevåld...

Posted in Interviews

Jag möter killarna i Brain Police vid backstagebaren under en molning eftermiddag på Stoned From The Underground. Festivalen som erbjuder tysklands stonerfans de hetaste banden just nu inom öken scenen, och knappast finns det ett bättre forum för isländska Brain Police än detta.

Jag sätter mig ner med trummisen Jón och frontmannen Jenny som båda med övertygelse erbjuder mig att dricka deras Isländska olja, Opal – en lakritsmakande svart vodka med brännande isländsk alkohol. Jenny själv är en hängiven Opal drinkare och sveper själv, om än med viss hjälp från diverse fotografer, stagehands och fans i närmsta omgivningen, två flaskor under den korta timmen jag umgås med bandet.

Killarna verkar vara nöjda med giget; även om Opalflaskan och det lilla välkomstpaketet ...

Posted in Cd Reviews

EMI

Ritchie temporarily left the European mainland for a trip to York, to the Grand Opera House to be precise. York only happens to be almost plagued by mediaeval buildings; a guildhall, a wall, one of the largest gothic cathedrals in Europe etc. Of cause Ritchie had to lay there, and do a little picturesque bonus to the tones of “Minstrel Hall”. But there is more, let´s not forget abot the sold out arena.

Opener “Locked within the Crystal Ball” could well have been Blackadder´s “See the little Goblin”, since the audience was happy only to see the old bard on British soil. Ritchie is in a fabulous mood, must be the setting and the immaculate band. As could be expected Ritchie is the star of the evening...

Posted in Cd Reviews

Lion Music

The second album of guitarist Rolf Munkes super project featured a lot of big names. Released originally in 2003, two years after the debut, the project stuck with their take on classic melodic hard rock. Guitar scholar Munkes was joined by Don Airey (DEEP PURPLE, ex. RAINBOW), Tony Martin of BLACK SABBATH fame, and the well-travelled bass man Neil Murray. Drummer Gerald Kloos (WINTERLONG) and guest drummer Anders Johansson made up the ranks. Mixing was dome by Stefan Kaufman of ACCEPT, sp this ought to blow us all away.

This album is a solid enough effort, but it lacks in truly outstanding tracks. Opener “One in a Million”, the power ballad “Did You Ever Love Me”, the bluesy and groovy “Comin´ Home” and the very genione closer “Back in the Light” are about it...

Posted in Cd Reviews

Frontiers/BAM

ASIA dates back to the humble beginnings of the MTV. Formed in 1981, the band debuted in 1982, and the self-titled effort was number one in the States for nine weeks. The singles “Time Will Tell” and the perennial “Heat of the Moment” didn´t do them any harm in selling ten million albums world-wide. “Alpha” followed but by the third album the band started disintegrating and in the 90´s only Geoff Downes remained. Various solo efforts and Wetton-Downes constellations followed, but it was not until John Payne joined in 1991 that the band got stability enough to function until 2006. Various musicians have been members over the years, and one of those splits occurred in 2006...

Posted in Press Releases

Bigger, bolder, brassier and more brazen than ever, Bellowhead blaze back with their mighty new album, Broadside.

While all things Bellowhead tend to be an event, Broadside is a positive spectacular, taking some of the wildest, most joyous and iconic songs in the richly colourful canon of the folk song tradition… and turning them upside down and inside out with the unique sense of drama and theatre, instrumental virtuosity, verve, humour and blind cheek that has seen them spearhead the new folk boom.

Their third album Hedonism was the highest-selling independently released traditional folk album of all time, yet the new one Broadside (a title that rather cunningly melds an early form of printed song sharing with an appropriate nautical reference to firepower) is surely set to eclipse it...