Milan-based Atmospheric/Gothic Metalers Lacuna Coil have managed to capture the attention of fans and music media through a string of highly successful commercial-sounding releases and through a really clever marketing strategy – one that takes full advantage of the fact that the band has in its ranks Cristina Scabbia who is one of the most beautiful looking women in the music industry. These very reasons, which brought many people closer to the band’s music these last eighteen years, were also the ones that steered me as far away from them as possible – I am not a great fan of the superficial. So, how did I end up preparing a review for the band’s sixth full length release “Dark Adrenaline”, one might rightfully ask? Believe it or not, something possessed me to actually ask the band’s label Century Media to grant me access to this release and I am truly happy to have done that as this has proven to be a thoroughly enjoyable experience!   more »

Ever since Amorphis first graced us with their presence back in 1990, Finland witnessed a slow but steady growth in its number of Heavy Metal bands, to the point that our beloved music is now in terms of popularity to the Finns what Lady Gaga is to the rest of the world! Throughout this process, the ‘land of the thousand lakes’ has enjoyed its own quite distinctive sound and scene so it is very strange to witness a new band such as Re-Armed looking towards neighbouring Sweden for inspiration. Anyhow, the fact remains that Re-Armed are about to release their debut album “Worldwide Hypnotize” through Massacre Records and what remains to be established is what this nine track album has to offer to Metalheads like you and me.   more »

Germany has for many years been the “breeding ground” for some of the most impressive Metal bands around and even though naming the most important Teutonic Extreme Metal band of all time may well be a matter of personal choice, only a fool would doubt the fact that Rage, the Power/Thrash trio with Herr Peter “Peavy” Wagner at the helm for the last twenty years, may well be the most prolific of them all! Why? Simply because there are not many bands that I know from this part of the world who are about to release the 20th studio album of their career! Riding on the success of last year’s truly impressive “Strings To A Web”, the power trio prepared yet another album full of passion and raw energy – an eleven track opus entitled “21”.   more »

1987 was a very important year for me. Having been introduced to the likes of Metallica and Slayer through older acquaintances friends and the invaluable guidance of the Greek Metal Hammer, it did not take long before I realised that Thrash Metal was my genre of choice. That is when the epic task of obtaining every single Thrash Metal album available began – an almost impossible task, due to the fact that the distribution of the most obscure albums of the genre was almost non-existent in my beautiful country at the time. I cannot remember how and when it happened but at some point in the early to mid-90s a copy of “Go And Live…Stay and Die”, Vendetta’s 1987 debut album, finally landed in my hands and, even though the material on offer could hardly be described as innovative, these German thrashers made enough of an impression on me so as to be genuinely pleased when I found out that twenty five years later they are about to release their fourth studio album entitled “Feed The Extermination” – an album whose review you are now about to read.   more »

I am sure that everybody is aware of the state of the world economy right now, so the fact that venues like the London Underworld which organise Metal shows are still reaching full capacity is both surprising and encouraging. Part of this success story is the understanding on the part of the music industry that for a normal working person to part with his/her hard earned cash, the spectacle on offer would have to be pretty irresistible. On the night of the 15th of February, North London experienced what can only be described as a Death Metal fan’s dream – a five band festival, entitled “Sounds Of Extreme Tour” which brought under the same roof three very influential bands – Vital Remains, Malevolent Creation and Krisiun.   more »

To say that changes on a grand scale have taken place in the Pain Of Salvation camp since they last visited London back in November 2011 as an opening act for fellow Swedes Opeth would be the understatement of the century. Having suffered the loss of guitarist extraordinaire and much loved member Johan Hallgren back in October, less than a month later it was keyboardist Fredrik Hermansson who announced his decision to leave the fold, leading many fans of the Eskilstuna-based outfit wondering over the band’s future. Whereas most bands would have opted for dissolution at this point, founding member and main man Daniel Gildenlow managed to employ the services of two musicians and, in a very short period of time, prepare them for a twenty nine day European tour – a tour that, luckily for us, made a stop at the Highbury and Islington’s Relentless Garage on the night of the 13th of February 2012.   more »

It really is no exaggeration to say that London-based NWOBHM combo Angel Witch is one truly unique band. Having formed back in 1977 (under the moniker “Lucifer”) by guitarist/vocalist Kevin Heybourne, Angel Witch went through quite a decent number of line up changes prior to releasing their 1980 classic opus “Angel Witch” – an album whose power and influence was such that it granted the band legendary status but also an album which, according to many fans and media reps, has not been surpassed to date by Heybourne and his numerous collaborators. The band’s story becomes ever so comlplicated as the years go by and even though quite a few releases managed to see the light of day along the way, the last studio offering was back in 1986 – a nine track album entitled “Frontal Assault”. Twenty five years later (!) and featuring yet another new line up, Angel Witch are about to finally release their fourth full length album “As Above, So Below” and the one thing that I am sure most of you are wondering, as I certainly did, is whether this is still a band whose work is worthy of attention from fans and media alike.   more »

One of the things that music journalists love to do, especially the ones involved in the ever expanding Metal scene, is to create new sub-genres and then christen them with all sorts of complicated names. While this tends to become an overty complicated and ever so confusing process, there are times when one could say that it is totally justified as there are numerous bands out there whose musical orientation can no longer be confined by the strict boundaries first set more than three decades ago. One such band that defies categorisation is the French duet Alcest – an outfit that has been under the spotlight for quite a few years now and whose third studio album “Les Voyages De L’ Ame” will soon occupy a prominent position on the shelves of record stores – real or virtual - around the world.   more »