Tag Archives: music review

Young Bavarian eighties thrash ‘revival’ band Dust Bolt have dialed in some classic tones, with their new, 12+ track full-length Awake The Riot ready for enjoyment by anyone who appreciates solid, well-played thrash metal. The band wear their influences as players and as a band on their sleeves, harnessing the …

Osian is an alternative metal band from southern Italy, formed during the birth of the genre in the mid 90s. The band’s latest offering, Rhizome, is a six song disc that pays obvious homage to popular alternative music of that era: bands like Depeche Mode, Type O Negative, Ministry, The …

Appropriately titled, Livin’ In The Past by Poland’s Scream Maker is the band’s war cry and answer to the genre of power metal. With the help of star producer Alessandro Del Vecchio, they’ve nailed it: versatile, nicely ranged, fairly operatic, and genre-appropriate vocals matched to staccato archetypal guitar riffs, supported …

Industrial music influenced Italian metallers Avelion released a three-song EP, titled Liquid Breathing, in November 2013. Highly focused on electronic or digital sounding instrumentation, the band incorporates a lot of different keyboard sounds, mixed with digital “djenty” guitar. Avelion, who revamped their lineup in 2013, describes themselves as melodic progressive …

Edinburgh’s Colma Wolves have released a three-song EP, Orphaned. Songs begin slowly with distorted bass guitar, almost drone-like. The quality of Orphaned is best described as “basement practice room on an old four-track”, demo or hardcore-collector quality “only”. The recording is fairly muddy, and lacks the depth that would benefit …

Formed in 1988, Babylon A.D. hail from San Francisco, California. Former Arista recording artists, they dredged up at EP’s worth of previously-unreleased material. Titled The Lost Sessions, Fresno CA 93, and released on Perris Records, this EP serves as the band’s ‘appearance at the final UK Firefest’ teaser. The material …

With Moloch, a true and grim underground black metal band has emerged, with most of their releases available as strictly limited editions! Hailing from dark, frozen Ukraine, Nocebo Records released an eight-song picture disc of Moloch’s material, titled Verwüstung. All lyrics are in Ukranian, but the song titles are in …

Staten Island, New York’s Four Nights Gone recently released Resilience, a 5-song EP. This is the band’s second studio effort, professionally recorded at Vudu Studios with producer Mike Watts. Nicely mixed, clear and crisp, Resilience seems to be fairly straightforward, vanilla modern melodic rock: like fellow bands you’d hear on …

Keep It Sexy is the offering of St. Albans rockers Alexis Kings, released on March 11th through digital download. After hearing the single “1972”, I was quite impressed with the energy and general style of the track. It’s very Kings of Leon with the swagger of Arctic Monkeys which may …

Hampshire, UK rockers Western Sand released a four-song, eponymous EP in 2013. Well-written and well-mixed, the EP is surprisingly polished for a debut. Songs have a nice, smooth idea flow. Tunes are mid-tempo, with chunky rock licks and a big backbeat; just the right amount of dirt for the grab …

British “roots” rockers Wille and the Bandits released their full-length album, Grow, in 2013. This is an 11 track opus, consisting of varied tunes, with a sound fairly far from singer-songwriter folk and Americana that’s conjured up with usual thoughts of ‘roots’. The band has two secrets to their punchy …

The musical brainchild between Troy van Leeuwen (Failure, A Perfect Circle, Queens of the Stone Age) and Serrina Sims, California’s alt-rock Sweethead takes it’s name from a vintage “vulgar” David Bowie song, and it’s sound from the various eras of rock music. Premiered quietly in November 2013, the band’s catchy …

Check this out. The new American band, Conquering Dystopia, has their eponymous instrumental debut album on sale for about $10. Fans and listeners can legally stream the album from the band’s official website for the huge price of FREE though. Yes, in our time of “no free lunch”, this professionally …

An elusive Texas progressive metal band, Mahogany Hand Grenade, released (in May, 2013) a five-song EP, titled Return To The Point Of Departure, through bandcamp. Mastered to digital perfection by Maor Appelbaum (Adrenaline Mob, Cynic, Yngwie Malmsteen, Angra, etc.), four out of five of the tunes are six-minute-plus length. The …

Rejoice, hair metal fans, the genre still lives, although it’s migrated to Japan and… Brazil. Pleaser, from Brazil, have released their One Night In Paradise disc. Steel Panther they are not… Pleaser seem average players who take their party rock seriously. @PlanetMosh reviewer Louella DeVille states “(Pleaser is) reminiscent of …

It was irresistible to review this former Cleveland (Ohio) band’s latest release, as part of my PlanetMosh debut. Beginning in 1988, Integrity purveyed a kind of raw hardcore punk to local audiences. First signed to Victory Records, Dwid and his band began to release their music to the masses, prior …