Monthly Archives november 2011

Posted in Cd Reviews

Lion/Warner

SONATA ARCTICA guitarist Elias Viljanen debuted as a solo artist with “Taking the Lead” back in 2002. An unknown at the time, Elias has had a lot of success with his main band, but a a solo artist he allegedly attracted the interest of the legendary STEVE VAI and chartered in the top ten rank of guitar9.com bestseller chart. This re-release is expanded with an unreleased seven track live DVD that has not been previously available.

The short opener “Evoke the Spirit” feels hampered due to its 35 seconds duration. “Evil Rock” is a nicely fast paced piece, a display of a sensitive player who aims for the arena style. I´d say that Elias surprises me on several occasions, but never as much as in “Axemaster”, an impressive track that shows his sensitive playing at its best...

Posted in Interviews

Grá har gjort den perfekta skivan! I alla fall om man får tro Andreas ”Heljarmadr” Vingbäck, sång och gitarr, som bildade bandet tillsammans med Dimman Ljungi, trummor, för drygt ett år sedan. Idag, 2011-11-11 släpps första och självbetitlade fullängdaren och i samband med den en video.
– Två av våra statister höll på att stryka med under inspelningen, berättar Heljarmadr på telefon från Stockholm. Vi hade arrangerat en inspelningsplats ute i skogen med hängsnaror och facklor där statisterna skulle ligga som lik i väntan på att bli nergrävda. Två av dem blev lite överexalterade och lekte för inlevelsefullt med hängsnarorna så de svimmade och spydde men allt gick slutligen bra och det mesta fastnade på film.

Videon illustrerar låten ”Kraft” och på skivan är ...

Posted in Gig/Festival Reviews

Det hänger en mysig stämning över KB ikväll som är full av en faslig blandning människor. Här finns både unga som gamla, hårdrockare som skjortnissar. Alla har vi en sak gemensamt, Taj Mahal! För de som inte känner till Mahal så är han en legend inom bluesen. Mahal har haft ett stort inflytande när det kommer till formandet av bluesgenren som vi känner till idag. Under sin dryga 50-år långa karriär har han sammanfogat icke traditionella former inom bluesen, samt tagit inspiration från Karribien, Afrika och Stilla Havet.
Med sig på denna turné har han sina två följeslagare, Bill Rich på bas och Kester Smith på trummor, därav namnet; Taj Mahal & Trio.

Klockan blir 21 och scenen är fortfarande tom, förutom instrumenten då...

Posted in Cd Reviews

”How to get your love” is the second single from the debut album from Red Sky July.

The band are a new name to me, but when you look at the members you’ll see that there is a lot of talent and experience here – you have husband and wife team Shelly Poole (Alisha’s attic) and Ally McErlaine (Texas) plus Charity Hair (The Alice Band). In 2009 they wrote and recorded their album, but Ally suffered a major brain aneurysm and everything was put on hold while he recovered. Last summer the band got back together and wrote some new songs before recording the final version of the album live in Bristol.

This is a fantastic song that I must have listened to 30 or 40 times since it dropped through my letterbox yesterday...

Posted in Cd Reviews

Embodied tar steget ut I världen.

Det är med stor nyfikenhet som jag sätter I Jönköpingsbandet Embodieds debut cd I spelaren! Jag har följt bandet under några år och sett utvecklingen, och jag kan direkt konstatera att debuten inte är något hastverk. Embodied killarna har verkligen gjort ett genomarbetat album, man presenterar 10 låtar och inte en enda av dom känns onödig, att man menar allvar understryks av att man valde King Diamond gitarristen Andy LaRocque som producent. Andy har verkligen styrt upp produktionen och fått till ett sound som passar Embodied som handsken...

Posted in Cd Reviews

Galia Arad is a singer songwriter based in New York. Originally from Bloomington, Indiana. Her classical musician parents and classical voice training steered her directly into the arms of rock ‘n’ roll.

This is Galia Arad’s second album (the first being ”Sand in your bed”). It’s a deceptively simple album – just her singing and playing acoustic guitar, but there’s actually a lot more to the album than that.
The album is a concept album and tells the story of a girl finding love with a young Irishman. The songs are superbly written with the story easy to follow through the songs and with plenty of emotion, warmth and at times bitterness. The guitar playing is nicely done so it never distracts focus away from Galia’s lovely voice but instead merely complements it nicely.

This is de...

Posted in Interviews

Ant May and Rowena Lamb spoke to Stefan, Inga, Sly and Bastian from Van Canto in London when they played as part of the Out of the Dark tour in October and asked them a few questions..

Festivalphoto: How are you enjoying the tour so far?

Van Canto (Stefan): A good tour, many places we’ve never been to before with the band, perhaps on holiday but not the band. We’ve never been to the UK before so it’s very exciting, and right now half of the tour is over and the lat part of the tour will take place in Germany where we are already well known so it will be the routine part of the tour but for now we’re excited for this evening.

Festivalphoto: Have you managed to see much in the UK?

Van Canto (Stefan): No, today I think we had about 3 hours time, and we went to Camden Town, that was nice, sp...

Posted in Gig/Festival Reviews

Tonight is Australian band Tracer and Swedish band Royal Republic at the Underworld. Walking into the venue it’s clear that the majority of people are here for the headliners, Royal Republic – a large percentage of the crowd seems to be wearing cardboard crowns bearing the name Royal Republic.

Despite both bands being fairly new to me, they’ve drawn a big crowd – the venue is completely full, which is impressive for a mid-week gig. Tracer have been getting some good radio airplay recently and their new album (due out the day of the gig) is superb, so I was looking forwards to seeing how they’d be in a live setting.

Almost as soon as they started to play I knew they were going to be good, and that definitely proved to be the case...

Posted in Cd Reviews

Diamond Head are a band familiar to most older fans of Heavy Metal, but some younger fans might not be so aware of them. For some heavy metal fans their first exposure to Diamond Head will have been when they joined the Big 4 (Metallica, Anthrax, Slayer, Megadeth) on stage at Sonisphere to perform ”Am I evil”. Contrary to the belief or assumption of some people, this isnt a Metallica song, its a Diamond Head song that Metallica have chosen to cover. When a band as influential as Metallica chooses not only to cover a song by a band, but to invite them on stage, then you know there is something special about that band. Between 1979 and 1983, UK band Diamond Head released three classic albums – the first being the White Album, reviewed here.

The album contains just 7 tracks which may not ...

Posted in Cd Reviews

Napalm/Sound Pollution

THULCANDRA are about to hit ten years next year. The band is formed along OBSCURA member Steffen Kummerer (guitars/vocals). Five years of hibernation followed when original co-founder Juergen Zintz committed suicide, and first in 2009 brothers Ludwig, Tobias, bass, and Sebastian, guitars were taken on board. That marked 2010 as the year of their long awaited debut album “Fallen Angels Dominion”. The aim seems to be going back to Sweden in the nineties, playing blackened death metal in the vein of e.g. DISSECTION. I wonder how they cherish the memories of the nineties?

The epic opening of “In Blood and Fire” may even bring echoes of BATHORY in full swing, but THULCANDRA is soon in black symphonic territory...