Category Cd Reviews

Posted in Cd Reviews

Frontiers/BAM

KIX were in your face Rock´n´Roll with more attitude than most back in their heyday. Founded back in 1978 they released their self-titled first album in 1981, but better things were still to come. More albums followed; “Cool Kids” in 1983, “Midnight Dynamite” in 1985 and in 1988, things really moved. “Blow My Fuse” went platinum and the ballad “Don´t Close Your Eyes” paved the way for the band. The follow-up “Hot Wire” came in 1991, and they cut a live album “KIX live, on tour in Holland. The rise of grunge was a hard blow for the band, and they threw in the towel in 1995 after their final effort “Show Business”. Or so we thought...

Posted in Cd Reviews

M&O Music

UNCHAINED has been in existence since 2010, and feature guitarist Jonathan Ranache as well as drummer Olivier Gavelle from KRAGENS. Together with Thibaud Vuille, guitars, Pierre Jourdan Gassin, vocals (ex KRAGENS) and GORGON bassist Joel Forneris they aim at delivering classic and melodic metal paired with growls.

The chosen song style is both a blessing and a curse, as they lose some edge, but still they remain really heavy. Opener “Infernal Death Machine” is quite atmospheric, as well as melodic and forceful. The rest of the record is actually quite bland. They have all the groves they need, as well as two classy guitarists with riffs spraying from their ears. But the growling is almost ripping them apart...

Posted in Cd Reviews

Cyclone Empire/Sound Pollution

Swedish underground heroes PUTERAEON returns with their second offering. Andy LaRoque has mixed and mastered and expectations are generally high, not least due to a few prestigious gigs. The band has only been around since 2008, the debut “The Esoteric Order” soon followed, and old school death metal is the aim here. PAGANIZER´s Rogga Johansson is a guest and general darkness and evil is promised.

I must confess to having great expectations on this one. Opener “The Great Epidemic of 1846” is not quite the smack in the face I was hoping for. And the hairs on my forearms don´t rise to “Children of Dagon” either. But the grooves are there and get more in place as “The Azathoth Cycle” unfolds. The names are mostly culled from H.P...

Posted in Cd Reviews

„I thought I fell into someone else’s dream” -plays Aerosmith in their brand new studio album. And anyway, they had more than right with it..

Nowadays, the real rock n’roll lives again. It’s like, time-travelling, or dreaming in real. At least for me. A kind of lovely- naturally in a rock ’roll meaning-, to see rise again up the old legends, our rock icons. KISS takes a tour again, nobody cares their age.. Mike Tramp is better than ever, and Ozzy still gives us the unsophisticated Ozzy feeling, although he is in a grandfather time.. I could just write the list endlessly.. So, thanks God!

And now, Steven Taylor comes out with this awesome track collection? What else is it, if not one of the best dream of all, who live life in music? Must tell, I was always wondering, and pretty...

Posted in Cd Reviews

Massacre/Sound Pollution

Once bitten absolutely not twice shy, the band of FIREWIND drummer Michael Ehré (also GAMMA RAY, METALIUM etc.), LOVE.MIGH.KILL, returns with their second effort in two years. Their debut “Brace for Impact” came highly recommended by yours truly, can they top that?

One half-hearted intro of more length than usual later this album moves into high gear. I actually think they have topped their debut...

Posted in Cd Reviews

Emanes Metal Records

THRUSTOR has a longer pedigree than the name hints. The band´s mainstays, brothers Phil and Tony Sardo made their first mark with SCEPTRE back in 1983, featuring on the infamous Metal Blade Records compilation “Metal Massacre Volume 4”. Other luminaries of that CD were TROUBLE, LIZZY BORDEN, ABBATOIR and ZOETROPE… As they transformed into SARDO both support gigs with the likes of DARK ANGEL, and headliner shows followed betwixt 1985-87. As SARDO combusted the brothers breathed life into THRUSTOR, and released their first full-length “Night of Fire” in 1999. Since 2006 the band has been remixing that album with world-renowned producer Neil Kernon (QUEENSRYCHE, NILE etc.), as well as commencing n this album back in 2010...

Posted in Cd Reviews

Napalm/Sound Pollution

LIV KRISTINE has been on top of her game since the mid-nineties, and she will always be the first angelic voice in gothic music. Romanticism and the supernatural is always involved in her lyrics, but the bands and co-operations involves THEATRE OF TRAGEDY, LEAVE`S EYES, as well as a joint venture with CRADLE OF FILTH, and efforts with Nick Holmes of PARADISE LOST and various TV-scores. Here she is, almost on her own, but there is of cause a duet with with the German winner of “Pop Idol” Tobias Regner.

The opening “Interlude” involves piano notes and a cozy rhythm, but that is basically it...

Posted in Cd Reviews

Frontiers/BAM

Harry Hess rose to fame as vocalist of HAREM SCAREM, which lasted for seventeen years. AS of late he has been redesigning his career into production work and songwriting but he also found time for a solo career. The basis for this album is Harry´s travels in Europe and the USA, and he strives to recall certain sounds and atmospheres from that period. Featured musicians include former HAREM SCAREM members Pete Lesperance, Creighton Doane, and Darren Smith, but also the likes of Howie Simon (TALISMAN), Magnus Karlsson (Just about everyone), Tommy Denander (senast i IMPERA) etc.

Harry opens with the title track, and it fares well. The arrangements and the refrain are in the class that one expects from this caliber of musicians...

Posted in Cd Reviews

Frontiers/BAM

LOVERBOY might not mean a lot to people today, at least not here in Scandinavia, but the States is another place. The Canadian band has sold more than 10 million albums , with a lot of awards in the US, and that is and that is mostly due to four albums released in the first half of the eighties! They are listed as one of the most prosperous touring acts in the world, which of cause prerequisites that they tour in big nations. They have had a short hiatus, but in 2005 they celebrated 25 years together etc. They returned to making albums in 2007, with “Just Getting Started”, and now this one. But this one is not quite new, not since more than half of the songs are old favorites in slightly reworked versions.

When you are through the first three tracks, you´re done with the...

Posted in Cd Reviews

Ratpack Records/Playground

To DOKKEN or not to DOKKEN… In the wake of what surely will be the last (Don) DOKKEN album, remaining originals George Lynch, guitars, Jeff Pilson, bass, and “Wild” Mick Brown (doubling in both versions) do a version of their own, scantily clad as T&N (“Tooth and Nail” as you have already gathered). On the vocal front many apparently wanted in as they are joined by Tim “Ripper” Owens, Doug Pinnick, Sebastian Bach, and Robert Mason (WARRANT). The drumming is for some reason augmented by WHITESNAKE and FOREIGNER hot shot Brian Tichy. Is this a temporary cash in, an act of defiance or a true return to form?

Opener “Slave to the Empire” sure reminds me of the opener “Empire” on the latest DOKKEN effort...