Category Cd Reviews

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Lion Music

The second album of guitarist Rolf Munkes super project featured a lot of big names. Released originally in 2003, two years after the debut, the project stuck with their take on classic melodic hard rock. Guitar scholar Munkes was joined by Don Airey (DEEP PURPLE, ex. RAINBOW), Tony Martin of BLACK SABBATH fame, and the well-travelled bass man Neil Murray. Drummer Gerald Kloos (WINTERLONG) and guest drummer Anders Johansson made up the ranks. Mixing was dome by Stefan Kaufman of ACCEPT, sp this ought to blow us all away.

This album is a solid enough effort, but it lacks in truly outstanding tracks. Opener “One in a Million”, the power ballad “Did You Ever Love Me”, the bluesy and groovy “Comin´ Home” and the very genione closer “Back in the Light” are about it...

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Frontiers/BAM

ASIA dates back to the humble beginnings of the MTV. Formed in 1981, the band debuted in 1982, and the self-titled effort was number one in the States for nine weeks. The singles “Time Will Tell” and the perennial “Heat of the Moment” didn´t do them any harm in selling ten million albums world-wide. “Alpha” followed but by the third album the band started disintegrating and in the 90´s only Geoff Downes remained. Various solo efforts and Wetton-Downes constellations followed, but it was not until John Payne joined in 1991 that the band got stability enough to function until 2006. Various musicians have been members over the years, and one of those splits occurred in 2006...

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Ian Hunter first came to fame as part of British music legends, Mott the Hoople from 1969 to 1974. Since then he’s had a successful solo career, releasing some great albums over the years. This latest album, ”When I’m president” is his 20th solo album of original songs.

For anyone who hasn’t listened to any of Ian Hunter’s solo work, then good comparisons would be Bruce Springsteen and Tom Petty, so if you’re a fan of either of them, then Ian Hunter is a musician you really should check out.

Speaking about the new album, Ian Hunter says ”The songs seem to be more upbeat this time round. The last two albums were pretty political, just because I thought the Bush years were horrible, and thankfully that’s passed. But I don’t go looking for songs; I have to wait for them to come to me...

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Volksmetal are a six man group who combine Bavarian folk music with Heavy metal to create one of th emost unique folk metal bands I’ve heard for a long time. After all, how many folk metal bands can you think of that have a tuba player in the band? They’ve played the Summer Breeze festival in 2011 (appearing no less than five times over the course of the festival), and played several times at this years Wacken festival.

The album contains three cover versions and eight original songs. They range from very heavy guitar based folk metal to straight Bavarian folk, with most songs containing a mix of these, so it’s not unusual for some Bavarian folk to be suddenly interrupted by crushingly heavy metal before things go back to the folk...

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Formed in 1995, Ensiferum can probably be counted as one of the pioneers of Finnish folk metal, with other well known bands in the genre being formed later – Turisas (1997), Finntroll (1997) and Korpiklaani (2003). Bands like Turisas and Korpiklaani have perhaps eclipsed Ensiferum in the UK in recent years, mainly down to touring more, but Ensiferum are still going and producing some great folk metal. The name Ensiferum means ”Sword bearer”.

”Unsung heroes” is the bands fifth album (sixth if you include the album that was just re-packaging their early demos), and is certainly an epic – it clocks in at just over an hour in length, with one track alone lasting a fraction under 17 minutes !

Brief comments on a few tracks

The album opens with ”Symbols” an instrumental track that has the feel...

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Shining, the Swedish Black Metal band founded and fronted by Niklas Kvarforth, are releasing a 4 track EP of cover versions. Shining – whose last studio album ‘VII: Född Förlorare’ (‘Born Loser’) was released through Spinefarm in May 2011 – are planning UK dates for the autumn.

“In no way should this EP be seen as a new direction for Shining,” says Kvarforth. “It is absolutely no indication of what you can expect from our forthcoming eighth studio album. Like most musicians, neither myself, nor the rest of the band, restricts ourselves to listening to only one genre of music.

“We all have eclectic tastes, and finding ourselves with spare time in the studio, we recorded a total of six covers, and decided to release four of them...

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After a break of several years, Inner Fear are back with their first album in nine years. The band was originally formed in 1997 by former Cradle of Filth drummer, Marthus.
The music is a cross between death metal and symphonic metal and takes the richness and beauty of symphonic metal and adds the power and brutality of death metal to create a seriously impressive album.

The album is a good length – 10 songs doesnt sound that much, but the songs are a good length so you’ve got around 52 minutes of music here, making this good value.

Musically it’s full of twists and turns, moving seamlessly from brutal death metal to rich warm, but still very heavy symphonic metal. The vocals are largely male death metal style but there are also some lovely female vocals from Vic Anselmo.

The album open...

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Zachary Stevens was the singer who took over from Jon Oliva as vocalist for Savatage. Following such a great singer is a feat that would worry most singers but to do so and manage to keep the fans happy too is a very rare feat as changes in singers are usually controversial and hotly debated topics among fans. He recorded four albums during his eight years in Savatage, before leaving in 2000.
After a break of a couple of years, he started work on his new project – Circle II Circle. With the help of both Jon Oliva and guitarist Chris Caffery, he wrote the first album ”Watching in silence”. with five full length albums and three EPs released in the bands ten years of existence, a best of album seems like an obvious step.

”Full circle – the best of” is a double album with all the bands hi...

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Fatal Force was formed in 2005 by Fate guitarist Torben Enevoldsen. The band’s first album was released in 2006, but scheduling delays (a sad reality of being involved in more than one band and also doing solo work) meant that the second album wasnt recorded till the end of 2010. Now it’s finally been produced its just been released.

The music feels like 80s heavy metal mixed with melodic rock. It’s clearly guitar driven and the guitars keep things heavy, but the vocals and well written tunes stop it being too heavy and make it something that melodic rock fans will certainly enjoy.

It’s a good solid album, with all the tracks being of a very high standard. An album definitely worth checking out, particularly for fans of bands including Fate, State of rock, Dokken and more.

”Unholy rite...

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Sacred Heart are a band that sank without trace in 1991 – one of many bands that for whatever reason didnt quite make it. Sometimes bands fail to make it for the simple reason that they’re rubbish, but often it’s that they’re good but for some reason never quite manaaged to become a success. Sacred Heart are in the latter category. Their EP, ”The vision” was only three tracks long, and its now been re-released along with a number of other unreleased tracks and material from the Brian Nemeth Group to make it a full album.
Guitarist Brian Nemeth is the best known member of the band and has also been in various other groups – Byron Nemeth Group, Amon-Ra, Electro-Motive-Force, Mercury, Prodigy.

For me the biggest problem with this release is the sound quality...