At 78, Tony Iommi, The Godfather of Heavy Metal, returns with From The Dark, a solo album that immediately reaffirms his unmatched ability to craft the haunting, weighty riffs that have defined the genre for more than half a century. From the opening moments, it’s clear that Iommi’s creative spark remains fully intact. For this record, he has assembled a formidable lineup: Norwegian vocalist Jørn Lande,...

Metal Church stands firmly among the legends of American heavy metal, with a history stretching back to 1980. Their career has seen its share of highs and lows, lineup changes, hiatuses, and reinventions, but throughout it all, they’ve produced several landmark albums, including their self‑titled debut, The Dark, and Blessing in Disguise. Now they return with Dead to Rights, their fourteenth full‑length release, and one that introduces three significant...

This album may have been out for a few months already, but it only recently landed on my radar and it certainly deserved a closer look. Warrior Path, the Greek heavy/power metal project founded by guitarist Andreas Sinanoglou, returns with The Mad King, a release that showcases a remarkably strong lineup. For this album, Sinanoglou has teamed up with multi‑instrumentalist and producer Bob Katsionis (a familiar name in the...

More than 45 years into their career, Iron Maiden show no signs of slowing down. I caught their performance at Trondheim Rocks in 2018, and it remains one of the most memorable concerts I’ve attended. Now, six years after The Book of Souls, the band returns with their seventeenth studio album, Senjutsu, an ambitious, 82‑minute epic that leans heavily on long‑form songwriting, with three tracks stretching beyond the ten‑minute...

More than four decades have passed since Accept released their self‑titled debut in 1979, yet the band continues to push forward with remarkable vitality. Lineup changes have been frequent over the years, and since The Rise of Chaos, founding bassist Peter Baltes has departed, leaving guitarist Wolf Hoffmann as the sole remaining original member. Even so, Accept proves they still have plenty of fire left. Too Mean to Die...

Archon Angel was born out of a collaboration between former Savatage vocalist Zak Stevens and Secret Sphere guitarist and producer Aldo Lonobile. On the songwriting side the duo has received creative help from a few prominent personalities of the Italian metal scene, such as Simone Mularoni (DGM and Sweet Oblivion) and Alessandro Del Vecchio (Edge Of Forever, Jorn). The album itself deals with a central character, the "Archon", who...

'Purgatorio' is the title of the third full lenght album from Sweden's, Gothenburg based heavy metal/power metal band Manimal and it's definitely one to look out for if you're a fan of the genre. I enjoyed some of the material on their first two albums, but this new one is, at least to my ears, their best and most consistent work to date. While the first two albums tended...

New material from the amazing Mercyful Fate guitar duo Denner/Shermann has been greatly anticipated ever since I first heard rumors of this project a while ago. Now the time is finally here, and even though it comes in the shape of a four track EP rather than a full album it's been worth the wait. Among all tremendous guitar duos out there Michael Denner and Hank Shermann definitely sorts...

I must admit that Stryper is one of those bands that I used to like in my younger days, but seem to have forgotten about for the past couple of decades. I remember their mid eighties releases as good stuff though, especially 'Soldiers under command' and 'To hell with the devil'. That means I do not know much about their later albums, and therefore I didn't quite know what...

Iron Maiden is one of those bands who never let their fans down, and the fact that they have always stayed true to their style and never moved too far away from the winning formula that captured the heavy metal hordes in the early stages of their carreer is probably the main reason that they are still around nearly 40 years later. It's been five years since the release...