Category Cd Reviews

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Lion Music

BOOK of REFLECTIONS is yet another vehicle of virtuoso guitarist LARS ERIC MATTSSON. This is the third installment in the band saga, this time featuring two great vocalists. Carsten “Lizard” Schulz (EVIDENCE ONE) and Markku Kuikka of STATUS MINOR both have what it takes for this neo-classically tinged metal.

Opener “Until the Day” is one of the finest moments on the album. The feeling of a modern day RAINBOW is there. And the album continues along that line. The aim to make a more straightforward album gets us the two best songs on offer; the guitar masturbating riff of “Rise Up!” and the heavy “Ritchie Malmsteen” style of the heavy “Crashing Through”...

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SPV/Playground

KILL DEVIL HILL sounds like someone running out of good ideas for a band name. But behind these words stands none other than Vinnie Appice of BLACK SABBATH and DIO fame, and bassist Rex Brown, formerly of PANTERA. Also appearing are vocalist Dewey Bragg who resembles Layne Staley of ALICE IN CHAINS, and guitarist Mark Zavon who has been involved with the likes of RATT and WWIII. Power and force is promised, and a fantastic new album. Well, here goes…

Grooves! I think that may well sum up this album. Slow songs and a lack of refrain might also be in the cards...

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Gwyn Ashton is a guitarist, singer and songwriter, who in 2001 was voted the third best guitarist of the year by readers of a French guitar magazine (Jeff Beck and Gary Moore were the top two). He has his own signature guitar model from Italian firm Liutart.
His last album was ”Two man blues army”, released in 2009. Since then he’s toured extensively in support of the album – I saw him perform supporting Magnum on tour in 2011 and was impressed by his ability and music.

Often albums by guitarists are released to show off how well they can play, and some songs are sketched in around the guitar parts to pretend its a real album...

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SPV/Playground

The title here refers to Lita´s early days of girl band splendor, as well as the bad days of her life. In retrospect I can´t help wondering if it was a call to find out if the other ex-members of THE RUNAWAYS were into the idea of a reunion, which seems to be happening. The aim here is apparently to make music that helps people through hard times, and that requires cozy refrains and a lot of Lita´s 80´s music. Her previous outing, “Wicked Wonderland” was a sleeping pill compared to her glories of old, so I hope this one is destined to see many people out of the darkness and into the light.

Opener “Branded” has some nice energy and a stubborn refrain, but also some gloom. Wee, it sure beats the album before this...

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Prime Entertainment/Music Buy Mail/Sound Pollution

WILD FRONTIER releases their fifth album since 1994, one with several meanings to the title. The title actually implies both the birthday of their vocalist Jens Walkenhorst, but also impending doom as 2012 has been prophesized to happen this year. Firering on all six, the five-piece; Jens, vocals/guitars, Mario Erdmann, bass/vocals, Thomas Ellenberger, keyboards/vocals, Sascha Fahrenbach, drums/guitar and Nico Fahrenbach, drums aim to convince with this slice of melodic hard rock.

But alas, this is not what I expected. There is a lot of melody here, loads of flat drums and an overall sound that seems wafer thin. The vocals are mostly good though, and the basic ideas deserve a better faith...

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Formed in 2006 in Los Angeles, All Hail the yeti released their ”Trees On Fire With Songs Of Blood” EP in 2010 and have since then toured with bands including Soulfly, Fear Factory and Suicide Silence. Now they are releasing their self titled debut album

Connor Garrity says of the album “The best way to describe our sound is to capture how it makes each individual feel. Our songs touch on topics of death, life, love, love lost, the paranormal, crypto zoology, mythical creatures, partying, etc. It’s tough to describe our sound with one sentence.”

He’s not kidding either – musically there’s thrash, hardcore, stoner metal, all present in the album...

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Italian band Elvenking formed in 1997. If you’re guessing from the name that they’re Power metal (a genre rich in elves, dragons and other mythical or fantasy creatures) then you’re almost right. They are a folk/power metal band. They released their first alvum (Heathenreel) in 2001, and have released albums at regular intervals since then. Era is the bands seventh album.

Elvenking have a couple of guest stars on the album – Teemu Matysaari (Wintersun) contributes a guitar solo, and the awesome Jon Oliva (Savatage, Trans Siberian Orchestra, Jon Oliva’s Pain) sings on two of the songs.

Listening to the album, it’s definitely more Power metal than Folk metal, although the folk part does show through at times.

”The Loser” has a folk feel at the beginning, but this is soon swamped by the ...

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Formed in 1994, Death metal band Vore have self financed and released four albums, the most recent being Gravehammer in 2011. The band have now signed with AFM records and are re-releasing Gravehammer as with AFM’s backing it will reach a far wider audience.
The band have a good live reputation and have performed with bands including Cannibal Corpse, In flames, Morbid angel, Deicide, Obituary, Carcass, Manowar and many more.

Musically if you’ve listened to the band before then you’ll have a pretty good idea what to expect from the new album – after 18 years then there aren’t really any surprises here. It’s their usual style of crushingly heavy death metal...

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Helstar are an American Power metal band from Houstan, Texas. They formed in 1982 (30 years ago), although given the title of the album you’d probably already guessed that. Over the years the band have split and reformed a number of times and have toured with plenty of big names including W.A.S.P., Megadeth, Keel,Savatage, Fates Warning and Yngwie Malmsteen

Given the album title, I’d initially assumed it was going to be a typical anniversary release – in other words a ”best of”. In fact it’s a Live album. The band performed a special 30th anniversary concert in their hometown, and it’s that concert that has been recorded for release at this live album.

It’s a very good album for fans of the band with the songs included covering most if not all their career, and as such it’s also a goo...

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After releasing ”Crimen Excepta” in April 2012, Polish heavy metal act Crystal Viper are re-releasing their first two albums through AFM records, complete with bonus tracks. ”The curse of Crystal viper” gets five bonus tracks while ”Metal nation” gets six bonus tracks.

In terms of vocals, Marta has a traditional heavy metal vocal style, similar to bands including Crucified Barbara, Hysterica, Bitch, Doro and others. Musically there are clear Iron Maiden influences, and German heavy metal bands including Accept sound to be influences too. In short, what you have here is traditional heavy metal with female vocals.

The music is very good with plenty of power, great guitar riffs and some excellent vocals – Crystal Viper are definitely a band I want to see play live sometime based on listeni...