Posted in Interviews

Festivalphoto journalist Ant May spoke to Dragonland and Amaranthe guitarist, Olof Morck at the Borderline in London shortly before Amaranthe played their first UK headline show on December 12th. The date was extra special for Olof as it was his birthday.

Festivalphoto: The new Dragonland album, ”Under the grey banner” has just been released, can you tell us a bit about the album?

Olof: Its the first Dragonland album in five years and it’s the result of a very ambitious project that we started seriously back in late 2008, but we were playing around with some concepts before that, and it basically looks back to the first two albums we made which were more in the fantasy vein...

Posted in Interviews

Festivalphoto: You last played the UK in 2004 – why the long seven year wait for you to come back?

The Quill: (laughing) that’s a good question, we dont know. We did some shows in Sweden, Holland and Germany then the record company – we broke up with them, then we broke up with the previous manager, then after that the singer left and nothing much happened, it was a downward spiral for a year or two, so we haven’t had the opportunity to do it, and the band didnt really exist for one and a half or two years actually. So that’s the reason. We’ve got a new manager with good connections here in the UK so this is the kick off for us now. We’re playing one show tonight then we’re planning to come back here in March hopefully or January if something works the way we want it...

Posted in Cd Reviews

After a long wait, the new Nightwish album is finally here. The bands fans have been speculating for months about the album and posting links to ”leaked tracks” (inevitably fakes) and excitement has built to such a level that surely the album cannot live up to the level of expectation. Well, after listening to the album I have to say I’m stunned. The album is even better than I’d hoped for – and not just a little bit better – its mindblowingly good.

With this album, Nightwish could have played it safe and released something that was similar to Dark Passion Play but with a few improvements, but they havent taken the easy option – they’ve chosen to go for something that not only contains some stunningly beautiful tracks that Nightwish fans will be comfortable with, but which also contains...

Posted in Cd Reviews

Venom are legends of extreme metal – their second album (Black Metal) gave its name to an entire genre of music, and black metal bands still sing about the same subjects as Venom were doing 20 years ago – the devil, burning churches and so on. Perhaps because of their reputation as an extreme band, I’d somehow never actually listened to them until their new album arrived for me to review.
What a revelation – I’ve definitely been missing out all these years, this is damn good stuff. Black metal bands tend to have growling vocals that normally just don’t work for me – they’re so unintelligile that the singer could be reciting his shopping list and nobody would know...

Posted in Cd Reviews

”Full circle” is hte sixth album by Swedish band, The QUill. Their last album was released in 2006, so it’s been a long wait for fans, but thankfully the wait is over. The Quill have a sound that is a mix of 70s hard rock and 90s stoner rock or grunge. There is also a definite Black Sabbath influence that is noticeable when listening to the album.

Title track ”Full circle” is a stronger track for me than opener ”Sleeping with your enemy”. It’s got a Clutch/stoner rock feel to it

”White flag” is a track with a strong Black Sabbath feel to it particularly in the guitar riffs, but also to an extent in the vocals.

This is a great album that while not completely stoner rock will certainly appeal to fans of that genre, as well as appealing to fans of bands like Black Sabbath.

If you haven’t...

Posted in Cd Reviews

Despite the similarity of the name to the famous movie star, James Deane is actually a talented singer-songwriter from the UK. Blending country, folk, rock and other influences he’s produced a great album. Listening to the album, you can hear the Neil YOung influences, and the opening track, Diamonds & Hearts has a Tom Petty feel to it.

”Diamonds & hearts” is a great song with its Tom Petty feel. It’s probably my favourite song on the album,

”Unwritten song” has a more soulful sound, and is another excellent song.

”Strange emotion” is a slow beautiful song to end the album.

The album is based on some great well-written songs with intelligent thoughtful lyrics, and these are played in a way that sounds deceptively simple, but which contains more depth than you first appreciate...

Posted in Cd Reviews

Iarla Ó Lionáird is an Irish singer best known as the lead singer with Afro Celt sound system, a band that blends traditional Irish music with west african music and modern electronic music.

Foxlight is the third solo album from Iarla Ó Lionáird – which over 14 years isnt many, but this is clearly a man who works at his own pace and releases albums when they are ready rather than to meet a set timetable.

On this album, Iala has included his first song in English – ”Glistening fields”. For people like me who don’t speak or understand Gaelic, the CD booklet helpfully gives the lyrics in English as well as Gaelic – for all except two songs which for some reason arent translated into English.

There are quite a few guest musicians on the album, but for me the one that really stands out is...

Posted in Cd Reviews

Alfonzetti takes its name from singer Matti Alfonzetti who has plenty of experience, having been in several bands including Jagged Edge, Heavy Waters, Skintrade and Bam bam boys. This is pretty much a solo album – the album is very much a work of just two men – Matti Alfonzetti and Daniel Flores. Between them they play all the instruments apart from some lead guitar parts where guest musicians including Marcus Jidell from Evergrey make an appearance. In addition, Alfonzetti wrote and produced all the tracks, and Flores mixed and co-produced them.

For me the best track by far on the album is the last track – ”I will never let you fall”. Heavier than the other tracks, it’s the only time Alfonzetti’s voice shows a bit of power and the heavy guitar riffs make this a very good track.

Some n...

Posted in Cd Reviews

Market Square/Border

Gull Records may not have a ring these days, but they were an interesting indie company in the seventies. If I say that JUDAS PRIEST was on their roster things might clear up. In 1972 vocalist/keyboards/synth etc man Ken Elliott hooked up with drummer/percussionist/xylophonist etc. Kieran O ´Connor. Their aim was to form a band featuring only tangents and drums, no more personnel and no touring. Their focus is very clear from the instrumental opener “Sky Scraper” onwards on their 1974 debut. Ken was then, as well as now, a session musician and a score maker, but the lust to create music was too strong. In the approximately four years the band existed the number of musicians involved grew steadily, from two up to eleven on the follow up “psi-fi”...

Posted in Cd Reviews

Roadrunner/Warner

RUSH is a time machine! Few bands have been around for so long in intact form. Save one drummer change in 1974, the band has always been around Geddy Lee, bass/vocals, Alex Lifeson, guitars and Neil Peart, drums. Their influence on a wide variety of bands, from virtuosos like DREAM THEATER to METALLICA, has been universally known for long. I wonder if they had the faintest idea of the magnitude they were to achieve when they were still struggling in the early seventies...