Posted in Cd Reviews

Fantasy Rainbow is an indie band from Manchester led by Oliver Catt. It’s an odd sort of band though as the number of members apparently varies from a one man outfit up to three or four. They have recorded and released the ‘Teens’ EP, the ‘Healthy Lung, Dirty Lung’ cassette and the ‘No Hope. Not Ever’ EP and thanks to regular national airplay from XFM, BBC 6 Music & Amazing Radio, the first two sold out.

Now signed to Heist or Hit records, they have recorded a new single – ”O, Wierdo”. After the single was recorded, Oliver travelled to Nashville, Tennessee to record the debut album at the Sputnik Sound Studios (run by Grammy Award winning producer, Vance Powell). The album is being produced by Ed Spear and is scheduled for release by Heist Or Hit Records in November 2012...

Posted in Gig/Festival Reviews

Unlike many of the UK’s festivals this year, the Cambridge Folk festival actually had good weather – there was sunshine, the site was green and grassy (rather than a muddy swamp as some festivals had), and it was lovely and warm. That sort of weather always helps put people in a good mood for a festival, and that good mood was apparent everywhere you looked.

The first thing to strike me when I arrived was the age range of people there. There were quite a few elderly people enjoying the music, as well as middle aged people, youungsters, teenagers, and lots of families with small children – the festival really does attract a mixed crowd, and the atmosphere was a really good friendly one as a result.

The arena is a small compact site with the main stage having a covered area as well as the...

Posted in Press Releases

Otmar Binder Trio feat BJ Cole & Christian Dozzler
Debut album Boogie Woogie Turnaround
Out September 24th on Jump River Records

Otmar Binder

Boogie Woogie Turnaround fulfils one of contemporary pianist Otmar Binder’s dreams, to ”play with musicians who offer everything they have”. Credited to the Otmar Binder Trio (Binder on piano, Alexander Lackner on bass, and Michael Strasser on drums) the album also features BJ Cole with his pedal steel, and multi instrumentalist Christian Dozzler, who provide their own unique feel to the tracks slicing in folky-bluesy, balladic, reflective, even downright citified airs.

The 17 track album, is made up of all new compositions written by Binder himself or with help of collaborations. This is genuine boogie woogie...

Posted in Press Releases

Bonafide – Ultimate Rebel is now available on pre-sale on itunes

Its hard to believe that its nearly been three years since BONAFIDE´s last full length offering ”Something’s Dripping” was first released.

Above all, BONAFIDE has been building an ever growing audience all over Europe by constant touring. 2 long European tours, covering 12 countries, headlining and as support. Add to this, the countless festival appearances and week long tours of Spain and the UK and it can be easily seen, that these boys are Rock n Roll Road Rats on the up.. Quite simply, BONAFIDE is a band that knows, that success and longevity can only be achieved by hard work, which inevitably means non stop touring and keeping it Live.
The third single from that second album was the song ”Fill your head with Rock”...

Posted in Gig/Festival Reviews

Camp Bestival is a 3-day weekend event especially catering for families since 2008, offering great music, live acts, authors, comedy and more!

The campsite opens on the Thursday giving you plenty of time to get settled and organized before the Friday starts. This is perfect for those travelling here from far away and who just want to relax the day before. Although the main event isn’t open on the Thursday, there are food stalls; toilets and the Cosy Camper shop available to ensure you have a stress-free start to your festi-holiday.

The Site:
There is a huge amount of space to camp in so you can get as close to the entrance as you wish or further away if you like quieter evenings and this year they had the option of using a Festaxi! They will drive you and your gear to whichever part of ...

Posted in Cd Reviews

Trojan Presents ‘Freedom Sounds’ is a box set that honours the most important names in Jamaican music in the last five decades

It’s an impressive collection – 108 songs spanning 5 CDs. It features some big well known names that are familiar to music lovers around the world, including Bob Marley & The Wailers, Jimmy Cliff, Dennis Brown, Desmond Dekker, Toots & The Maytals and Gregory Isaacs as well as a whole host of other artists and producers who over the years have shaped the sound of Jamaican music.

Around half the tracks are new to CD and there are many tracks here which are being released outside Jamaica for the first time, including ‘Fa Fa Fa Fa’ (Toots & The Maytals), ‘Brothers‘ (The Heptones), ‘It’s In The Plan’ (the Planners), ‘People Get Ready‘ (The Carib Beats), ‘A Taste Of...

Posted in Cd Reviews

Prog metal band Threshold have released eight albums so far in their long career. Founded in the late 1980’s they released their debut album (Wounded land) in 1993. Since then they’ve built an army of fans around the world with their albums and touring, and are now ready to release their ninth album – ”March of progress”

The album will be available in a limited Digipak edition including a bonus track; a standard jewel case edition; as well as a 2-vinyl-edition in two different colours, one of them exclusively available via the Nuclear Blast mail order store.

Threshold are a band I’ve seen play live before, but I’ve never actually listened to any of their albums. They are great live so I’d got high expectations for their album...

Posted in Cd Reviews

Hellyeah is the group formed by former Pantera and Damageplan drummer Vinnie Paul. The band also includes Chad Gray (Mudvayne), Greg Tribbett (Mudvayne) and Tom Maxwell (Nothingface), which has led to the band being given the ”supergroup” tag – as many ther recent bands have been.
The band’s first two albums have been well received and achieved a good level of success, so they have a fairly high standard to meet with this their third album in order to make it as good as, or better than the previous albums.
The important question is – have they succeeded in making the new album their best yet? Well in my opinion the answer is a definite Yes !

Vinnie Paul’s powerful drumming drives the songs forward at a relentless pace...

Posted in Cd Reviews

Swiss folk metal band Eluveitie have just re-recorded their “Vên” EP. The EP was originally recorded in 2003 and is almost impossible to get hold of, so rather than just re-releasing it the band have taken the opportunity to re-record it with their current lineup. At the same time, their hard to find debut album ”Spirit” has been remastered and the two releases are being released together as a double CD release – ”The early years”.

Fans are certainly going to be excited by this release – for fans who have the original releases its a chance to get them sounding better than they’ve ever sounded before, and for fans who missed out on these releases then it’s a chance to listen to the bands early work.
Coming so soon after the latest album (Helvetios) which was released in February, I w...

Posted in Cd Reviews

Krampus are an italian folk metal/death metal band. With 8 members then you get the usual metal instruments – drums, bass, guitar, as well as folk instruments – violin, bagpipes, Whistles & Irish Bouzouki. Since forming in 2009 they’ve self-released two EP’s (”Shadows of our time” and ”Kronos’ heritage”), and are now releasing their debut album through Noiseart records.

Musically Krampus are at the heavier end of the folk metal spectrum – it really is very heavy, but the range of instruments stop it losing the folk feel and straying too far into metal territory. It’s always a hard balance to get right as some fans prefer folk with a bit of metal whereas others prefer metal with a bit of folk...