Album Reviews

Norway’s Jorn Lande returns with his new album “Traveller”. For those who are unaware of Jorn, this man releases top quality albums as regularly as Iron Maiden release special edition picture discs. Excluding involvement and appearances with Avantasia, Masterplan and Allen/Lande, “Traveller” is studio album number ten since 2000 and …

This debut full-length album from Bristollian noiseniks RIOT|NOISE – the follow up to a successful and well-received EP, released back in 2009 – is as impressive a first release as you are likely to come across this year. ‘Stand For Something’ is a powerful collection of a dozen songs which …

This may be their debut album, but Paris – named after the French capital, in which the band’s central pairing of vocalist/keyboard player Frédéric Dechavanne and guitarist Sébastien Montet were brought up – trace their roots back three decades, to the heady days of AOR supremacy as evinced by the …

SixStringNoise, a four-piece outfit from Greece, formed sometime after 2011’s one-man-band debut “Snowing Bullets While Kissing the Ground” was released. With a lineup (Markos, Nikos X, Alex B, and Alex D) solidified, the band decided to record and release a proper album. Likewise, 2013’s full-length offering, is the result of …

2010 was the release of “Beyond Hell/ Above Heaven“ and now Volbeat return with their fifth album “Outlaw Gentlemen & Shady Ladies”.  It demonstrates their metal heritage more than they have in any previous albums.  The album comes across as a musical journey combing the genres from the past few decades into something solid. …

Ten Tonne Dozer, a bunch of Shetland Islanders and one mad Aussie who like to produce some mighty fine huge slabs of grooving metal, have been on the go since 2005. This latest extended EP of them performing live during their recent tour of Europe is the perfect introduction to them

Since forming in Ontario in 2009 they have been carving themselves a reputation that is as equally massive as their name along with their back to basics approach. Typifying the phrase “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”, this is rock n’ roll at its simple, bluesy best. You could …

ZOM hail from Ireland and with it brings a grimy form of black/death metal with lashings of early euro thrash. This 3 piece are channelling the evil dealings of early Sodom, Slayer and Possessed all cloaked by a layer of black metal reverb – perhaps a touch too much, as …

A decade on from their self-titled debut album, French industrial metallers Dagoba have found themselves having to undergo something of a re-invention for this, their fifth full-length album – and not least because of the sudden and controversial departure last year of founder Izakar, whose guitar sound many fans and …

Judge it as a Megadeth album and I have a feeling the majority of 'Deth fans are more than likely going to be disappointed. Gone is the speed, the ferocity, the technicality, the balls to the wall aggressiveness of the likes of Endgame and The System Has Failed. This album is very much an extension of what was heard on Th1rte3n and also reminiscent of the style of World Needs a Hero.

The sharp dressed trio Fantasist are back with the follow up to their debut “Giggle Juice”, though an acoustic EP ‘Suited and Muted’ has also been released to fill the gap. A band that defies genres, Fantasist continue to make music the way they want, while wearing pinstripe suits. The …

Age Of Taurus were formed originally as a one man project in 2009 and after the release of the debut demo “In the Days of the Taurean Empire” mainman Toby Wright put together a full band to take to the songs to the stage. Opening track “A Rush of Power” …

It's a waspish, angry, drunken rabble of a band throwing themselves around with an evil undercurrent. This takes you back to early days of thrash infancy. There's an aggressively punkish streak running through the whole album. There's raw power and energy here by the bucketload and the album is unsurprisingly reminiscent of DRI thanks in no small part to Brecht's vocals and style that still stand out to this day.

My, how things have changed since I first saw Mike Tramp performing with White Lion all those years ago on the rock and metal programmes on TV! Then along came the grungy Freak of Nature and Mike Tramp solo career. Now this album pretty much has Mike stripping everything down …

Finnish heavy metal band Battle Beast are back with their second album

Mr Udo Dirkschneider is back! The hard working gravel voiced front man will be releasing the 24th album of his career,surely one of the most prolific writers in metal and his latest solo effort is Steelhammer,released on May 24th 2013 via AFM Records. Many metal fans will know his name …

Burnley’s Exit State have previously released two albums to critical acclaim, can this 3rd release match the success of the others? It was recorded in January 2013 and is produced, engineered, mixed and mastered by Matt Elliss at Axis Studios, Doncaster. ‘Let’s See It All’ follows hot on the heels …

Opinions are extremely mixed on the validity of sample CDs given away free with the vast majority of music magazines… personally speaking, I’m actually quite a fan of them:  they are a good way of obtaining free samples of new work by established artists, and of checking out shed loads …

Although Reign Of The Architect only fully coalesced as a band last year, this ambitious, Israeli-based progressive metal project has been five years in the making, with this album tracing its roots right back as far as 2008, when guitarist Yuval Kramer initially started work on this concept work, along …

This is a strong debut from seasoned musicians. The guitar work, backed up nicely by a strong but never overbearing rhythm section, drives everything along at a good speed