Album Reviews

Austin, Texas based metal band The Sword have certainly matured on their 4th studio album Apocryphon. Even though they have penned some of their heaviest riffs to date there is a more melodic approach to some of the songs. The word Apocryphon comes from the Greek word apocrypha meaning “hidden …

The Attica boys return with by far their finest chunk of Rock to date.   88MPH certainly lives up to it’s title, a full throttle, law breaking, fuel burning, tyre screeching bat out of Hell if ever there was. Acoustic opener ‘From Dusk ‘Til Dawn’ lulls you into a false …

Chiaroscuro is the third album from Seattle band The Bitter Roots.  They have a traditional approach to recording, with all their music being recorded to analog tape, without the use of Autotune or click tracks, and doing as many takes as are needed to get the song right. The band …

Mythodea are a Symphonic/Progressive metal band from Greece that was founded by Christos Nikolaou.  With his diverse influences including classical baroque music and movie soundtracks combined with band members recruited from the Prog metal community, then the band were bound to have an interesting and varied sound. The album contains …

Ironbird are a rock band from Gold Coast City in Australia.  Formed in 2009 they released their debut EP (Hit the limit) in early 2010.  They followed this in early 2011 with their second EP (Midnight overdrive).  In late 2011 Skip Rutter joined on lead guitar and the band have …

The Black Leaves were founded in 2009 by Mads Kristensen, and since then have already released three albums including this one (The Spirit of life).  The band are from Aarhus, Denmark, and despite having released three albums are fairly unknown, so have decided to take a break from writing and …

British band, The Blue screen of death formed in 2006 by members united by their love of computer games and action movies.  The band started with a strong stoner rock influence but have gradually moved away from this since then.  Their self titled debut mini-album was recorded at the Barbican …

Minneapolis based Vaudeville are an alternative rock band who aim to combine the energy of raw rock and roll with the tightness and diversity of electronic music.  “Vendetta” is the abnd’s second album. With an introduction like that you’re probably expecting rock with some fairly prominent electronic sounds.  Well sorry …

Fivefold formed in St Louis, and as the name gives away, are a five piece band.  They formed in 2007 and since then have built a strong fanbase in the St Louis area, and have supported bands including Buckcherry, The Offspring and Redlight King. A few brief comments on some …

Dallas are a melodic hard rock band from the San Francisco bay area in the US.  The band was formed in 2010 and “Over their edge” is their debut EP.  Since recording the EP they’ve been playing plenty of gigs to perfect their live sound, and their gigs include opening …

Dianoya are a Polish band from Warsaw who formed in 2008.  Their debut album “Obscurity divine” was released in Poland in 2010.  Two years later they have released their second album, “Lidocaine” which has been given a wider release, across Europe and the US. In recent years there has been …

Captain Zorx were formed from the ashes of an underground Ska band in Berlin in 2009, and describe themselves as playing “Disco metal from outer space”.  “Maps of the ancient sea kings” is the band’s third album. The album opens with “Roter Alarm (red alert)”. It’s quite a strange track …

Band of frequencies describe themselves as “progressive surf roots rockers”.  Coming from Australia’s sunshine coast, the surf link is obvious, and the band have also toured California supporting the non-profit organisation Surfers for Cetaceans and played surfing events in Hawaii. The music is rock, but with lots of other musical …

The Illusions Of Grandeur, the 4th full length studio album from Gothenburg based melodic death metallers Evocation features a drum sound i’ve not heard since John Boecklin’s performance on Devildriver’s  album The Last Kind Words! As good as the rest of the band are, Evocation’s drummer Janne K.Boden puts in …

The stars pay homage to 87-year-old Blues guitar legend Riley B.King in this thought provoking biographical documentary, which features Eric Clapton, Keith Richards, Bonnie Raitt, Bobby Bland and Buddy Guy among others. Mr Cool himself Morgan Freeman, does the voiceover as we’re we are taken on an extraordinary journey beginning …

For anybody growing up in the early 80’s, there were certain ‘video nasty’s’ that people had claimed to have seen, yet never had, owing to the outright ban by the British Board Of Film Censorship. These included such films as ‘I Spit On Your Grave’, Driller Killer’ and ‘The Texas …

The German six piece show how to combine classic Death Metal with cutting edge riffs.   From the land formerly known as East Germany and now known as….Eastern Germany come Led Astray with their second full length release and their first since signing with Massacre Records. ’Decades Of Addiction’ will …

Asylum Pyre serve up an excellent album of Melodic / Symphonic Metal.   Formed in France in 2006 ‘Fifty Years Later’ represents Asylum Pyre’s second full length album following on from their debut ‘Natural Instinct’. Sitting very comfortably in the Melodic Symphonic camp the band have produced a thoroughly engaging …

I must admit, it came as somewhat of a surprise:  flicking through the PM archive, yours truly discovered that, despite the amount of coverage we have given to Plymouth groove metallers Huron over the past 12 months or so, we’ve actually been somewhat remiss in failing to cast our critical …

Belgian black metal mob Enthroned have been slowly carving out a reputation for themselves as one of the continent’s more accomplished, if hardly innovative, black metal outfits, and this ninth album is as solid as anything the genre has produced in the last couple of decades. There’s nothing hugely original …