Posted in Gig/Festival Reviews

My second year at the Finnish Tuska metal festival and it strongly reinforced the fact that I should join this festival rather often as it simply is an awesome experience. From the moment you go to pick up your wristbands until you say the final goodbye to the festival grounds, it all happens with so much politeness and friendliness that it feels out of this world. It was quite surreal that most of the guards around the area would smile at you. And even more, they would stand close to the moshpits area and help people stand up in case of small accidents. I only saw one dude being a bit forcefully carried away from the crowd, given some intense instructions and then all ended with laughter. No wonder that makes the crowd relaxed as well.

Some other positive aspects include the size of the f...

Posted in Press Releases

Trojan Records has been an intrinsic part of Jamaican music and culture since it was launched in the summer of 1968.

And as Jamaica marks its 50th year of the independence on 6th August 2012, it is natural that this famous label is closely linked with the celebrations.

Trojan Presents ‘Freedom Sounds’ is a 5CD box set that honors the most important names in Jamaican music in the last five decades.

Running across 5CDs this essential box set celebrates the leading performers (Bob Marley & The Wailers, Jimmy Cliff, Dennis Brown, Desmond Dekker, Toots & The Maytals, Gregory Isaacs, Augustus Pablo) producers (Lee ’Scratch’ Perry, Duke Reid, Leslie Kong, King Tubby, King Jammy) and studios (Black Ark, Treasure Isle, Studio One, Channel One, Federal, Harry J, Randy’s, Dynamic Sounds) that, o...

Posted in Cd Reviews

Testament – one of the big beasts of Thrash metal are back with their latest album – Dark roots of Earth. In the almost 30 years since the band was formed, Testament have released a steady stream of quality thrash albums, although there was a dip in form for a few years. The bands last album (The formation of damnation) heralded a welcome return to their top form and means that expectations for the new album are high.
Produced by Sabbat and Hell Guitarist, Andy Sneap (who has also produced albums by bands including Arch Enemy, Accept, Exodus and many more), this album features Gene Hoglan back with the band and on drums for the first time since 1997.

Brief comments on a few tracks

Opening with some heavy crushing riffs right from the start, opening track ”Rise up” is a clear indication t...

Posted in Cd Reviews

German Thrash metal band Tankard have been going for 30 years now, and unlike many bands with such a long history, Tankard have been going continuously during that period. In that time they’ve released 14 studio albums, and are now ready to release album number 15. This will be their first album since signing with Nuclear Blast and is due for release towards the end of July.

In case you’ve been living in a cave for the last thirty years and havent come across Tankard before then a short description is ”alcoholic thrash metal”. The music is good thrash metal, and the song titles/lyrics are alcohol related – even the band’s name is linked to alcohol. So, alcohol and metal – sounds like a perfect combination to me !
The new album is called ”A girl called Cerveza” (note the inevitable alco...

Posted in Cd Reviews

It’s hard to believe it, but it’s 28 years since the first Warlock was released. After a few years and several albums, Warlock came to an end and lead singer Doro Pesch continued her career in metal as a solo artist. Since then she has been one of the hardest working performers in music, releasing a steady stream of albums and touring almost non stop. In 2008 she played a special 25th anniversary show to 10,000 fans in Dusseldorf with special guests joining her on stage including Rudolf Schenker and Klaus Meine from the scorpions, Tarja Turunen, Girlschool and many more. She has collaborated with numberous artists over the years including Tarja, Biff Byford and many more.
With such an impressive career it’s not surprising that AFM have chosen to release a compilation...

Posted in Cd Reviews

Turbonegro are a Norwegian band who’s music mixes Glam, hard rock and punk. They are a band that I’ve heard of over the years but never quite got round to listening to. After listening to their new album I’m kicking myself for not having listened to them before now – this is damn good stuff.
Turbonegro are never afraid to be rude, crude or politically incorrect with their lyrics, so if that bothers you then go and listen to something from Justin Bieber instead. Still interested? Good because this is a great album. The punk and hard rock blend together to give a really good heavy fast paced sound, and the slightly raspy vocals work really well – similar to Lemmy from Motorhead but not quite as extreme.

I’m not going to go into detail about the album – I’ll leave you to listen to it and...

Posted in Cd Reviews

Goodbye Labrador are a band that consists of members from different cities – New York, Prague and Barcelona. The band formed in 2008 in Barcelona, and in 2010 recorded and produced their debut album in New York, They started work on this new release in 2011 in Lisbon, so they really are an international band and rely on the internet to let them share ideas etc using things like Skype.

First of all the press release for ”A thousand times before” describes it as the band’s new album. Unfortunately I can’t agree with that description – there are only 6 songs with a running time of just 24 minutes which makes it way too short to deserve to be called an album – even in the days of Vinyl that would all fit on one side of the record. As far as I’m concerned this is an EP – nothing more.

The m...

Posted in Cd Reviews

Mode Moderne are a Canadian band that formed in 2008. Their debut release followed in 2009, and was followed by a single in 2011.

”Strange Bruises” is the latest release from Mode Moderne. With only seven songs with a running time of just 24 minutes then this can only be called an EP – its simply far too short to be a proper album. As an EP it’s a good length and seven songs is good value – if it was an album then it would just be far too short.
It’s nicely presented in a gatefold sleeve, and instead of a standard booklet you get a small fold out poster of the EP cover and on the reverse it has handwritten lyrics for all the songs.

The music is an interesting mix of indie pop and gloomy goth sounds...

Posted in Cd Reviews

Antler velvet is the new album from Finnish band Embassy of silence. Their last album, ”Euphorialight” went down well with fans and reviewers and set a high standard for them to try and beat with the new album.

The music probably falls somewhere between symphonic metal and melodic rock, and fans of Delain are likely to find it of interest. There are plenty of musical twists and turns giving the album a varied and interesting feel.

”Trickster queen” gets the album off to a great start, and has a very warm rich sound that reminds me of Delain at times.

”Unconverted” is another excellent track – and really these first two songs tell you what to expect from the rest of the album – top quality music with some beautiful female vocals from Ines Lukkanen.

The vocals are a real highlight of the ...

Posted in Gig/Festival Reviews

Regnet hinner precis avta innan Graveyard kliver på scenen och inleder med Blue Soul. Det är en blandad skara som har samlats, allt från medelåders män med borttynade hårfästen till svartsminkande ungdomar med Bring me the horizon-tishor har kommit till Munken för att se Göteborgsbandet. Det som tilltalar mig är enkelheten, de behöver ingen överdådig ljusshow och ingen pyroteknik. Det är musiken som står i centrum, mer än så behövs inte.

Graveyard fyller speltiden på strax över en timme med material jämt fördelat från de två skivorna de har hunnit släppa. En uppföljare till Hisingen Blues är på gång och ett smakprov hade inte varit dumt. Annars finns det inte mycket att klaga på, efter att ha sett bandet fyra gånger verkar det som att de inte kan ha en dålig dag...