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...

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...