Posted in Cd Reviews

Ulterium/Sound Pollution

END OF SEPTEMBER started out in 2009. Formed by guitarist/vocalist Erik Tordsson, who´s got a past in both heavy and extreme metal, a demo was made with former vocalist Victoria Sundberg. A deal with Ulterium was secured, but Victoria left, and a 2 year hiatus commenced. In 2011 Elin Redin was attached to the line-up, now consisting of Erik, Victoria, and bass player Johan Nöjd and drummer Johan Svensson. END OF SEPTEMBER recently played Jönköping´s Zaragon Rock Club as support to AMARANTHE, which I missed. How good are they in the studio?

As most female fronted bands they lean towards EVANESCENCE, and the sound has more than a modern touch. My player started with track four, “Exile”, for some reason, that wasn´t flattering for the band...

Posted in Cd Reviews

Gray Music Entertainment/Warner

Finnish band CARMEN GREY has had minor hits and massive hits in their native Finland since their formation in 2006. The band boosts routine, with three members having played together for two decades. The info also talks about a wild, fresh and exciting band with influences ranging from THE BEATLES to DAVID BOWIE, and GUNS´N´ROSES to SKID ROW. I wonder how this will turn out…

The title track is oozing DAVID BOWIE like an over-cooked stew. The seventies tinged sound and the attempt at a slow moving sing-along refrain kills off my interest. But the pace rarely quickens. The two hit songs “”Heroes and Losers” and “Two Wannabes” are surprisingly meek...

Posted in Cd Reviews

Lifeforce/Sound Pollution

Swedish fresh death metal merchants MISERATION release their third outing, spiced up with both eight string guitars and the Indian harp Esraj. Christian Älvestam, vocals, Jani Stefanovic and Marcus Bertilsson, guitars, and drummer Oscar Nilsson (not sure about bassist Christian Lundgren) are hellbent on going for the so called difficult third album. They don´t go in unarmed, the album is said to be filled with fresh ideas, folk instruments, special vocal styles etc. So, what came out of it?

Opener “Stepping Stone Agenda” is a fine piece of identity-creating Swedish death metal with razor-sharp drumming. The end it off with piano without losing credibility amongst the brutality loving hordes…I believe...

Posted in Cd Reviews

French power metal band Nightmare was founded in 1979 and released their debut album ”Waiting For The Twilight” in 1984. ”Power Of The Universe” was released the next year and then shortly after the band split due to musical differences.

In 1999 the band reformed with drummer Jo Amore giving up the drums and becoming the vocalist and frontman The vacant position of drummer was filled by Jo’s brother David. Since then the bands have released five albums, with ”The burden of god” being the sixth since reforming (eighth overall). The band have played several major festivals and toured with bands such as Sabaton and Blind Guardian.

Brief comments on a couple of the songs..

The album opens with an orchestral number, ”Gateways to the void” which is purely instrumental apart from a short s...

Posted in Cd Reviews

London singer-songwriter Lettie’s has released her third album – Good Fortune, Bad Weather. Lettie has been described as a “memory collector”, obsessed with collecting pieces of the past in the forms of books, postcards, second hand shop finds and newspaper clippings.

This memory collecting and accompanying sense of nostalgia is clearly seen in ”Good Fortune, Bad Weather”, which is filled with haunting melodies, lyrics that obsess over the past and classic synth sounds. All this is wrapped up in a modern electro-pop shell.

As well as Lettie, the album has a number of other talented musicians performing on it including Danny Blume, Zachary Alford (Bowie, Springsteen, Stefani), Sara Lee (League of Gentleman, B52s, Gang of Four, Ani diFranco), D. James Goodwin and many others.

Brief c...

Posted in Interviews

I recently spoke with vocalist Joel Ekelof and guitarist Kim Platbarzdis from Soen, shortly before they played their first UK show, supporting Amaranthe at the Garage in London.

Festivalphoto: Soen are a fairly new band, so for the benefit of anyone who hasnt come across Soen yet, can you tell us a little bit about the band?

Kim: We’re from Sweden and America. I think the idea, the original seed to it started as Martin’s side project to Opeth. I got involved in 2004, he was looking for a guitarist, I was looking for a drummer for a band, but we did it this way instead...

Posted in Gig/Festival Reviews

As far as my experience goes in Netherlands or with Dutch people, I can use the word ’practical’ when it comes to describing them. And that is also applied to the Fortarock festival which has the biggest advantage of being a one day festival. A young and growing festival, located in the Brakkenstein park in the city of Nijmegen, walking distance from train or bus stations and starting at noon, its duration makes for such an enjoyable Saturday afternoon. I’ve been to three or four days festivals and while there’s plenty of fun parts in that, I consider that we’re way over the days when people hardly had access to live concerts, hence their desperate need for once a year event where they could see all the big bands during three to seven days...

Posted in Interviews

I spoke to Joel Fox Apelgren, bass player with Dynazty shotly before they performed on stage supporting Amaranthe at the Garage in London, and asked him about their new album and tour plans. As they were running late, we had to keep things very short.

Festivalphoto: Your new album, Sultans of sin has recently been released. Can you tell us a bit about the album?

Joel: It’s an album really in the same sort of style as we’ve done before but we wanted to give it a really modern edge so we implemented that in our writing, and also chose to work with Peter Tägtgren as a producer because he normally produces much heavier and more modern stuff so we thought that would be a really cool clash, and I think it turned out great.

Festivalphoto: Is the name inspired by Dire straits ?

Joel: Definitely...

Posted in Press Releases

RIVAL SONS have confirmed that the title of their brand new studio album will be HEAD DOWN.

The follow-up to the band’s 2011 breakthrough album, PRESSURE & TIME, was recorded in Nashville, Tennessee with Grammy-nominated producer DAVE COBB (JAMIE JOHNSON, SHOOTER JENNINGS) and Grammy-wining engineer VANCE POWELL (JACK WHITE, THE WHITE STRIPES, KINGS OF LEON). The artwork was created by JASON HOLLEY (JOSH RITTER, RAY LAMONTAGNE).

A brand new RIVAL SONS t-shirt featuring the HEAD DOWN artwork is available now in Europe at http://bit.ly/L8MvZb and in North America at http://bit.ly/JY74nv

RIVAL SONS frontman JAY BUCHANAN explains the album title:

”We took a lyric from one of the songs that exemplified the process of making the record...

Posted in Press Releases

Biting Elbows – The self titled album – Misteria Records – July 23rd

www.bitingelbows.com

VIDEO FOR THE STAMPEDE (2 Million Views and Counting): http://tinyurl.com/6kkmghm

VIDEO FOR TOOTHPICK: http://tinyurl.com/d2at574

Russian punks Biting Elbows announce their debut UK album release, a self titled collection of 12 killer, dark, affected punk tracks. Recorded in the darkest recesses of shady Moscow city, the album was put together in a total of 5 studios; the band being moved on from one venue to the next. A Molotov Cocktail of influences, Biting Elbows draw from the likes of Rancid, The Misfits, The Clash, Sublime and Violent Femmes to reach a punk sound of devastating punch and power.

Opening track, and forthcoming single Toothpick gets the record off to a moody start, (calling ...