Posted in Cd Reviews

Lifeforce/Sound Pollution

Marios Iliopulos & Co., also known as NIGHTRAGE, sure have made their mark in metal history. Since their formation in 2000 they have released five studio albums, filled with melodic death metal, thrash, progressivity and some serious guitar work. Once sporting ex AT THE GATES vocalist Tomas Lindberg, the band now consists of Marios and Olof Mörck on guitars, bass man Anders Hammer, vocalist Antony Hämäläinen, and drummer Jo Nunez. This new album has been much anticipated, no more guessing, here goes…

The sixth album (including a compilation), that surely means they are past the most difficult stages. They seem a relaxed band as they commence with an intro of ok style. But “Delirium of the Fallen” is the sign of greatness...

Posted in Gig/Festival Reviews

Tyskarna krossar allt i sin väg!

Udo Dirkschneider. Den lille mannen med den stora rösten!
59 fortsätter att imponera med sin speciella röst som är lika rasslig som alltid.

Den nya turnén som är baserad på senaste släppet REV RAPTOR har nått Sverige. Först ut för att smaka på tyskarnas artilleri är KB i Malmö. Tyvärr bemöter vi inte tyskarna med en fullsatt lokal, som de utsålda spelningarna i Finland i veckan. Istället får UDO nöja sig med en halvfull lokal men får en energirik publik istället. De ca 350 personerna som var där visade att de kan stå upp för Malmö i alla fall.

Första låten, albumtiteln Rev Raptor var en kick-ass låt att köra över publiken med. Klassiskt UDO-tyngd med en djupt tuggande melodi...

Posted in Cd Reviews

Music Buy Mail/Sound Pollution

HOLY FORCE may sound pretentious, but why not? Behind the moniker stand; Mark Boals (ex. YNGWIE MALMSTEEN, ex. ROYAL HUNT), Mike LePond of SYMPHONY X and SEVEN WITCHES, Kenny (Rhino) Earl (ex. MANOWAR, ANGELS OF BABYLON) and Taiwan hot shot guitarist Ango Chen, most known for his work with MIKE VESCERA. This experienced lot has joined forces to play something melodic. So, impress me!

After a somewhat inauspicious start with the self-titled opener and “Flying”, the non-descript instrumental “Breathe” leaves me with a lot more to desire. And that is exactly what will happen. “Seasons” is the logical continuation to the previous instrumental, providing meaning to the latter. The pace quickens and Mar´s vocals seem to be right there when the tough gets going...

Posted in Cd Reviews

Massacre/Sound Pollution

Fellow Swedes SILVERDOLLAR used to play covers (I´ve seen them) but opted for an original repertoire in 2002. Their first release, “Covers from Hell” was of cause a covers album, but since 2005 they have marketed their own material. Their first full-length, “Evil Never Sleeps” popped up in 2007, so this is the follow-up to was quite likeable. Now they have hooked up with Massacre for worldwide release, will this be their big moment?

The rather flat opening tracks, “CO2” and “Damage Done”, says that the damage is done. SILVERDOLLAR is all about old school hard rock/heavy metal, hence the tag “likeable”. But they initially comes across as an old major band on half-hiatus...

Posted in Cd Reviews

The new Machine Head album is finally here. There’s been a lot of speculation about whether or not they’ll be able to live up to the high standard set by The Blackening, but when you give Unto the locust a listen then you’ll soon find out they’ve surpassed themselves – this could well be their best album yet.

The first minute of the opening track will have Machine Head fans panicking on their first listen – some soft chanting choral vocals hardly sounds like something you’d expect from a Machine Head album, but that’s how they’ve chosen to open the album.
Thankfully after a minute the guitars kick in and we’re back to what we love from Machine Head – some seriously powerful metal.
In fact the song quickly turns into some seriously heavy thrash metal !

There is plenty of variety in this al...

Posted in Cd Reviews

Dead by April hail from Gothenburg, Sweden and are a band who are likely to divide opinion amongst metal fans. Their musical style is hard to categorise as it doesnt fit into any of the neat genres that reviewers often love to use. Dead by April blend synth-rich pop music with death metal screams/growls and clean vocals. If this description sounds at all familiar then you’ve probably listened to fellow Swedish band Amaranthe who produce a similar blend of musical styles. A major difference is that Amaranthe use clean female vocals in addition to the clean male vocals and male growls which gives them more depth and variety than Dead by April are able to manage.

This is a very difficult style of music to succeed with – for many metal fans this is too much like pop, but for many pop fans t...

Posted in Interviews

Festivalphoto spoke with Matt and Joel from Evile just before their album launch party show at the Relentless Garage in London on 29/9/11

Festivalphoto: You’ve just released your new album – Five serpents teeth, which sounds great. Can you tell us a bit about the album?

Joel: It has music on it, its the third one, ten tracks, and we started writing it while we were in America actually, when we started doing it while we were on an RV bouncing around the highways of America whch was a bit uncomfortable. If anyone says to you that an RV is a good idea, don’t listen to them, it’s a very bad idea.
Matt: Yeah it came out on Monday so we’ll wait and see how all the reviews go and whether people buy it. Its gone well so far.

Festivalphoto: There are a couple of songs that stand out on the album ...

Posted in Gig/Festival Reviews

First up tonight on a packed bill is Fallen Fate. When they take to the stage the venue is pretty quiet – many fans are either stil on their way or are still in a nearby pub, but Fallen Fate dont let this bother them and put in a good heavy performance.

Second up tonight are Nightlord – an old thrash band who announce that tonight is their first gig for 17 years as they have recently reformed. Unsurprisingly they have an old-school thrash sound and for me they blew fallen fate away, and were actually the best support of the night.

Next up were Irish thrashers Gama Bomb. Their humourous style of thrash went down well and they got a good response when they tried some audience participation.

When Onslaught finally take the stage, everything steps up another level – the sound gets louder, t...

Posted in Cd Reviews

”Welcome 2 my nightmare” is the latest album from Rock legend Alice Cooper. The album is intended as a sequel to his 1975 hit album ”Welcome to my nightmare”. Musically its much more like ”Welcome to my nightmare” than it is to his more recent albums.
The album has cleverly incorporated themes from ”Welcome to my nightmare” into this new album – a short piano refrain for instance.

The album is incredibly diverse. While many bands try to incorporate a change of pace or two to add variety, Alice Cooper has produced a wide range of radically different sounds into the album, and yet still managed to tie them together to sound like they belong together – the nightmare concept helps in this respect.

Comments on a few of the songs….

The album starts with ”I am made of you”, which immediately l...

Posted in Cd Reviews

If this album sounds familiar it’s because it was released last year on Powerage records, but now The Treatment have signed with a major label, Spinefarm it is now receiving a re-issue through Spinefarm which should bring it to the attention of a far wider audience. The album has been fully re-mastered and comes with two bonus tracks, so even fans who bought the original release will be tempted by this re-release.

The band only formed in 2008 so are doing amazingly well for such a new young band – to have their debut album released then to be snapped up by a major label who then re-release the album is impressive. They certainly deserve it though they put on great live shows and the album is excellenr – more on that below.

The Treatment have a sound influenced by classic rock bands and sl...