Album Reviews

Finally it’s here! The long awaited album Hell To Pay from NWOBHM stalwarts Spartan Warrior who must have felt like Spartan Worriers as it’s been a long eight year wait since their last studio release. Released via Pure Steel Records with stunning artwork by Timo Wuerz, its ten tracks show …

Falling Eden, the new kids on the rock block from Crewe impress from the off with their first self penned tune ‘Falling Eden’, due for release on March 23rd 2018 via Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music and Deezer. Backed by a powerful, thought provoking video (which you can view at …

Excite The Light Part One, the first of a soon to be released trilogy of albums by the cosmic Twisted Illusion shows that the song writing suss of Matt Jones has no bounds with another dazzling array of compositions. Six songs stretch out to just under the sixty minute mark …

IDestroy have just released their second EP, Pure joy of life. The Bristol based all-female trio are out on tour at the moment across the UK and Germany. They describe themselves as “party punk”, which really is a perfect description for this EP. It’s got that aggressive and fast paced …

Robespierre announce themselves with NWOBHM debut ‘Garden Of Hell’ There are many events throughout history that take time to come to fruition, the universe as we know it is roughly 13.8 billion years old, the Earth, a mere 4.543 billion years. In that time many civilisations have risen and faded …

Bring Me The Horizon have a lot to answer for. In the years since ‘There is a Hell…’ and ‘Sempiternal’, hundreds of bands have merged elements of electronica into their metal in order to emulate their success, to varying levels of quality. To be a trailblazer in a genre is …

For over 20 years, Arjen Lucassen’s band Ayreon has existed purely as a studio project with no live shows. The reason for that is because he always thought a live show would be impossible to do – the albums typically have a dozen or so singers, who generally have their …

Alter Bridge singer Myles Kennedy has a new solo album – Year of the Tiger. If you’re hoping for something similar to Alter Bridge then you may be disappointed – this is very different – it’s a solo acoustic album. Check out the video for the title track, Year of …

Burden Of Grief return after a four year wait with their thunder charged new album ‘Eye Of The Storm’ Great to have these guys back armed with new material, ‘Eye Of The Storm’ being their first offering since 2014’s ‘Unchained’. Obviously re invigorated and fully charged, this album certainly knows …

Jesus Jones – there’s a blast from the past. Big in the early 90s, they pretty much disappeared at the end of the 90s, with their final album, “London” failing to sell well in 2001. They’ve done a few shows since then but had really disappeared off the radar for …

Blues guitarist/singer Danny Bryant releases his new studio album, Revelation, on 20th April through Jazzhaus records. It’s his fourth studio album, and based on his two previous studio albums (“Blood money” and “Temperature rising”) I was expecting a lot from this album. Despite me having high expectations, this album surpassed …

The Last Great Dreamers (LGD) are back with their fourth studio album,  a lot earlier than envisaged by guitarist Slyder who remarked in 2014 that the band would hope to have a further album out by 2034.  The remark was probably in reference to the gap in the bands back …

Kris Barras is a former MMA fighter with a 10 year career while at the same time being a guitarist. Now though he’s retired from Mixed Martial Arts so there’s no danger of him injuring his hands and being unable to play, although he still trains MMA fighters when not …

The Rocket Dolls, a three piece heavy rock band, from Brighton self release their second full length studio album on 6th April 2018. DeaDHeaD was recorded at British Grove Studios and produced and mixed by Mark Roberts. Since forming in 2008 The Rocket Dolls won the best new band at the Pure …

Et Moriemur  break the mould with this stunning collection of tracks that together form the album ‘Epigrammata’ For those of us not previously overly familiar with the Czech Republic Doom scene, this is as good a way as any to get your feet wet. Drawing from the rich and plentiful …

Born to Destruct (BTD) a four piece Punk band from the University City of Cambridge released their ninth studio album God Of Destruction via Punkbob Recordz on 1st February 2018.  This follows 2016 release Devasteight With Destruction. Read a detailed bio here. I like the way they cleverly work the word destruction into many of …

Ahead of their world tour, Nightwish are releasing a compilation album, Decades. Existing Nightwish fans are likely to have all their albums, which begs the question – who is going to buy this album? Existing fans who are completists and have to have everything the band has ever released will …

Has Rick Springfield gone all snake on us, meandering his followers down his blues infused rocky road of life? The intro to the opening track “In the land of the blind”, seems to have a familiar sound, maybe this as on purpose but there’s definitely a similarity to Bon Jovi’s …

Falling Red are back with their latest album, Lost Souls. Once again they’ve funed it with a successful pledge campaign, but have recorded differently to their previous releases, working with different studios and producers. While they may be referred to as a Sleaze band, Falling red are far more than …

Sometimes it’s a really bad idea to read a press release before listening to an album. The one for this album starts with “Hard rock harmonica hero”. My immediate reaction was “What the f**k? Harmonica? I’m not feeling optimistic about this one”. It’s also a covers album, so I was …