Posted in Interviews

I recently spoke to Kobra, lead singer of Kobra and the Lotus shortly before they supported Buckcherry at the Roadmender in Northampton.

Festivalphoto: Your new album was released in August. Can you tell us a bit about the album.

Kobra: The album is a very high energy album full of very driving riffs and fast and furious drumming followed with a lot of wailing. There’s also a song in the middle of the album thats more of a ballad at the beginning then picks up again with the same energy but is slightly different. There’s quite an eclectic variety of riffing and styles, all sorts of metal genres mixed together on this album.

Festivalphoto: You were planning to call the album ”Visionary”. Why the change to a self title?

Kobra: That happened when the record label signing came about...

Posted in Cd Reviews

Zoe Schwarz Blue Commotion is a six piece band which contains members who have worked with the likes of Nina Simone, Van Morrison, Paul McCartney and more. Described as ”a contempary six piece blues band” in the press release I was expecting some fairly traditional blues, but this album is far more than just plain Blues music – there’s a really strong Jazz feel to it as well. This meeting of Jazz and Blues means that what you get here is really interesting and very enjoyable music to listen to.

The album contains 14 tracks with roughly half being original songs and the others being cover versions of songs from Billie Holiday, Willie Dixon and more...

Posted in Cd Reviews

“Un-American Gothic” is the first solo album from Hayseed Dixie frontman John Wheeler. The rockgrass band have toured intensively and after performing over one thousand live shows and ten albums they’ve decided to take a couple of years off from Hayseed Dixie. John Wheeler has chosen to spend some of this time off to make a solo album that lets hum explore different musical styles and lyrical subjects.

The album includes two covers – ”Masters of War” by Bob Dylan, and ”Eton rifles” by The Jam, and nine original tracks which cover subjects including the banking crisis and more personal subjects or feelings.

Taking the lyrics first of all, this is a beautifully written album. Songs such as ”Deeper in debt” cover serious subjects but with a bit of wit thrown in...

Posted in Cd Reviews

”North” is the debut solo album from Irish folk singer Mary Dillon. During the 1990s she was a member of Irish band Deanta, but after more than a decade away from the music scene she’s back as a solo artist. Mary comes from a musical family – her grandmothers were both traditional singers, and her sister Cara is also a well know traditional Irish singer.

The album contains a mix of traditional songs and new songs, with all the songs linked to the North of Ireland. The production is nice and simple – stripped down to the acoustic guitar and the vocal, and this really focusses attention onto two things – Mary’s voice, but more importantly the lyrics.

While the whole album is excellent, my favourite song is ”John Condon”, which tells the story of a 14 year old boy during the first world war...

Posted in Cd Reviews

Brice plays drums formed in 2007 as a three-piece and have had various lineup changes. They blend styles of music including Jazz and Prog rock and certainly can’t be considered mundane in their lyrical influences. They say they are inspired by novels from Nietzche, Dostoyevsky, Neil Gaiman, Alan Moore, Goethe, Albert Camus, to name a few – certainly not a typical list of influences you’ll hear a band quoting.

The first surprise for me was when I put the CD into the PC and saw that the three songs are all long – two being over 12 minutes and the third being over 18 minutes, so the three songs have a running time of 42 minutes in total

”Freight train blues” is quite a misleading title. I’d envisaged a real blues track, but the music here certainly wasn’t what I’d expected...

Posted in Press Releases

Breaking news: Blur comes to Sziget

The legendary British band and the winner of the Best European Major
Festival award finally joined forces: Blur is a confirmed headliner of Sziget!
The organizing team happily announces the long-awaited Sziget debut of Blur, the
iconic rock band that earlier this year also received a Brit Award for lifetime
achievements. Speaking about playing live in 2013 the band said:
“Every show next summer will be very special – we can’t wait to get out and play for
all our lovely fans who we haven’t seen for a while.”

Blur became world famous in the 90s with records including Parklife and The Great
Escape and hits such as ”Girls & Boys”, ”Country House”, ”Song 2” “End Of A
Century”, “To The End’ and “Beetlebum” making them one of the bands of the...

Posted in Interviews

Four crazy rockers from Jönköping exploded in the studio as the cold winter reached Sweden-, mixing nostalgic feelings with heavy rock, spicing it with a touch of sleaze to wake us up! Their “best of“ album shows the public, once again, what rock ‘n roll is all about.

“Shakedown Suzies is still an unsigned band – although nowadays this may not be that important. Jon and Agust are pretty busy with their other band, The Embodied, writing songs, working on the new album, the touring… and since we all believe that they need to dedicate more of their time to fulfill their dreams with The Embodied, we decided to record our best songs before it is too late.”

This rock n’ roll formation was established by vocalist Erik and guitarist Jon on an early cold winter morning after party in ...

Posted in Gig/Festival Reviews

One of the best rock-metal competition of Sweden is getting close to its finish in the year, finding again notable groups to rock with them. Who loves the fresh blood? So, lets headbang hard in the end of the month, -the programme is not less, than ’young fighters’ with Hardcore Superstar in Stockholm- on 21st of December.

Released and unsigned is a competition in Sweden from 2010, clearly for unsigned, talented, and naturally impassioned bands. Guys are coming from everywhere, with different styles, and feelings, but who cares the ruins- just play us, ”nice boys, play, play, play rock ’n roll..”

The prize is huge: winner get the chance to play at Sweden Rock Festival in the next summer, so the stakes are really high, and the flurry also. But the rock audience likes the trilles…

Aft...

Posted in Cd Reviews

Frontiers/BAM

Norwegian rock diva ISSA, or Isabell Oversveen, is getting a lot of attention for her efforts. First up was her debut “Sign of Angels” in 2010 and then came follow-up in 2011, “The Storm”, both were rewarded rather gratuitously, but not by me. This time around ISSA goes for 12 tracks of past glories, as she sets out to put her mark on classics by the likes of 21 GUNS, TANGIER, BLVD etc. Not a single track of her own means safety in a way, at least amongst genre buffs, but also that she will be put to the test and compared with legends.

AVIATOR`s “Can´t Stop” opens the exam. Though ISSA has a certain edge to her voice she does the track justice. The AOR magic is complete with dexterous keyboards and solid backing overall from HARDLINE personnel...

Posted in Cd Reviews

Funklord Dynasty

NUBIAN ROSE seems pretty much a vehicle for the charismatic front woman Sofia Lilja. Great reviews and a favorable release in their native Sweden have paved way for this unashamed 80´s party. Lots of radio potential and somewhere between DIO and JOURNEY the info states, let´s see…

Opener “Ever See Your Face” is pretty much in the promised vein; rather basic though efficient, but very Scandinavian. The title track has a more gritty riff, and leans far more in the direction of DIO. The moving balladry of “How Am I” reminisces of RICHARD MARX, and is a fine contribution to the overall impression...