Category Cd Reviews

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”The Wilderness” is part four of a very ambitious schedule from Cowboy Junkies – The Nomad series. The Nomad series is four albums released over an 18 month period. For most bands, 18 months between albums is around normal, so to release 4 in that period is almost unheard of – thats one new album released every four and half months. The first album in the Nomad series was ”Renmin park”, followed by ”Demons” and ”Sing in my meadow”, and the series ends with this new album, ”The Wilderness”. As if releasing four albums in 18 months wasnt ambitious enough, there are actually bonus EP’s available (digital downloads only) to accompany two of the albums, so thats 4 albums and 2 EPs in 18 months !

Over the last 27 years, Canadian band, Cowboy Junkies have released 16 studio albums, several li...

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Artist: AtomA
Album: Skylight (Napalm Records)
Genre: Apocalyptic Post Rock/Metal

AtomA såg ljuset för lite drygt ett år sedan och består av fyra musiker från Stockholm. För att måla upp stämningen på debutalbumet lyder en del av presstexten såhär:
”AtomA sets the environment for its debut in outer space, where a few astronauts are lost and travelling through planets, searching for a refuge. The songs and lyrics picks up moods/atmospheres in these astronaut’s minds and emotions, as they’re drifting through space to ultimately find a unique anomaly on a strange planet, the monolith symbol of AtomA.”

Låter det intressant? Och kanske lite flummigt? Det är det. Att beskriva AtomAs musik är närmast omöjligt...

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Universal Music Catalogue’s new “Re-presents” label takes well known and loved albums from decades gone and releases them in a new form. This release is Nik Kershaw’s 1984 album ”Human Racing”. Human Racing was released in February 1984 and achieved platinum sales and a nomination for “Best Album” at the 1985 Brit Awards. The album reached number 5 in the UK album charts and spent 61 weeks in the chart – an impressive figure.
The album includes the massive hits ”Wouldn’t it be good” and ”I won’t let the sun go down on me”, both of which reached the top 10 (numbers 4 and 2 respectively), as well as the top twenty hit ”Human racing”.

It’s been digitally remastered from the original tapes to ensure it sounds as good as possible...

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Following the release of their latest album, Love Catastrophe, in July 2011, the band have decided to release a six track EP which contains three brand new songs, a Christmas single that was released online in December, a Flamenco version of the song “Falling Rain” and a piano & vocals version of the track “We Run”.
Singer Chandler Mogel says, ”We wanted to give the fans a little something extra this time around. These songs pick up where the last album left off and at the same time serve as a road sign as to where we’re going. Hopefully this will hold everyone over until the third album is ready, which we’re currently beginning to work on.”

The release of the EP comes as a surprise as its only seven months since the album was released, but I’m certainly not going to complain – m...

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”Valentina” is the long awaited eighth album from British Indie rock band, The Wedding Present. Formed in 1985 they’ve been through various lineups with singer/guitarist being the only member to remain a constant part of the band. Their last album, ”El rey” was released four years ago, so it’s been quite a wait for their fans. Well after listening to the album quite a lot over the last few days I have to say it’s been well worth the wait – this is another top notch album from the band, and really shows that the current crop of Indie bands still have plenty to learn from the masters.

One of my favourite tracks is ”End Credits” – a very rocky song that really works well.

”Back a bit…stop” is another good track – for the first hlaf or two-thirds...

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German Progressive Death Metal band, Words of Farewell was founded by lead guitarists Erik Gaßmus and Phillipp Olivier in 2007. The line-up was then completed by Nils Urginus (rhythm guitar), Leo Wichmann (synthesizer), Benedikt Goralski (drums) and Alexander Otto (vocals/bass guitar).
Since then the band has released two EPs and had a number of lineup changes. In 2010 the band recorded their debut album, Immersion, which is now finally ready for release.

The vocals are the standard growling style, but unlike many progressive or melodic death metal bands they’ve chosen not to have any clean vocals to contrast with the growls. whether you think this is a good idea or not comes down to personal taste really – some people love the growling vocals some prefer clean vocals...

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Maz Totterdell is a young singer songwriter from Devon. When I say young, I mean it – it’s hard to believe it listening to this album, but she is only 15. Her music is a blend of folk and indie pop, with poetic lyrics. Her debut single ”Counting my fingers” has received support from BBC radio DJ’s and has been very well received.
Despite her youth she has been performing live in Devon for several years and last year played her first London shows.

There’s an interesting array of instruments used on the album including as well as the usual drums, guitars and keyboards; Percussive frog, shaker, cello, mandola, cajon, violin and ukelele. To be honest I havent got a clue what a few of the more unusual ones are, but the important thing is that they work with the music.
The music never overpo...

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Artist: Eluveitie
Album: Helvetios (Nuclear Blast)
Genre: Melodic death/folk metal

Femte fullängdaren från Schweiziska Eluveitie är här i form av Helvetios, ett konceptalbum under vilket man får följa historien om Kelternas krig mot Romarriket.

Eluveitie behåller sitt säregna sound där de kombinerar det klassiska Göteborgsdödssoundet med keltisk folkmusik. Flera låtar är lite agressivare och lite torrare än på tidigare album och jag skulle vilja påstå att det melodiska spelar en lite, lite mindre roll på Helvetios, exempelvis är verserna ofta helt fria från folkinstrumenten och helheten är hård metal med inslag av folkmusik istället för tvärtom (som på 2009 års misstag)...

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”Pop War”.

Känn på titeln. Storslagen och maffig. Men vad betyder den? Är det en krigsförklaring mot dagens popmusik? Är det en hyllning till U2’s skivor Pop och War? Jag vet inte, men bara av att se skivomslaget får jag höga förväntningar på Nicke Anderssons uppföljare till den självbetitlade solodebuten från 2010.

Det finns hur som helst ingen anledning att oroa sig. Att Nicke kan skriva rockmusik vet vi och här gör han det kanske bättre än någonsin. Första plattan hade låtar som sträckte sig tillbaka till 50- och 60-talen. ”Resign” och ”I’ll let you down” kändes som moderna tolkningar av Beatles och Yardbirds.

På ”Pop War” tar Nicke två steg fram, ett tillbaka och landar i sjuttiotalets glamrock med Kiss och tidiga Alice Cooper som inspirationskä...

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To celebrate the 40th anniversary of the classic T-Rex album, Electric Warrior, Universal are re-releasing the album with a whole host of extras. There are several different versions being released – a Deluxe, Super-Deluxe, a special vinyl and digital exclusive editions.

The core of each edition is the album, re-mastered by original producer Tony Visconti. The album comes with four bonus tracks – the non-album single, “Hot Love” (No. 1 in February 1971) plus the B-sides “There Was A Time / Raw Ramp”, “King Of The Mountain Cometh” and “Woodland Rock”.

The second disc in the Deluxe and Super-Deluxe editions opens with Marc Bolan reciting a previously unreleased poem titled “The Electric Warrior” which was recorded for a US Radio promo that is featured in full at the end of...