Posted in Interviews

This year at Tuska I got an invitation for an interview with the Finnish melodic hard rock/heavy metal band, who started at the end of the nineties as a technical death metal. This got me pretty curious to learn more about the band, to watch them live at Tuska and, of course, to accept the interview invitation. It turned out that I met a band with a good stage experience from all over the world, interestingly mixed compositions and an awesome promo photo that convinced me they’re a bunch of crazy guys enjoying what they are doing. The result of the interview can be read below, and everything else about the band, plus media streams can be found on their website at http://amoralweb.com/

Me: Who is the band Amoral?
Ben Varon: Amoral was started by me, on guitars and our drummer Juhana Karlss...

Posted in Gig/Festival Reviews

There are loads of festivals happening in Romania right now – OST Fest, Rock the City, Peninsula, Summer Well, Artmania – but B’estfest has had the best possible evolution over the years. When it started, in 2007, it was one of the largest events of this sort – not only in Romania, but also in Eastern Europe. But during its first editions it took place in the middle of Bucharest, among the buildings and concrete of a busy, hot, industrialized city. As incredible as the line-up was, nobody really saw it as a real festival, because every night people went to their homes, or to hotel or hostel rooms, not to a nice camping ground.

Last year, thought, B’estfest became something totally different...

Posted in Cd Reviews

Canadian band Kobra and the Lotus have come a long way in the last few years, and in the last few months in particular. The band formed in Calgary towards the end of 2008, and their first UK shows were in November 2009 when they played to a handful of people. Their debut album, ”Out of the pit” has always been hard to track down in the UK but is well worth the effort of tracking down a copy. Over the last two and a half years the band have had lineup changes, and have worked their asses off touring as many places as possible including gigs all over the UK as they built up a fanbase...

Posted in Cd Reviews

Pagan/folk metal band Korpiklaani are about to release their eight album – Manala

Jonne Järvelä gives this summary of the storyline: “`Manala´ is the realm of the dead – the underworld in Finnish mythology. This place is best known for its appearance in the Finnish national epic Kalevala, on which many of our new songs are based. In the 16th poem of Kalevala, Väinämöinen, a shamanistic hero travels to Manala in search for knowledge about the dead. On his journey he meets the ferrywoman – a girl, Tuonen tytti, or Tuonen piika (Death’s maid), who takes him across the river of Tuoni. However, on the isle of Tuoni he is not given the spells he was originally looking for and he barely manages to escape the place. After his return he curses anyone trying to enter the place alive.”

In ...

Posted in Gig/Festival Reviews

Being organised quite close to the city center and populated areas in Helsinki, Tuska festival has a different curfew than any other I’ve seen. Friday and Saturday the ’noise’ has to end at ten PM and Sunday at nine, making it possible for everyone to get their rest and have the chance to go home at decent times for the next working week. Thus, Sunday only leaves room for three bands on the main stage. The first of them was a Finnish act I’ve known for a long time now and I always wished I’d see live- Apocalyptica. Everyone was telling me how cool they are live, but nobody actually managed to explain how cool they really are. There’s one drummer on stage surrounded by three guys playing cellos… Way atypical for any metal concert...

Posted in Gig/Festival Reviews

Not the easiest of mornings in the Finnish capital, yet I managed to make it by 13:30 to the festival grounds to watch the performance of the Finnish hard/heavy rock (former death metal) band Amoral, as I was going to have an interview later on that day and it would have made my life easier if I got to ’know’ them a bit by watching them perform. I liked the show. You could see that the band had just returned from touring on other continents as they had a good energy and would always make the scene look crowded. They warmed us even more by the intensive use of pyro effects and all in all made a good impression for such a young band...

Posted in Gig/Festival Reviews

My second year at the Finnish Tuska metal festival and it strongly reinforced the fact that I should join this festival rather often as it simply is an awesome experience. From the moment you go to pick up your wristbands until you say the final goodbye to the festival grounds, it all happens with so much politeness and friendliness that it feels out of this world. It was quite surreal that most of the guards around the area would smile at you. And even more, they would stand close to the moshpits area and help people stand up in case of small accidents. I only saw one dude being a bit forcefully carried away from the crowd, given some intense instructions and then all ended with laughter. No wonder that makes the crowd relaxed as well.

Some other positive aspects include the size of the f...

Posted in Press Releases

Trojan Records has been an intrinsic part of Jamaican music and culture since it was launched in the summer of 1968.

And as Jamaica marks its 50th year of the independence on 6th August 2012, it is natural that this famous label is closely linked with the celebrations.

Trojan Presents ‘Freedom Sounds’ is a 5CD box set that honors the most important names in Jamaican music in the last five decades.

Running across 5CDs this essential box set celebrates the leading performers (Bob Marley & The Wailers, Jimmy Cliff, Dennis Brown, Desmond Dekker, Toots & The Maytals, Gregory Isaacs, Augustus Pablo) producers (Lee ’Scratch’ Perry, Duke Reid, Leslie Kong, King Tubby, King Jammy) and studios (Black Ark, Treasure Isle, Studio One, Channel One, Federal, Harry J, Randy’s, Dynamic Sounds) that, o...

Posted in Cd Reviews

Testament – one of the big beasts of Thrash metal are back with their latest album – Dark roots of Earth. In the almost 30 years since the band was formed, Testament have released a steady stream of quality thrash albums, although there was a dip in form for a few years. The bands last album (The formation of damnation) heralded a welcome return to their top form and means that expectations for the new album are high.
Produced by Sabbat and Hell Guitarist, Andy Sneap (who has also produced albums by bands including Arch Enemy, Accept, Exodus and many more), this album features Gene Hoglan back with the band and on drums for the first time since 1997.

Brief comments on a few tracks

Opening with some heavy crushing riffs right from the start, opening track ”Rise up” is a clear indication t...

Posted in Cd Reviews

German Thrash metal band Tankard have been going for 30 years now, and unlike many bands with such a long history, Tankard have been going continuously during that period. In that time they’ve released 14 studio albums, and are now ready to release album number 15. This will be their first album since signing with Nuclear Blast and is due for release towards the end of July.

In case you’ve been living in a cave for the last thirty years and havent come across Tankard before then a short description is ”alcoholic thrash metal”. The music is good thrash metal, and the song titles/lyrics are alcohol related – even the band’s name is linked to alcohol. So, alcohol and metal – sounds like a perfect combination to me !
The new album is called ”A girl called Cerveza” (note the inevitable alco...