Posted in Cd Reviews

To celebrate the 40th anniversary of the classic T-Rex album, Electric Warrior, Universal are re-releasing the album with a whole host of extras. There are several different versions being released – a Deluxe, Super-Deluxe, a special vinyl and digital exclusive editions.

The core of each edition is the album, re-mastered by original producer Tony Visconti. The album comes with four bonus tracks – the non-album single, “Hot Love” (No. 1 in February 1971) plus the B-sides “There Was A Time / Raw Ramp”, “King Of The Mountain Cometh” and “Woodland Rock”.

The second disc in the Deluxe and Super-Deluxe editions opens with Marc Bolan reciting a previously unreleased poem titled “The Electric Warrior” which was recorded for a US Radio promo that is featured in full at the end of...

Posted in Cd Reviews

Primal Rock Rebellion is a new band that has been formed by two well known UK musicians – Adrian Smith (Iron Maiden) and Mikee Goodman (Sikth). Their debut single was released on 6th February, and now their debut album, Awoken Broken, is available.

The music features some great guitar melodies and is slightly heavier than Iron Maiden with more of an edgy feel to it. The vocals are mainly the normal style of rock/metal singing (as opposed to screaming, growling etc), and are extremely good. I must admit to never having listened to Sikth so I can’t say if Mikee Goodmans vocals here are a similar style to his vocals with Sikth – all I can say is that they’re great here...

Posted in Cd Reviews

”The art of metal” is the second album from Swedish all-female metal band, Hysterica. For anyone who hasnt listened to Hysterica before, these ladies don’t play gothic or symphonic metal – they play proper old school metal. Since releasing their debut album, Metalwar, Hysterica have recruited a keyboard player which does seem from listening to this new album, to enhance their sound without detracting from the traditional metal feel of the music.
The album was produced by Pontus Norgren (HAMMERFALL) and Marcus Jidell (EVERGREY).

As with the first album, the lyrics can be slightly cheesy at times, but then that’s a trait fairly common in heavy metal.

There are some great songs on the album – ”Heels of steel” and ”Fighters of the century” in particular...

Posted in Gig/Festival Reviews

Utsåld premiär på The Tivoli =Bäddat för fest

Turnépremiär i Helsingborg för Mustasch med deras nya Sounds Like Hell, Looks Like Heaven. The Tivoli hade förärats detta kungliga besök från Göteborg. Nu med en helsingborgare bakom batteriet – Jejo Perkovic, som (tillfälligt?) ersatt avhoppande Danne McKenzie.

Premiären med sitt nya band på ”hemmaplan” började lite skakigt, för hela bandet. Första två låtarna Speed Metal och The Challenger kändes Mustasch trötta och oengagerade men det vände när de pressade ut Never Too Late. En riktigt skön låt med både bra text och musik. Ljudbilden är aningen fläskigare än tidigare.

De har en egen ljusrigg med sig och har stora ljusväggar som tar ordentligt med plats på scenen och gör att pågarna på scenen blir fastlimm...

Posted in Press Releases

Texan electronic metallers THE BROWNING have confirmed a US tour with industrial metal titans FEAR FACTORY.

The tour is scheduled to kick off on May 1st in San Antonio, Texas, and also includes SHADOWS FALL, THE DEVASTATED and LEGACY OF DISORDER.

THE BROWNING drummer NOAH ”SHARK” ROBERTSON comments:

”We are extremely excited to be touring with such legendary bands in the metal scene as Fear Factory and Shadows Fall. We really look up to these bands that helped pave the way for the metal of today, and we’re definitely inspired by their ability to stick around for so long doing this, especially Fear Factory, being that they are one of the pioneers of the industrial metal genre. Also, we can’t wait to hit the road again with our good friends in The Devastated...

Posted in Press Releases

Canadian heavy metal trio CAULDRON will kick off their headlining European tour tonight – Friday, 25th February – in Bielefeld, Germany.

The band will be headbanging around Europe for 3 weeks on the ”Burning Europe” tour in support of their latest album, BURNING FORTUNE. Joining them on the road are fellow Canadian metallers STRIKER.

CAULDRON vocalist and bassist JASON DECAY comments:

”Just packing up here in Toronto and getting ready to leave Canada and go burn Europe for a few weeks. We’re really looking forward to this as it’s long overdue! We’ve been working on some new stuff for the set; stuff we never played before and some new material as well. Sorry to the fans in the UK, Sweden, and Greece who have been bugging us to come back, we tried to but it was beyond our control...

Posted in Cd Reviews

Silent Opera are an Italian band formed in 2007. They released a demo in early 2010 which was well received, and have now released their debut album – Immortal Beauty.
The musical style is symphonic metal, with powerful operatic style vocals. This will inevitably lead to comparisons with Tarja Turunen and Nightwish. The vocals are certainly very good – crystal clear, powerful, and well suited to the music.

”Always with you” stands out from the rest of the album as its one of the only tracks to use male vocals as well as the female ones. Unusually for a symphonic metal band they have opted not to use the beauty and the beast style – clean female vocals with grunts and growls from the male vocalist. Instead the male vocals are sung as well, and the track works very well.

The other trac...

Posted in Cd Reviews

Unisonic may be a new name on the metal scene, but a lot of people will be drooling in anticipation at the thought of records and gigs from the band. The reason? Simple, it’s who makes up the band that is exciting. The band was founded by Michael Kiske (Helloween, Avantasia etc), and for the first time in 20 years, sees him working with Helloween founder Kai Hansen. The pairing of Hansen and Kiske, who worked together on what are widely regarded as Helloweens greatest albums – Keeper of the seven keys parts 1 & 2, is sure to excite fans. Making up the rest of the band are some other equally talented musicians – Mandy Meyer (Gotthard, Krokus, Asia), Dennis Ward (Pink cream 69) and Kosta Zafiriou (Pink cream 69).

This EP (or Mini album as they have described it) is just a taster before ...

Posted in Press Releases

Following the brilliant PEEP EP, the spectral Pinkunoizu are set to release their debut album, Free Time!, on Full Time Hobby. Named after the Japanese word for “pink noise” and based in Copenhagen and Berlin, multiculturalism is at the forefront of this band’s world – they play an exotic mixture of lo-fi, high-life, nu-folklore, ’60s Asian pop and post-apocalyptic future rock. “Most of what I write comes from picking up exciting words or phrases from wherever I stumble upon them,” says chief songwriter Andreas Pallisgaard. “Or maybe it simply comes from floating around like some empty receptor, open to letting the language of the world flow through me.”

Self-recorded in the rehearsal rooms in the German and Danish capitals, Pinkunoizu’s debut album is a meditation on the...

Posted in Press Releases

US folkstress Jenny Gillespie’s Belita EP out April 16th, featuring three collaborations with Sam Amidon

Jenny Gillespie’s new EP Belita is an intoxicating blend of folk, indie pop and post-rock. Produced by Jenny and multi-instrumentalist Shahzad Ismaily (Jolie Holland, Bonnie Prince Billy, Lou Reed) this is her third release after the lush chamber folk of Light Year (2009) and the ambient progressive pop of Kindred (2010).

After these musical journeys and turning thirty, Gillespie became more and more drawn to acoustic-based music, returning to the sound she loved when she first picked up a guitar as a teenager. She wanted to strip things down, while maintaining a slanted, atmospheric element to her work...