Posted in Gig/Festival Reviews

Tonight’s show at the IndigO2 was Dr Jimmy Cliff – a Reggae legend, familiar to reggae lovers and to fans of movies including ”Cool Runnings” which featured him singing ”wild world” and ”I can see clearly now”.
There was no support act but instead we had a DJ till shortly before the main event.

The show started with the band coming on stage dressed identically in black trousers and yellow T-shirts before Jimmy Cliff came on in a bright red outfit. Kicking off with ”You can get it if you really want”, Jimmy Cliff had the crowd cheering and dancing almost immediately.
During the show he dedicated the song ”Treat the youths right” to ”the riots that have been going on here”. Jimmy Cliff clearly loves the music and performing and hardly stops moving throughout the night.
Songs including ”Wil...

Posted in Cd Reviews

Hell is a band with a long history – or to be more accurate a band with two short histories. The band was formed in the early 80’s and actually signed to Mausoleum records shortly before it collapsed. The band split and was then reformed in 2008. Since reforming they have signed with Nuclear Blast records and released this, their long awaited debut album. The album has been mixed and produced by one of the top producers in metal these days – Andy Sneap who has mixed or produced albums for a whole hose of top bands including Machine head, Trivium, Devildriver, Exodus, Kreator, Opeth, Arch Enemy and Megadeth...

Posted in Cd Reviews

Dominanz hail from Norway and are a three piece Industrial/Metal band. All three members have been in other bands before including Immortal, Cult of deception and Thy Grief. As you’d expect from a Norwegian metal band, the song titles and lyrics tend to be fairly dark and moody. The lyrics include subjects such as depictions of erotic oppression, slavery and ways to dominate fellow man – as I said, dark subjects.

Ok, so what to expect musically? Industrial is a term that seems to cover a huge spectrum of bands, but the best known is obviously Rammstein, and they are probably a good comparison – there’s lots of power in the music but its a slower pace than say a typical thrash or death metal band...

Posted in Cd Reviews

Frontiers/BAM

TOBY HITCHCOOK made the spotlight as vocalist of SURVIVOR founding member JIM PETERIK´s latest venture PRIDE OF LIONS. He did it to such an extent that he was awarded the opportunity to debut as a solo artist on the same label. He has been compared to the likes of LOU GRAMM (ex. FOREIGNER) or JIMI JAMISON (ex. SURVIVOR), and a young vocalist can do far worse… While waiting for the next PRIDE OF LIONS album in 2012, we leave the stage to Toby, augmented by Swedish talent Erik Mårtensson, who handles all instruments.

This is not child´s play. From the first chord on it is evident that Toby means business, and that he has been well reinforced by the multi talents of Erik...

Posted in Cd Reviews

Massacre/Sound Pollution

Since early 1987 SOLITUDE AETURNUS has been master of gloom and doom in the US. After some line-up changes the band consisted of, John Perez and Edgar Rivera on guitars, vocalist Robert Lowe (also in CANDLEMASS these days), Lyle Steadham on bass and drummer John “Wolf” Covington. 1990 saw their full-length debut, “Into the Depth of Sorrow”, which has been followed by five more releases. But setbacks and member changes has prevented the same road to success as CANDLEMASS. Various labels have come and gone, but Massacre seems to remain. The underground legend has grown and developed, and I believe the time is right for a full-fledged reunion. But, alas, in the meantime we´ll make do with this compilation of demos. And this is not just any old demos...

Posted in Cd Reviews

Frontiers/BAM

XORIGIN? And a space opera cover at that, who are they and why do they even bother? Well, their first band name was actually ORANGE CRUSH, which makes anything else a major improvement, and the men behind the moniker are Norwegian session singer Johannes Stole and Daniel Palmqvist of MURDER OF MY SWEET. To put more emphasis on the possibilities of the band I might add that drums and production are handled by Daniel Flores (MURDER OF MY SWEET, and almost everyone else). Hey-ho, let´s go!

The spaced out intro part of opener “Can´t Keep Running” reveals nothing of what´s to come. But as openers go, it is a wise choice and the best track on offer. The rest of the album dips between ok and above average...

Posted in Cd Reviews

Frontiers/BAM

JORN LANDE, the man, the myth, the … legend. Is the missing word rising or fading? Here JORN is captured live at the Sweden Rock Festival in 2010. Jorn, backed by guitarists Tore Moen and Tor Erik Myre, bass player Nic Angileri and drummer Willy Bendiksen were well enough received and lauded, but what was delivered. I saw the band live at the Zaragon last year, and the track list seems familiar. The bonus material once again contains the much touted “Song for Ronnie James”, as expected as the “Man on the Silver Mountain-infusion” in closing track “War of the World”. But what about the performance and the impression after a few spins?

From track one, the changes to the seemingly cemented mid-pace are few. Exactly like the gig I saw...

Posted in Cd Reviews

Napalm/Sound Pollution

”From the far north of Iceland, the Viking horde SKÁLMÖLD springs to life with a blistering album”. Thus begins the info sheet, but is it blistering as in swell or, as Captain Haddock put it, “Blistering barnacles!”? The concept circles around the dramatic events of the Icelandic Viking Baldur. A demon-like creature destroys his family and sets him on the trail of revenge together with his two remaining cronies. The final victory comes with a prize…

Let´s just say that this is better than TYR, so, that settles another presumed Icelandic fight. I quite like the “BATHORY-light” that SKÁLMÖLD produces, and the husky voice of the real life Baldurs of the band, one of them is really called Baldur, suits the music like a glove...

Posted in Cd Reviews

Newman is the project of singer/guitarist Steve Newman. Although there is a full band (pictured on the back of the CD cover) they don’t appear on the album. The album is almost wholly the work of Steve Newman who sings as well as playing keyboards and guitar – a drummer who isnt in the live band (Rob McEwen) was the only other musician involved apart from one song (If he loves you) where Shaun Bessant from the live band appears on guitar. It does beg the question – why when there is a full band for live shows do they not appear on the album?

Listening to the album, I’m afraid none of the songs jump out as great songs. Equally none of the songs are really bad – they’re all fairly good songs, there’s just nothing special here...

Posted in Cd Reviews

Australian melodic rockers White Widdow were formed in 2008 and released their self titled debut album in November 2010 to great acclaim. Its a surprise then to see their second album being released towards the end of September 2011 – these days a 10 month gap between albums is almost unheard of with bands typically spending well over a year touring in support of the album before startign work on the next one.

For those of you who havent heard White Widdow before, the one line summary is that they have a very 1980’s melodic rock sound, with plenty of catchy choruses.

Comments on a few of the songs..

”Do you remember” sounds to be strongly influenced by Def Leppard, particularly the Hysteria album – there are parts of the music in this song that sound like they’d be perfectly at home on th...