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...

Posted in Cd Reviews

”Five Serpents teeth” is the third album from Yorkshire Thrashers Evile.

Comments on a few of the tracks.

”Five Serpents Teeth” starts with a slow menacing sounding build-up before the song proper kicks in guitar and bass work that has a real Metallica Feel.

”In dreams of terror” is a faster song with some finger shredding guitar work from Ol Drake and rapid pounding drums from Ben Carter.

”Cult” is a great song and its intelligent lyrics couple with the chant of ”Cult” during the chorus make this song stand out.

”In memoriam” deserves special mention. Written in memory of their former bassist Mike Alexander who died at a tragically young age in 2009, this track is as close to a ballad as Evile are ever likely to get...

Posted in Cd Reviews

Famoüs Jameson is a young Swedish band. Formed in the summer of 2010, the band have already played plenty of gigs in Sweden and will be playing on the Rockbitch cruise later this year.
The band list influences including Mötley Crüe, Aerosmith, Guns’n Roses, Metallica, Skid Row & Accept – all 80’s bands with a bias towards glam/sleaze. Judging by their influences and the publicity photograph then I’m expecting an 80’s sleaze sound to be apparent in the music, but the only way to know is to listen to the songs as appearances can sometimes be deceptive. A listen to the three tracks here confirm the 80’s sleaze influences.

”Twelve steps to insanity” starts off with some good guitar work – with it starting as guitar in one speaker before it comes in on the other speaker too...

Posted in Cd Reviews

Nemhain are a sleazy, gritty sounding punk rock band from London. Fronted by the gorgeous and talented singer Amber Elandsson, Nemhain also includes her well known husband Adrian Erlansson on drums (Cradle of Filth, At the Gates), Lisa Dickinson on bass and backing vocals as well as Lakis Kyriacou and Sam Astley on guitars.

Nemhain have released The Murder Mile EP to keep fans happy while they wait for the bands next album. For a limited period the EP is available as a FREE download (a very nice gesture) – check out their facebook page, website etc for details on where to get the EP.

”Natural born sinners” is a great opener to the EP. Its a great song with plenty of pace, plenty of power from the guitars and a great drumbeat, and Amber’s vocals giving it that sleazy feel...

Posted in Interviews

Festivalphoto recently interviewed Bai Bang singer Diddi Kastenholt.

Festivalphoto: Hey Diddi… You’ve just released your new album, “Livin’ My Dream” on AOR Heaven. Can you tell us a bit about the songs on the album?

Diddi: Hallo to you Anthony! Well, we started to write songs almost right after the last album ”Are you Ready”, and it’s been a good journey!!! We wanted to do an even better album than the last one if at all possible? We had a lot of good reviews all over the world for ”Are You Ready”, but we knew we could still improve...

Posted in Cd Reviews

Serpentine are one of the new wave of metlodic rock bands, and are growing in popularity. At the moment though they’re a slightly odd band as the lineup you may have seen on tour earlier in the year and which will be on the next tour, is different to the lineup that is on the album.
The difference in lineup is in vocalists – the current vocalist is Matt Black (who does an excellent job in the live shows), but on the album it’s Tony Mills (TNT, Shy etc). Under normal circumstances, Matt Black would have done the vocals on the new album but due to contractual issues (the band had a signed contract to record two albums with Tony Mills) then this their second album has been recorded with Tony Mills.
It’s only the Japanese who get to hear Matt Black’s vocals on the album – the Japanese specia...

Posted in Interviews

Festivalphoto interviewed Kreator founder and frontman Miland ’Mille’ Petrozza shortly before they played the main stage at this years Bloodstock festival.

Festivalphoto: You started writing new material for a new album to follow the 2009 ”hordes of chaos” album earlier this year. Will you be recording the album in live conditions as you did with ”Hordes Of Chaos”?

Mille: We’ll see, I mean we definitely want to get in one room together to do the basics. Yeah we talked about it with our new producer Jens Bogren and we’ll see what happens – whatever is best for the music...

Posted in Interviews

Festivalphoto interviewed Elize and Olof from Amaranthe at this years Bloodstock festival.

Festivalphoto: First of all, well done on a great set on the Jaegermeister acoustic stage earlier.

Olof: Thanks for being there and watching the show.

Festivalphoto: OK, first of all, for the benefit of anyone who hasn’t heard of Amaranthe yet, can you tell us a bit about the band?

Olof: The main thing that people keep asking us about is the main thing about the band – we have three vocalists, which is one female vocalist – Elize, one male clean vocalist which is Jake and one growler which is Andy so that really contributes to creating quite a unique sound but for us its definitely not a gimmick – ”oh look at us just because we have three singers”...