Death Dealer is probably a new name to some, myself included, but if you are a fan of traditional heavy metal and power metal you will soon discover a few familiar faces in the lineup, some real veterans within the genre. ‘War Master’ was originally released in 2013 on CD, but is now also made available on vinyl. Death Dealer is actually more like a US power metal all-star...
Finnish melodic progressive metallers Silent Voices, often referred to as “the other band” of Sonata Arctica members Henrik Klingenberg and Pasi Kauppinen, are back with their fourth studio effort. Seven years have passed since the excellent ‘Building Upt The Apathy’ saw the light of day, but finally the much anticipated follow up is here. The style is more or less the same as before, which means a mixture of...
‘Human Remains’, the previous album from British band Hell, hit me like lightning from a clear sky and it proved to be one of the best heavy metal albums released in 2011. Therefore my expectations to this much anticipated successor were extremely high and rightfully so. ‘Curse And Chapter’ continues where ‘Human remains’ left off and it meets all my expectations. When I first heard the opening track I...
Tad Morose must be among the most underrated power metal bands around today, despite the fact that they have delivered several strong albums throughout their career they have never really received the attention they deserve. Since the beginning in 1991 numerous members have passed through the ranks of Tad Morose and that is once again the case in front of the release of ‘Revenant’. New members on this album...
‘Obsideo’ is the third album release from Dutch death metal veterans Pestilence since the band were reformed in 2008. Their 2011 album, ‘Doctrine’, received mixed critics, some quite poor ones as well and I must admit that I’ve never been very happy about that album myself either. On ‘Obsideo’ things sounds way better, the song material is stronger and so is the vocal performance of Patrick Mameli. It also...
Emerging from Aberdeen, at the foot of the Scottish Highlands, comes Ascension, a five man strong melodic power metal band with their debut album. My first reaction after having heard ´Somewhere back in time´, the opening track of the album was something like; ”What the heck, is this Dragonforce in disguise or something?”. Well it´s not, but the similarities are definitely there both when it comes to vocalist Rick...
Deicide are back with the long avaited follow up to their brilliant 2011 album ´To Hell With God´. In addition to a very strong song material that album had an incredible warm and organic production that really brought the songs alive and lifted the whole album to another dimmension. Based on that I´m really glad to hear that ´In the minds of evil´ follows in the same footsteps production...
‘Fifth son of winterdoom’ is the fo studio album from Iron Mask, a band built up around the Belgian guitar maestro Dushan Petrossi. The vocal duties have once again been handed to ex-Yngwie Malmsteen singer Mark Boals and he does a great job as always. When it comes to the music it’s pretty much business as usual for those who are familiar with Iron Mask, which means neo-classical power...
Nocturnal Graves is a new acquaintance to me, heading from the land down under and the band have been around since 2004. ‘…From the bloodline of Cain’ is their second full length album and their style is a brutal mixture of black metal and thrash, or blackened thrash metal as some like to name it. On the lyrical side Nocturnal Graves are mainly focusing on Satanism and occult related...
Leave´s Eyes has always been synonymous with quality and I like all their previous albums, but this time everything has really been taken to another level. ´Symphonies of the night´ seed all the best of the previous albums cuminating into a magnum opus, featuring a real orchestra, choir, uilean pipes, irish wistle, fiddle and dulcimer. On top of this comes Liv Kristine´s clear and soar sophrano vocals and...