Posted in Cd Reviews

Stratovarius frontman Timo Kotipelto has joined with Jani Liimatainen (ex Sonata Arctica) to record an acoustic album. The duo has been working together and playing acoustic shows for some time and were regularly told by fans that they should do an album, so they’ve given the fans what they want.

There are thirteen cover versions plus one orignal track. Most of the songs were chosen from the duo’s live set-list, including Stratovarius covers like ”Black Diamond” and ”Hunting High and Low”, and also songs like ”Serenity” and ”Sleep Well” from Kotipelto’s solo albums. There are also cover versions of Pete Townshend’s “Behind Blue Eyes” and Deep Purple´s classic “Perfect Strangers” as well as the Gary Moore/Phil Lynott hit ”Out in the fields”.
The new track, ”Where my rainbow en...

Posted in Cd Reviews

A review of Purple Nail’s ‘Blood Tonight’ and ‘Turn to Dust’
By Amanda Beadman

Everything in life has its place – and the place for the latest two releases from Swedish goth-lite band Purple Nail is firmly within the newly established sub-genre of Elevator-Emo.
If an Evanescence fan wants to catch an elevator from the first floor to the 10th to enact a tortured break-up with their self-mutilating beloved – this is the soundtrack for their upward journey.
Both ‘Blood Tonight’ and ‘Turn to Dust’ offer half-committed vocals wrapped around darkly romantic lyrics, watered down power ballad-esque background compositions and shaky operatic bridges wedded together by a kind of musical Fugue state.
This is music that is bereft of highs or lows, a tranquilised thing with sleep...

Posted in Press Releases

DENMARK’S COOLEST rockers, Volbeat, are confirmed to appear at the Download Festival 2013, set to take place June 14th – 16th at its usual stomping ground of Donington Park.
The last VB appearance at Download (2010) saw them serving up a blistering set of slicked-back rock ‘n’ roll – a feat they duplicated in style at Sonisphere 2011; since then, the band – led into action by vocalist / guitarist Michael Poulsen – have continued to enjoy ever-growing international success, playing major headline shows around the world and selling well in excess of half-a-million copies of latest studio album, ‘Beyond Hell/Above Heaven’.
Tickets for Download 2013 are available here: http://www.downloadfestival.co.uk/tickets
Volbeat look set to release a brand new studio album in 2013.

Posted in Press Releases

JETTBLACK TO APPEAR WITH THIN LIZZY AT 02 ACADEMY, LEEDS
+ CONFIRMED TO PLAY HRH AOR FESTIVAL 2013!!

UK ROCKERS, Jettblack, have been announced as main support to Thin Lizzy at the O2 Academy, Leeds; the show, on December 16th, will be a one-off opening slot as part of Thin Lizzy’s November / December UK tour.

Tickets can be purchased here: http://www.ticketweb.co.uk/event/thin-lizzy-farewell-tour-tickets/11207?brand=o2academyleeds&camefrom=amg

Jettblack – recently back from a major gig in Toulouse as main support to French glam rockers, Black Rain – have also been announced to play the first ever HRH AOR Festival 2013; the event will take place on April 6th & 7th at Magna, Rotherham.

To buy tickets, go to www.hrhaor.com or ring 08700 110034.

In addition, Jettblack frontman, Will...

Posted in Press Releases

UK metal legends HELL are putting on one hell of a show, to celebrate the start of the recording of album two.

This special performance coined as ‘The Greatest Show On Earth’, will be filled with “fire, brimstone and pyrotechnical madness”, with support coming from the epic ‘Winterfylleth’ and ‘A Thousand Enemies’. The show will also be filmed live and mixed in 5.1 for a special DVD release, later in 2013. Next year, on February 23rd, the UK will see HELL stage their full ’Church Of Hell’ at Derby Assembly Rooms, Darwin Suite.

”Over the last year and a half with HELL, we’ve always put on as much of a show as possible, but with limitations due to festival billings, Health and Safety and venue size”, says guitarist Andy Sneap...

Posted in Press Releases

Hywel Davies – Eponymous New Album Out January 14th on ASC Records
http://www.primafacie.ascrecords.com/
http://www.hyweldavies.co.uk/

‘Nothing in the classical canon quite prepares you for Hywel Davies… the album [Natural Language] contained an invigorating collage of material, both deliberately arranged and aleatoric.’ – Louise Gray, The Wire

Hywel Davies, a composer, sonic artist and installation artist, reveals his most significant preoccupations as a composer in new album ‘Hywel Davies’ – exploring the possibilities of ‘white-note’ music (non-chromatic diatonic music) and aleatoric music. A parallel creative life as a sonic installation artist and a concert music composer has resulted in captivatingly diverse works, presented gracefully in this release.

Combining...

Posted in Press Releases

NILS BECH – LOOK INSIDE out January 14th on Fysisk Format

“ethereal, hauntingly beautiful” Dazed Digital
recently featured in TIME Magazine and NY Times

Meet the Norwegian musician and performing artist Nils Bech – an unusual and acutely talented gentleman who explores the tensions between art and dance, contemporary music and pop music. His way of making connections between musical genres and across different settings sets him apart as a truly original artist.

Look Inside is the title of his second album, an album featuring arrangements and performances that range from electronic producers Ost&Kjex to the contemporary classical composers Ole Henrik Moe and Julian Skar.
”I wanted to make an album that brought together genres that may feel opposite, but still feels very close to me” N...

Posted in Press Releases

Shortly after the end of the celebrated “Heidenfest 2012” tour together with their label mates of WINTERSUN, restless Finnish folk metal pioneers KORPIKLAANI will soon be on the road again!

In January and February of 2013, the band will embark on an extensive headliner tour in order to bring both their classics as well as the enchanting tunes of their latest album “Manala” (out since August 6, 2012) onto the European stages. Support will come from Estonian fellow folk metallers METSATÖLL.

Every fan knows about KORPIKLAANI’s onstage brilliancy. Now the band grants exclusive insight into their activities behind the scenes – in the form of a highly entertaining backstage tour of the Heidenfest 2012 show at LKA Longhorn, Stuttgart, hosted by front man Jonne Järvelä!

Keep your h...

Posted in Press Releases

Justin Sullivan, lead singer of the English band NEW MODEL ARMY, will be guest vocalist on the track ’The Windswept Mercy’ which will appear on the new SOILWORK double album, ’The Living Infinite’. Formed in 1980 in Bradford, England, New Model Army still have a very loyal fan-base and SOILWORK frontman Björn ’Speed’ Strid counts himself as one of them.

Sullivan shares the serendipitous back-story on how he met up with Sweden’s melodic metal maestros, SOILWORK:
”Some years ago, I met Björn somewhere in the deserts of the southwestern U.S. I expect we both had good reasons for being there – though things like reason get swallowed up in the strangeness of deserts...

Posted in Press Releases

Girl Band are a four piece noise-rock band from Dublin, Ireland. There are no girls in the band.

They formed in late 2011 and “France 98” is their second release with Any Other City Records. Musically somewhere between Bleach-era Nirvana, mclusky, Jesus Lizard and even that incendiary first Idlewild demo in their teens, long before they started sounding like REM. This a band listening to the same bands as METZ have been listening to, but living a lot closer to home.

The EP is released on a limited run of 300 12″ handstamped, numbered records.