Posted in Cd Reviews

The Hunt is the sixth studio album from Swedish three-piece metal band Grand Magus. This latest album has a real 70s hard rock/heavy metal sound. Rival Sons have shown recently that a 70s sound can be brought up to date and sound fresh and still retain that classic hard rock sound, and now Grand Magus have done the same.

Listening to the album you can certainly pick out some of the influences – Deep Purple, Rainbow, Dio, and Judas Priest.

Opening track ”Starlight slaughter” would feel at home on a Deep Purple or Rainbow album particularly with its chorus. This is a great track and really sets the standard for the rest of the album to try and beat.

”The Hunt” has a good heavy guitar riff and good solid drums, and later on includes some nice guitar work – all in all a good strong song.

”...

Posted in Cd Reviews

Saxon have just released ”Heavy metal thunder – Eagles over Wacken” in a variety of formats. The first is a DVD + 2CD’s. The DVD is a ”Best of” compilation of Saxon’s performances at Wacken Open Air from 2004,2007,2009. The CD’s are the band’s live show at Glasgow in April 2011. The second option is a single DVD – the same ”best of” disc as in the first option. The third option is a double CD of the band’s 2009 Wacken performance. There is a vinyl album version available – again of the 2009 Wacken performance, spread over 3 LPs.

The ultimate edition though has to be the version only available for fans to order via the bands website and limited to 500 copies...

Posted in Cd Reviews

Saxon have just released ”Heavy metal thunder – Eagles over Wacken” in a variety of formats. The first is a DVD + 2CD’s. The DVD is a ”Best of” compilation of Saxon’s performances at Wacken Open Air from 2004,2007,2009. The CD’s are the band’s live show at Glasgow in April 2011. The second option is a single DVD – the same ”best of” disc as in the first option. The third option is a double CD of the band’s 2009 Wacken performance. There is a vinyl album version available – again of the 2009 Wacken performance, spread over 3 LPs.

The ultimate edition though has to be the version only available for fans to order via the bands website and limited to 500 copies...

Posted in Cd Reviews

Carolus Rex is the seventh studio album from Swedish power metal band Sabaton. The album comes at a time of change for the band, with the band changing it’s lineup radically in the time between finishing the album and it’s release. Four members have left and been replaced, with only Pär Sundström and Joakim Brodén remaining. Sadly this has inevitably distracted attention away from the forthcoming album which is a shame as the album is excellent.
For the new album Sabaton have abandoned their usual lyrical themes of World War 2 and instead have made a concept album about the Swedish Empire in the period 1561-1721.

The album will be released in two versions – Swedish or English...

Posted in Cd Reviews

This new EP from The Treatment was originally recorded and released for Record store day, and was only available in very limited quantities (only 300 copies were produced and all were signed by the band) from a proper record shop, not online. Thankfully though for those of us who missed out, Spinefarm are making the EP widely available from 16th May.

Before getting to the music, lets start with the packaging. There’s a nice Star Wars style cover, and inside it doesnt just tell you what the songs are that are on the EP, it tells you why they chose to do each of the songs (all are cover versions). That for me was a really nice touch – there are thousands of great songs out there, so to get some insight into why a band has chosen a particular song to cover is unusual and interesting.

The...

Posted in Cd Reviews

The Imagined Village is a folk musical project founded by Simon Emmerson of the Afro Celt Sound System. Aiming to produce modern folk music that represents modern multiculturalism in the United Kingdom, it features musicians from a wide variety of ethnic and cultural backgrounds. Martin Carthy says ‘The Imagined Village was an experiment started back in 2004 to see if trad and non trad musicians could work together on what was largely my back catalogue, something I was only too happy to engage in…”...

Posted in Cd Reviews

“Chasing The Night” is the second album from Leeds singer/songwriter Rupert Stroud. Mixing alternative, indie, rock and acoustic the album is an interesting mix of influences. The lyrics are semi autobiographical and are emotive and at times thought provoking. The album has been produced by Will Jackson (The Kaiser Chiefs, Embrace, The Cribs and The Music) at the Soundworks Studios in Leeds

Cynics would say that ”singer songwriter” is a glorified name for a busker, which I have to admit in some cases is probably true, but in some cases then it’s an unfair criticism. Singer songwrite could also be descibed as ”solo artist who doesnt fit neatly into any of the usual musical genres” – Rupert Stroud falls into this latter category...

Posted in Cd Reviews

Deals Death are a melodic death metal band from Sweden that was formed in 2007. An early lineup of the band featured members of Sabaton. Based in Gothenburg, this is their second album. The first album was released in 2008 and was only available digitally. Since then the band has changed it’s lineup and worked on their second album, Elite, which was recorded in May 2010 – presumably the delay of two years in releasing it has been partly down to finding a suitable record deal. The band are now signed to Spinefarm and have just released Elite .

With nine songs and clocking in at just 34 minutes this isnt the longest album in the world, but Deals Death aren’t alone in producing a short album sadly, and with genres like death metal it is more acceptable – a 34 minute Prog album would be u...

Posted in Cd Reviews

At the beginning of June, Jettblack are due to release their second album, Raining Rock. Before then we have the first single from the album being released. For the single they’ve chosen the title track of the album – Raising Rock. I can see that causing a bit of confusion with people asking when ”Raising rock” will be released – the date depends if they mean the single or the album.

I’ll say one thing, if the title track is any indication of how good the album will be then I suggest you don’t waste any time and order the album now. This is one hell of a good track – well written with a great catchy chorus. Great vocals, some nice guitar work and pounding drums, this is probably one of the best songs Jettblack have released so far.

The B sides (for those that don’t know why they’re ca...

Posted in Cd Reviews

”Stones grow her name” is the oddly named seventh album from Sonata Arctica. It’s been three years since the veteran Finnish Power Metallers released their last album (The days of grays). With all six of their earlier albums going Gold in Finland then they obviously have a lot to live up to.

Some brief comments on a few of the songs…

”Shitload o’ money” is an unusual name for a song, but lets be honest the name is fairly unimportant as long as the song itself is good enough, and this song is certainly a good strong song.

”Cinderblox” is an unusual track – totally unlike the rest of the album. It opens with a rapid melody on the banjo before the rest of the band kick in giving it a Hillbilly heavy metal feel...