Monthly Archives augusti 2012

Posted in Gig/Festival Reviews

Är du äckelmagad eller tycker kiss och bajshumorn är förkastad? Sluta då vänligen att läsa nu för den här recensionen är inte rumsren!

Det går helt enkelt inte att beskriva hypade Skitarg med ord som vackert, kärlek och färgrikt. Utan istället får det bli äckliga ord som en 4-åring upprepande gånger tycker är kul att säga. För det är den låga nivån Skitarg lägger ribban.

Det är blodiga underkläder, ballerinakjolar, snor, dildos, blöjor och spottloskor.

Stockholmarna i Skitarg kom till Helgeåfestivalen med reducerad styrka. Basisten saknades på scenen vilket genast sänker helhetsbilden. Men det är endå inte deras stressiga extrem-metal som lockar publik. Det är deras extrema teater!
Det är väldigt svårt att lägga fokus på musiken då den agerar likt en st...

Posted in Cd Reviews

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...

Posted in Gig/Festival Reviews

HELGEÅ FESTIVALEN
Publikrekord, Kärlek, duggregn, och camping.

Långt ifrån upplysta höghus, tunnelbanor och rusande trafik befinner sig den lilla byn Knislinge i Östra Göinge. En lugn och trevlig liten idyll som nu under två dagar i slutet augusti sprakade av liv. Helge å svämmade nästan över av massor med glada festival-människor som kommit långväga för sina barndomsidoler och glada Göingebor med picknickkorgen i ena handen och en öl i andra.

Helgeåfestivalen i Knislinge ligger vid folkets park och intill vattnet med samma namn som festivalen. Festivalen drivs av kulturföreningen F-yra, tillsammans med Nöjesmagazinet Scala och har för första gången sedan starten 2006 utökat festivalen från en dag till en 2-dagars festival.
Som en kedjereaktion av utökandet till ...

Posted in Cd Reviews

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 ...

Posted in Cd Reviews

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...

Posted in Cd Reviews

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...

Posted in Cd Reviews

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...

Posted in Cd Reviews

Italian Heavy metal/Thrash metal band Athemis were formed in 1999 by Andrea Martongelli. Since then they’ve released six studio albums. It’s only in the last two or three years they’ve really started to become well known in the UK, thanks to appearances at Bloodstock, Hard Rock Hell and Hammerfest and releasing their ”Pop up your ass vol 1” EP which featured six cover versions – of songs by Rihanna, Madonna, Lady Gaga, Micheal Jackson, Destiny’s Child, and Britney Spears, which was very funny and was made available for free download.

Now signed to Off yer Rocka recordings, they’re back with their latest album (their seventh) – We fight.

Brief comments on a few tracks..

The album starts with a good instrumental track – ”Apocalyptic nightmare” It hints at what is to come with the guitar w...

Posted in Cd Reviews

Armonight are an Italian band who play gothic metal with female vocals. As with many bands, that’s a massive simplification – in reality the music has many different influences and doesnt sit neatly in one genre, so although Gothic metal is the best fit, they also have touches of Rock, melodic rock, symphonic metal and more.

I first heard Armonight at the Ravenheart music festival in Birmingham, and was very impressed by how good they were live, so I was very pleased to be asked to review their new album – Tales from the heart. Having listened to it over the last couple of weeks I have to say I’m impressed...

Posted in Cd Reviews

Bullet are a heavy metal band from Växjö in Sweden. They released their debut album ”Heading for the top” in 2006, and followed this with ”Bite the Bullet” (2008) and ”Highway pirates” (2011). Now they are back with their fourth album, ”Full pull”.
The band have played plenty of their own shows and also done shows with Sabaton and Hammerfall, and had the pleasure of being the opening band when AC/DC played Gothenburg to a crowd of 50,000 fans.

Listening to the album, it’s clear that AC/DC are a big influence on them musically, but vocally Hell Hofer’s voice reminds me more of Britny Fox...