reviews
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CAGE – DARKER THAN BLACK (2003)
Do you like fast heavy metal? Do you like Priest’s Painkiller? Do I ask stupid questions? The album under the eye of this reviewer is called “Darker Than Black” by an american metal band Cage. A completely unknown group to me, I purchased this album based on pretty praising reviews I had read on the…
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CANS – BEYOND THE GATES (SANCTUARY 2004)
Time has come for Hammerfall vocalist Joacim Cans to release his first solo album. At first glance the guest-list looks impressive enough: Cans’ bandmate Stefan Elmgren on guitar, Metal Mike Chlasciak on guitar, Mat Sinner on bass and former Fates Warning drummer Mark Zonder. Gus G (Dream Evil, Firewind) also makes an appearance. Big names…
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UFO – THE MONKEY PUZZLE (SPV 2006)
It’s amazing to think the first UFO-album was released 35 years ago. Yet here they are again over 10 years since their last of many come backs. The beginning of it saw the band triumph with 1995’s “Walk On Water” which was a brilliant return to form and in this writer’s opinion, rivalled everything UFO…
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SLADE – THE SLADE BOX (UNION SQUARE MUSIC 2006)
Considering the amount of success they’ve gotten in their heyday and being named as big influence for all time rock’n’roll greats such as Kiss, it’s been a damn shame that british crazee-rockers Slade seemed to had all but disappeared from the face of the rockin’ world during the 90’s and 2000’s. The band itself, of…
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HARTMANN – HOME (FRONTIERS 2007)
One of the most delightful musical surprises of 2005 for me was stumbling across the first Hartmann album “Out In The Cold”. Ex- At Vance vocalist Oliver Hartmann’s return to the music world after a couple of years’ silence was done with a rather surprising change in style. “Out In The Cold” was full of…
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MANOWAR – GODS OF WAR (MAGIC CIRCLE 2007)
The new Manowar album has been a long time coming. The band’s been mainly concentrating on releasing DVD’s since their last studio album, 2002’s “Warriors Of The World” so as the new Manowar release Gods Of War finally hit the stores recently, it can be considered as quite a major event in the metal scene.
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LEVERAGE – TIDES (ELEMENTS MUSIC 2006)
Heavy metal and hard rock are going through pretty hectic times in the mid-2000’s; new bands are popping up everywhere like mushrooms in the rain and at the same time the very description of heavy metal widens. Bands are stretching the boundaries of traditional heavy metal in very inventive ways, resulting into music that in…
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SAXON – THE INNER SANCTUM (SPV 2007)
The British legends Saxon release their new album, which must be their 22nd (or something like that) effort during a nearly 30-year career. Unlike Iron Maiden and Def Leppard among others, Saxon never reaped the true benefits from the NWOBHM upsurge. By mid-1980’s disastrous attempt to go commercial in order to crack the US market,…
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BOB CATLEY – THE TOWER (FRONTIERS 1998)
When a renowned artist heads on a solo career it is always a bit of a gamble. Leaving the cohorts of a band that made them known, their past achievements follow behind and thus they are always expected to come up with something superior to any new bands attempting to break through to the world…
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VOLBEAT – ROCK THE REBEL / METAL THE DEVIL (MASCOT 2007)
It takes maybe a split second until it hits you that these guys from Denmark aren’t exactly your typical thirteen-in-a-dozen metal group and their new release “Rock The Rebel/Metal The Devil” isn’t your typical metal album. During the first thirty seconds of the opening track “The Human Instrument” you get greeted by some heavy riffing,…