Posted in Cd Reviews

Frontiers/BAM

Frontiers seem to house most of the old SURVIVOR squad, and here goes Jim Peterik again. His fruitful venture as PRIDE OF LIONS together with the voice of Toby Hitchcock has more albums to their belt with this one. Offering a mix of ballads and rockers in the melodic rock vein the dynamic duo hopes to break it big in the US, which obviously hasn´t happened yet.

This album is more of a mixed bag that I thought. It has the big sounding five-star ballad, e.g. “Everything that Money Can´t Buy”, the catchy mastership of “Coin of the Realm” and the aged smokey rock of the long-time developed “Vital Signs”...

Posted in Cd Reviews

Lion Music/Border

Italian band LORD OF MUSHROOMS returns with their third album after seven years in limbo. In the late 90´s guitarist Laurent James and bassist Julien Negro founded the band. They started out playing covers, went through the usual lineup changes before slowly transforming into the band of today. Fronted today by ex. ADAGIO vocalist “Gus” Monsanto, the rest of the ranks are made up by keyboard playing clarinet man Luca Mariotti and drummer Marco Talevi. Always allowing themselves five years between albums the question is whether the gaps have done them good.

To be precise, the only weak moment here is the less lavish “Awaken”. Otherwise this is a myriad of riffs, movements, rhythms, refrains, variation, and arrangements...

Posted in Cd Reviews

The Spokes Band, a Swedish country-inspired blues rock quartet. Hailing from Ljusdal, they began as a cover band in 2000 and since 2007 decided to start writing their own material. Their rock and blues influenced grooves paired with high tempo drumming keeps to the soul of their music while also keeping the audience on their feet. Their newest album, “In My Head” is reminiscent of the mid-1970’s era country-blues-rock movement.

The “nothing left to lose” lyric from the track “Can’t Find My Way Back Home” keeps true to the Southern American vibe. Looking at the titles of each song with “Down in the Water” and “Lay Down in Hunger” also construct that “down-home” country effect of the entire album...

Posted in Cd Reviews

Famed for his collaboration with Scroobius Pip Dan Le Sac has taken a break and has kindly thrust ‘Space between the words’ upon us, which is kind of him. Spanning the electro side of things rather than sticking to the more tried and tested electro, hip-hop leanings of his join efforts with Mr Pip, Le Sac has enlisted a who’s who of contemporary artists, predominately British based artists as well including Emma-Lee Moss, Merz, and Pete Hefferan among others. The result is an eclectic mix but it all blends together effortlessly. Offering up Portishead-esque moments with the Emmy The Great with ‘Memorial’ and ‘Play Along’ which features Sarah Williams-White, the trip-hop feel is rife throughout the album and done superbly by all parties involved...

Posted in Gig/Festival Reviews

Refused

Jag har aldrig varit så förtjust i punk eller hardcore. Visst, låtsaspunkare var jag ju en tid på 80-talet eller kanske skinhead? För några månader sen mötte jag ett nytt gammalt band och blev störtförälskad. Jag såg ett youtubeklipp där REFUSED spelade New Noice och jag var fast. En hemlig spelning på Umeås kultförklarade scen Scharinska villa i vårvintras var tydligen fenomenal. Jag visst när det skulle var men hade tyvärr förhinder. Scharinska var fullsmockad med folk. Människor klättrade på ytterväggarna för att komma in och en projektor spelade upp konserten på husväggen.

Under året har rapporter strömmat in om Refuseds enorma framgångar från alla kontinenter. Det var bestämt att bandets sista gig skulle vara i Umeå...

Posted in Gig/Festival Reviews

Folkkära Sabaton bjuder på humor, spelglädje och en sjuhelsikes show.

Sabaton är ute på sin gigantiska Swedish Empire Tour som tar dem runt hela världen. Hur de orkar hålla igång som duracell-kaniner kväll efter kväll är ett mysterium.

Efter två intron varav ena var den fantastiska covern på Status Quos Into The Army Now, som likväl hade kunnat framföras live, klättrar publiken nästan på väggarna i all sin iver! När såväl dalmasarna for ut på scenen och smäller av med Ghost Division tänds det en gnista mellan bandet och publik som inte kommer släckas under hela kvällen. Mejeriet i Lund är slutsålt och visar verkligen varför scenen är populär bland artisterna med sina olika avsatser och balkonger.
Sabaton får en helt annan kontakt med publiken än de är vana ...

Posted in Interviews

We meet in a bare conference room in central Stockholm. After about 30 minutes of waiting in the reception at Warner Music, I get introduced to Jyrki Linnankivi, or as he calls himself, Jyrki 69. The singer of The 69 Eyes sits down opposite side of the table and starts talking directly about how much he loves Sweden, and it is something he has done for a long time. Though one thing he is unhappy with, we close the shops too early. He will go out on Christmas lookout after our interview, and his schedule is very tight.

– I was going to help Santa a bit and try to find something that I want for christmas. It will probably be the new book about Yngwie Malmsteen (written by Anders Tengner), because I want to learn Swedish little better.

We often hear about that Finns are not very happy to spea...

Posted in Interviews

I spoke to Joakim Brodén, lead singer of Sabaton a couple of hours before they took to the stage for their show in London – the only show on the UK tour to get the full stage show with flames and pyros.

Festivalphoto: Your new album, Carolus Rex was released in May. It’s a change from your usual subjects of the 1st and 2nd world wars, and instead covers Swedish military history. Can you tell us a bit about that as I suspect most fans don’t know much Swedish history.

Joakim: As you say we normally cover the world wars or more modern conflicts, but many fans asked us why we don’t sing about our own history, because in modern times Sweden hasn’t been in war much. The album spans from the early sixteen hundreds to the early seventeen hundreds...

Posted in Interviews

Vi möts i ett kalt konferensrum i centrala Stockholm. Efter ca 30 min väntan i receptionen på Warner Music så presenteras jag för Jyrki Linnankivi, eller som han kallar sig, Jyrki 69. Sångaren i The 69 Eyes sätter sig ned mitt emot mig och börjar direkt prata om hur mycket han älskar Sverige, och det är något som han har gjort länge. Fast en sak är han missnöjd med, vi stänger affärerna alldeles för tidigt. Han som ska ge sig ut på julklappsjakt efter vår intervju har väldigt tight schema.

– Jag hade tänkt hjälpa tomten lite och försöka hitta något som jag själv önskar mig. Det kommer nog bli den nya boken om Yngwie Malmsteen (skriven av Anders Tengner), eftersom jag vill lära mig svenska lite bättre.

Man får ofta höra om att finländarna inte är särskilt glada ...

Posted in Gig/Festival Reviews

This was a gig I’d been looking forward to for a while – three great bands on one bill. These days it’s quite normal for the venue to be half empty for the support bands with lots of people staying in pubs and only arriving for the headliner, but that certainly wasnt the case tonight – even before The Treatment came on, the venue was probably 90% full and people kept on coming in. This meant that when The Treatment took to the stage at 7.30pm they were playing to a capacity crowd.

The Treatment have been going from strength to strength lately with some great tours, most recently supporting KISS and Motley Crue on their US tour – an impressive tour for any band to be on, let alone a band who’s members are so young (I’m not sure any of the band are actually old enough to drink alcohol in the...