Tag Archives: album review

This sophomore offering from Dublin instrumentalists Parhelia has been four years in the making, being as it is the follow up to their 2009 full-lengther debut, ‘Shifting Sands’ (they previously had released two EPs, ‘First Light’ in 2006 and 2007’s ‘Oceans Apart’). ‘The Precipice Of Change’ is a hypnotic album, …

Dennis “Fergie” Frederiksen (Toto, Frederiksen/Philips, Mecca, LeRoux) is an inspiration. His long and storied music career continues strongly, despite advancing age and failing health. Frontiers Records brings listeners his newest material, 2013’s Any Given Moment. Produced by Alessandro Del Vecchio, this record has 11 tracks of melodic, smooth rock and …

Lending additional momentum to Swedish stalwart death metal band Hypocrisy‘s career in 2013, label Nuclear Blast decided to re-release the band’s seminal 1992 debut Penetralia, and 1993 sophomore effort, Osculum Obscenum. These albums are packaged in a 2CD deluxe box, featuring additional live recordings as bonus material. 2013 marks the …

Ajenda is a rock band from Belfast, Northern Ireland. Fronted by vocalist Jen, the four-piece brandishes a mellow, blues-infused rock sound that’s pleasing overall. Following the release of two platters: 2009’s Vicious Circle EP and 2011’s The Suomi Sessions EP, listeners are treated to Ajenda’s 2013 debut album, Unrecognizable. This …

Sweden consistently produces and exports very fine quality extreme metal, and their Manegarm is no exception. Compared to the band’s previous releases, this one will appeal to a wider audience, both because of the more universal English language, and a greater emphasis on mid-tempo crushers. The songs are very dramatic, …

“Primus sucks!” remains the backwards compliment paid by fans to the band, because the first thing to note about these veteran Bay Area, California musicians is that they sure don’t suck. Their sophomore effort, Sailing The Seas Of Cheese, had it’s original heyday and review cluster back before genres like …

Dedication.  One of the quintessential ingredients for success.  In any walk of life – but especially so in the music business.  Coupled with commitment, it is quite possibly THE single most important characteristic any artist (be they on their own or in a band environment) can possess if they want …

Hailing from the Saxony region of Germany, Victorius are one of a new generation of power metal bands who are emerging, from various parts of the continent (including here in the jolly old UK, it must be stressed), who seem determined to inject something new and fresh into what has …

With this, the first in a new trilogy of thematically-linked albums, German deathgore gods Atrocity have set themselves the aim of ushering in a “new era”, one in which they seek not only to produce a series of albums which are “brutal, bombastic and dark” and their “heaviest and most …

Those of you who regularly stop by PlanetMosh will be well aware of my feelings on ‘metalcore’, ’emo’ or whatever the fuck you want to call it today, yesterday, tomorrow, next week, next month, last year, when-the-feck-ever:  listen, genres are generalizations, media fancies adopted by writers who feel they must …

“Metal is the way… Devil Metal!” The prolific Nunslaughter, a pride and joy of Cleveland Ohio’s live underground metal scene, have birthed a double CD compilation record. Out on the Hell’s Headbangers imprint, The Devil’s Congeries, Vol. I features highlight tracks from some of their collector-grade past 7″ vinyl releases. Channeling …

This fifth full-length release from US metalcore mob Hawthorne Heights is billed as a concept album, based around the usual storyline (although admittedly one more often narrated by power metal outfits) about post-apocalyptic world/dystopian future where a totalitarian corporation has risen to overarching power and the ‘little man’ starts to …

Altus are a band very new to the Northern Irish metal scene, and have only been together since late last year. The band members were brought together sharing experiences from being in previous bands. I have seen them perform only once at their debut performance at this years inaugural Helfast …

I first found out about Stormzone in Glasgow, June 2009 while they were supporting the mighty Tesla on a UK tour. As luck might have it, it was great finding out about a band coming from my neck of the woods in Northern Ireland and with a similar background. Since …

I have been a fan of Queensryche ever since a friend of mine got me into them when I was a teenager at school way back when the Empire album was released in 1990. Ever since the fall-out and split with this line-up of Queensryche and former vocalist Geoff Tate …

Ordo Ab Pax, released in 2013, is the debut album from Gauteng, South African progressive thrash metal outfit, Arx. The band has an engaging, melodic extreme metal sound, a bit reminiscent (but not derivative) of Dark Tranquillity or later In Flames. The album ranges from instrumental, to thrash, to ‘hatecore’ …

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 …

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 …