Album Reviews

Crucified Barbara formed in 2003 and released their debut album.  The Swedish all-female band got their name after attending the Roskilde festival in Denmark and in a nearby forest found a blow-up doll (generically called “Barbara” throughout Sweden) attached to a crucifix.  They’ve got a traditional heavy metal style which …

Magnolia is the tenth album from The Pineapple Thief.  For a band that started 15 years ago that’s a pretty consistent and impressive rate of work – after all so many bands take two or three years between albums whereas The Pineapple Thief average a new album every 18 months.  …

Hardcore Punk band Shaved Women released their nine track album Just Death via Ektrorecords on 8th August 2014. This four piece from St Louis, Missouri have already released three EPs. This full length offering is around 23 minutes of pure naked aggression. I don’t know how they chose the name, …

Belphegor are a band who – in common with many of their black metal counterparts – have often gone out of their way to court controversy in order to build their profile, even going so far as to have their early albums banned in their native Austria (as well as …

This second album from Oklahomans Rainbows Are Free immediately wins the PlanetMosh award for THE best song title of the year (if not possibly ever?), in the form of opening track ‘Speed God And The Rise Of The Motherfuckers From A Place Beyond Hell’.  It’s a title, and indeed a …

The story of this debut album by Norwich old school thrashers Killer Hurts is a long and convoluted one… but one which also deserves to be told, as it is pretty much indicative of how the grassroots metal scene works and how those involved within its deepest machinations manage to …

If festival slots were awarded on the basis of commitment to the cause, Darkest Hour would have been headliners for years. As it is, they’re fast approaching 20 years as a band having slipped under a lot of people’s radars. That might be about to change, however. Released at the …

Blues Guitarist Joanne Shaw Taylor will be releasing her fourth studio album in late September, before following it up with a UK tour in November (see dates at the bottom of this review). The album was recorded in Memphis and was produced by Jim Gaines, the man who produced her …

Sweden’s Freak Kitchen, featuring guitar virtuoso Mattias “IA” Eklundh, have returned with a ripping slab of musical whimsy, titled Cooking With Pagans. This 12-track, progressive rock album simultaneously “roasts” contemporary culture and explores new, quirky ways of musical self-expression. Neither pure “djent” nor pure progressive metal, this heavy music is …

Former Guns’n’Roses guitarist Slash releases his latest album next month.  For the new album, “World on fire”, he’s once again teamed up with Miles Kennedy and the conspirators, with whom he recorded his last album, Apocalyptic love.  It’s a great pairing – Slash’s great guitar work with Miles Kennedy’s superb …

      Sometimes, an album falls into your lap, that restores your faith in all that is Heavy Metal. Whilst it is always beneficial, and indeed, essential , for the music we love and worship to evolve and explore different avenues, sometimes, it is just great to get back …

@planetmosh reviews Whatever It Is by .@Estrella_Rocks. When I spoke to Estrella a few months ago they were just back from a European tour and were planning to get into the studio to start work on their much anticipated second album, a follow up to the hugely successful Come Out To …

Twenty years is a very long time to be doing anything without due recognition. Hailing from Sweden WOLF are experiencing that very same situation. I saw them a few years ago supporting ACCEPT and they were nothing less than superb. Initially I though they were a new band but to …

You cannot really fault the ambition of young German ‘post-hardcore’ proponents Annisokay.  Having already attracted considerable attention in both their homeland and elsewhere with their unique reworking of Miley Cyrus’ otherwise dire and unmentionable ‘Wrecking Ball’ (which to date has earned this Halle-based quintet almost half a million hits on …

Blind Rage is the third album to be released by Accept in the five years since they reformed in 2009 with Mark Tornillo replacing Udo Dirkschneider on vocals. As with “Blood of our nations” and “Stalingrad” it’s been produced by Sabbat/Hell guitarist, Andy Sneap. With most bands that have been …

Winter in Eden are a symphonic metal band from the North East of England.  The band has released two very good albums in the last few years, and are now ready to release their third album.  For the new album the band have pulled out all the stops – they …

It could be argued that there is nothing new in music:  everything is a re-creation, a re-invention of what has gone before. It’s all about variations upon a theme… Now, I’m no musicologist – I’m just a fan who writes about music – but my take on it is this:  …

Hard rock supergroup Mr.Big are back with a vengeance with their eighth studio album “The Stories We Could Tell”. The original line-up of Eric Martin on vocals, Paul Gilbert on guitar, Billy Sheehan on bass and Pat Torpey on drums are back with some of their most powerful material to …

As good as Steel Thread‘s studio albums are to chill out to, their live shows are a completely different animal. A lot of it is off the cuff, with assorted cover songs with added quips from members Neil Wardleworth ( vocals, acoustic guitar, percussion ) and Laura Wilcockson ( violin, …