Posted in Press Releases

A couple of young, fresh and talented band from the Swedish music-legend, now depart to a common tour around the North, to mock the postponed ’end of the world’.

The Drake Equation: a young metalcore band with pop, jazz and electronic influences from Västerås, has been in the final of the biggest rock talent competition in Sweden, in Released Live and Unsigned. „We did not win but we got a lot new friends!”- said the five boys. „It was really fun, overall.”

Now, they are on tour with three other young rock-metal groups, forming together the Afterlife tour, going ahead colonizing and fascinating the Swedish rock world totally. Then I asked them, about future plans, and now eveything is clear. „During the tour, we will release our EP, called ’Variables’, sometimes in February...

Posted in Cd Reviews

Sony Music Entertainment

30 years on HELLOWEEN release their 14th studio album, and they must be content. The first 5-6 years must have been fun, the next 3 disastrous, only to rise again with the splendid “Master of the Rings” in 1994. But member changes have been many and I dare say that I´ve not heard all that much about them until they returned with what was deemed full force in 2010. Since “7 Sinners” they have been much talked about and here is a splendid moment to capture on their latter day success. Will they do just that?

The nucleus of the ubiquitous guitarist Michael Weikath and bassist Markus Grosskopf are enforced by vocalist Andi Deris (since 1993), and guitarist Sascha Gerstner (2002 onwards) and drummer Daniel Löble, who came aboard in 2005...

Posted in Cd Reviews

Frontiers/BAM

Reunited veterans ASIA, with all original members on board when this album was released, are somewhat productive with live albums. This is the third since their revival, and they seemed to think that “Fantasia” was too polished and “Spirit of the Night” a festival document. This one is said to be the band resonating an in your face “Omega” night in Central Europe. Let´s see if this one does them justice.

The track list is quite in favor of “Omega”, with highlights such as the classic ASIA tinged “Holy War” and the keyboard heavy “End of the World”. But I still think that the most tender moment of latter years is “An Extraordinary Life”, with its reality-based theme...

Posted in Cd Reviews

Frontiers/BAM

NEAL SCHON is perhaps one of the world´s most recognized guitarists. From his early days, 15 years of age, with SANTANA to the second coming of JOURNEY he has kept his calendar busy like few others. 19 top 40 singles, 25 gold and platinum discs speak for themselves too. Now he somehow found time off from JOURNEY to reunite with the bands former drummer Steve Smith, keyboard players Igor Len and Jan Hammer. All strings arrangements come courtesy of the guitarist himself. Next stop is more concerts with JOURNEY, so how did this squeeze job come out?
First up this is a mixed bag of styles including just about everything Neal has tried out during his career. I personally prefer the rock and blues tracks, especially the very emotional notes of slow blues track “Blue Rainbow”...

Posted in Cd Reviews

Limb Music/Sound Pollution

Australian band EYEFEAR was brought to my attention in 2008, and the excellent “The Unseen” – which was in fact their fourth offering. But the band´s history actually begins back in 1994, and of the founding members only drummer Zain Kimmie and guitarist Con Papazoglu remains. The rest of the band is Evan Harris on bass, Seb Schneider on keys and piano, plus vocalist Danny Cecati. The band has decided to remain with their progressive base, but they will also add various vocal elements courtesy of BE´LAKOR grunter George Kosma and Sarah Parker.

Opener “Redemption” is rather pompous, but also quite fast and with variation enough. But the real click doesn´t appear...

Posted in Press Releases

San Francisco rockers Counting Crows have announced their first UK tour in over 4 years. The multi-platinum 7 piece will bring their live show to Birmingham, Bristol, London, Manchester and Glasgow in April, after touring in Australia and a string of European dates.

“All I could say when I saw the plans for a UK/EU tour was ‘It’s about time” – says Adam Duritz – “It’s hard to explain to fans why bands occasionally let so much time pass between visits. The truth is sometimes life just gets in the way and, before you know it, it’s been a few years. Personally, I’m just glad we’re going back. I have a lot of great memories of past tours. Remembering where we’ve been always gets me excited about where we’re going.”

The tour follows the release in 2012 of Underwater Sunshine (or W...

Posted in Gig/Festival Reviews

The night started with Chimp Spanner, a band who are fast making a name for themselves and who I was looking forward to hearing. The first surprise for many people is that they are an instrumental band. The second surprise is just how good they really are. Musically tonight they were superb – some really impressive music, but the lack of vocals meant that after three or four songs I was starting to get a little bored. It’s not that the music is boring – far from it, I just find instrumentals less enjoyable normally than music with vocals. It was great but it just didnt feel right on a tour like tonights...

Posted in Cd Reviews

Risen from what seems like the dead, 1970s punk band The Machines are back with their latest 16 track self-titled album. This record is fast paced from start to finish, with remastered opening track “Racing” setting the scene for the bands old-school rocker sound.
With vocal similarity to fellow 70s Londoner rockers, The Clash, and musical structure not unlike Iggy and The Stooges or MC5 – these guys capture all the gutsy anger of a disenfranchised youth generation, leaving you all fired up to attend a riot by the end of the record.
Nick Paul brings his tension building guitar riffs and sincere vocals together to create an apathetic and uncompromising sound, accompanied by the heart rate-increasing drumming of Steve Pegrum and Stephen Reddihough’s undeniably beguiling bass lines.
S...

Posted in Gig/Festival Reviews

Love at first bite – Vampire Weekend
The charismatic American four piece bought their effortless charm and indie rock appeal to Sydney’s Big Day Out Festival this month, attracting a huge crowd of excited fans.
So excited in fact, that when in the crowd strangers took to biting mine and others necks – perhaps hoping to spread the Vampire love?
And maybe it worked, as a first time crowd-goer for this band it was love at first bite for me.
Angular, fast paced time signature manipulating songs like “California English” and “Cousins” are so intricately recorded that to see them performed live just as perfectly against 47 degree heat, with band members still smiling, dancing and chatting to the crowd, indeed deserves respect from anyone enjoying the show.
The impeccable drumming of ...

Posted in Press Releases

KOMPENDIUM – PROG’S HIGHEST TALENTS GET TOGETHER TO CREATE THE ULTIMATE CONCEPT ALBUM

In an era of disposable music and throwaway icons, over two dozens timeless artists joined forces to create a concept album that brings back to life ‘the tradition of War of the Worlds, Dark Side of the Moon and Tubular Bells’.

Born as a personal challenge for celebrated producer/composer Rob Reed (Magenta, ChimpanA) to find the lost spirit of the 70s epic albums, the Kompendium project quickly attracted an array of significant figures and different styles. The result was Beneath the Waves, a record bursting with emotions, intensity and a rare amount of talent.

Beneath the Waves blends Celtic music with Rock and Classical to bring the listener through a unique journey...