Posted in Cd Reviews

Universal have been steadily re-releasing a string of albums over the last couple of years as Deluxe editions with lots of extra material thrown in. They’ve covered a wide range of artists across a range of genres, but now it’s the turn of 80’s pop band Transvision Vamp with their two hit albums, ”Velveteen” and ”Pop art” getting the deluxe edition treatment. Unlike many of the 80s pop acts, Transvision Vamp weren’t a polished result of the Stock-Aitken-Waterman hit factory, but instead combined a punk sound with pop to make some great music which had a lot more of a kick than most of the other music in the charts.

Pop art was the band’s first album and it reached number four in the UK album charts...

Posted in Cd Reviews

Kompendium is more an ensemble of musicians than a band as such. It brings together for this project an amazing lineup which includes an amazing array of talent including former and current members of bands including Genesis, It Bites, Porcupine tree, Nightwish, Pendragon, King Crimson, Camel, Magenta and many more, along with a choir, an orchestra and opera singers – see below for a fuller list of the people involved. The aim was to create a concept album on the scale of ”War of the worlds” – while there have been many concept albums in recent years they’ve almost all been pretty much a normal album by a band but with a common story running through the songs...

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British heavy metal legends Saxon are back with their latest album – Sacrifice. It’s their 20th studio album in their 34 year career (they’ve also released 9 live albums and several compilations). The band’s last studio album, Call to arms, was a great album, so expectations for Sacrifice are high. The album was recorded at LS Studios in Yorkshire and was produced by Biff Byford with Andy Sneap mixing and engineering by Jacky Lehmann.

As usual the album will be available in a variety of formats – the standard CD, the limited edition CD which includes a bonus disc , Vinyl picture disc, digital download, and a direct to consumer (D2C) edition. Although details haven’t been released of what will be in the D2C version, they are usually impressive packages aimed at hardcore fans...

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Thyrfing are a Swedish metal band that are often described as Viking metal or Pagan metal. The band take their name from Norse mythology – “Thyrfing” is a royal sword, a cursed blade that appears in several tales and myths. The band was formed in 1995 and released their first album in 1998 (the self titled Thyrfing). Since then they have released five further albums at intervals of 2-3 years, and after a gap of almost five years they’re back with their seventh studio album – De Ödeslösa. The album was mixed and mastered by Jens Bogren (Opeth, Paradise Lost, Witchcraft) at Fascination Street Studios.

Although there are only 8 sonsg on the album, the songs are all quite long – averaging around 6 minutes each, so the album is a good 48 minutes in length – more than enough to keep m...

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Swedish metal band Enforcer are back with their latest album, ”Death by fire”. It’s their third album, and their first for their new record label, Nuclear Blast.
The album clocks in at around 35 minutes – like all of Enforcer’s albums, it’s deliberately been kept under 40 minutes. Singer Olof Wikstrand explains : “We write all music for the vinyl format and a normal LP can never be longer than 19 minutes on each side without losing sound quality. None of my favourite records are longer than 39 minutes anyway. It’s the perfect length both in that sense as well as keeping up an interest from the listener throughout the whole record.” With the resurgence of interest in vinyl, then it probably makes good commercial sense to remember it’s limitations and time the album accordingly.

Th...

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Frontiers/BAM

SNAKECHARMER, the name itself implicates WHITESNAKE DNA. And the truth is that there is as much WHITESNAKE here, at least, as in the version fronted by DAVID COVERDALE these days. At least if you´re a devotee of the band´s earlier works – like me. Feature here are Mr. slide guitar himself, Micky Moody, who spent 1977-83 in WHITESNAKE, and well-travelled bass wizard Neil Murray, who served betwixt 1977-87. Reinforcing this endeavor are ex. WISHBONE ASH (1974-85) guitarist Laurie Wisefield, journeyman drummer Harry James (THUNDER, MAGNUM), keyboard player Adam akeman (OZZY, BLACK SABBATH, HEADSPACE) and under-appreciated vocalist Chris Ousey (ex. VIRGINIA WOLF, HEARTLAND, solo). So, will this lot give David Coverdale a run for the money?

First up this is not in any way rela...

Posted in Press Releases

A couple of young, fresh and talented band from the Swedish music-legend, now depart to a common tour around the North, to mock the postponed ’end of the world’.

The Drake Equation: a young metalcore band with pop, jazz and electronic influences from Västerås, has been in the final of the biggest rock talent competition in Sweden, in Released Live and Unsigned. „We did not win but we got a lot new friends!”- said the five boys. „It was really fun, overall.”

Now, they are on tour with three other young rock-metal groups, forming together the Afterlife tour, going ahead colonizing and fascinating the Swedish rock world totally. Then I asked them, about future plans, and now eveything is clear. „During the tour, we will release our EP, called ’Variables’, sometimes in February...

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Sony Music Entertainment

30 years on HELLOWEEN release their 14th studio album, and they must be content. The first 5-6 years must have been fun, the next 3 disastrous, only to rise again with the splendid “Master of the Rings” in 1994. But member changes have been many and I dare say that I´ve not heard all that much about them until they returned with what was deemed full force in 2010. Since “7 Sinners” they have been much talked about and here is a splendid moment to capture on their latter day success. Will they do just that?

The nucleus of the ubiquitous guitarist Michael Weikath and bassist Markus Grosskopf are enforced by vocalist Andi Deris (since 1993), and guitarist Sascha Gerstner (2002 onwards) and drummer Daniel Löble, who came aboard in 2005...

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Frontiers/BAM

Reunited veterans ASIA, with all original members on board when this album was released, are somewhat productive with live albums. This is the third since their revival, and they seemed to think that “Fantasia” was too polished and “Spirit of the Night” a festival document. This one is said to be the band resonating an in your face “Omega” night in Central Europe. Let´s see if this one does them justice.

The track list is quite in favor of “Omega”, with highlights such as the classic ASIA tinged “Holy War” and the keyboard heavy “End of the World”. But I still think that the most tender moment of latter years is “An Extraordinary Life”, with its reality-based theme...

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Frontiers/BAM

NEAL SCHON is perhaps one of the world´s most recognized guitarists. From his early days, 15 years of age, with SANTANA to the second coming of JOURNEY he has kept his calendar busy like few others. 19 top 40 singles, 25 gold and platinum discs speak for themselves too. Now he somehow found time off from JOURNEY to reunite with the bands former drummer Steve Smith, keyboard players Igor Len and Jan Hammer. All strings arrangements come courtesy of the guitarist himself. Next stop is more concerts with JOURNEY, so how did this squeeze job come out?
First up this is a mixed bag of styles including just about everything Neal has tried out during his career. I personally prefer the rock and blues tracks, especially the very emotional notes of slow blues track “Blue Rainbow”...