“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…
”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…
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…
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,…
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…
Massacre/Sound Pollution East Germans (yes, they´ve been at it since 1985) are the epitome of bad luck and oppression. Being one of the first on the East side of the famous Berlin wall they toured like crazy and won heaps of fans. But the regime banned them, and when that finally changed in 1989, their…
Black Lodge/Sound Pollution HYSTERICA are back for a second stab at world domination. This album is said to incorporate classic metal, melodic metal, doom and power metal, that ought to have pretty much all basses covered? Since last time keyboard player Marydeath has joined, but is the all-round approach right? The general feeling is not…
Being a modern youth(ish) it is fair to say I come supplied with a degree of self-obsession. So when I saw a band called Te’ were up for review, I of course assumed it was some sort Yorkshire thing and having spent most of my formative years in Yorkshire I thought “aye, I’ll ‘ave a…
A review of SYN:DROM’s Iconoclasm By Amanda Beadman Iconoclasm is the latest offering from Swedish death metal band SYN:DROM. The release launches itself at the world without a backward step in the opening song, Black Dawn, with a brain drilling drum assault that sets the pace and the standard for the unravelling of the first…
Classic punk-rock music is not always the easiest thing to find nowadays. Often, the sound is mistaken for the likes of boy-band, pseudo punk types who croon about lost loves and past transgressions; and many would claim the true, gritty punk sound has left the music industry. But that is not always the case. English…
A review of Motorfinger’s Black Mirror By Amanda Beadman If we accept a linear interpretation of the way the loudest, heaviest music came to be – first there was rock, then hard rock, then heavy metal – then all the variants of metal splintered off, each vying for a new place in the evolution of…
Hänsel & Gretel/MIG Music ANTHRAX guitar slinger Dan Spitz returns from the world of clocks with a new band and a new album in league with Dave Mustaine of MEGADETH. Apart from guitarist Spitz and co-lyricist/producer Mustaine the band consists of vocalist Don Chaffin, drummer Patrick Johansson (YNGWIE MALMSTEEN, WASP), and Chris Vrenna of NINE…