Reviews

Redditch based trio State of Ember say that their music is an amalgam of metal, punk and prog rock… well having listened to their second EP Broken Horizons I can see what they mean to a certain extent. There is a definite metal, rock with a punk sensibility behind it all but the prog is a little harder to discern. Chris Tamburro ...

Jaret Reddick of Bowling for Soup is the mentor for the teenage Texas rock band, NOT UR GIRLFRENZ. They are one of the youngest bands on the planet, one of the youngest bands you’ve ever willingly listened to, and one of the youngest bands ever to go on a Vans Warped Tour. They recently visited the UK on the Bowling ...

British stalwarts Magnum have thrilled and enchanted their audiences for decades now by means of majestic, melodic, and wonderfully evocative hard rock, and this latest live offering of theirs simply titled Live at the Symphony Hall was captured in all its raw glory in Birmingham at the end of the band’s Road to Eternity touring spell in 2018. Boasting a ...

Starting somewhat gently, Clutch have hit the UK with two bands of European flavour that bring something a little different to the mix, flying the flag for the French, are the somewhat politically charged folk sounding The Inspector Cluzo, for the Germans, the desert rock sounding The Picture Books. Both bands consisting of nothing but two members. First up came the ...

Originally formed in 2012 from a group already seasoned musicians, Thunder Horse, led by guitarist/vocalist Stephen Bishop who, alongside lead guitarist TC Conally were the drivers of the industrial metal band Pitbull Daycare (I hadn’t heard of them but 10 out of 10 for the band name!) Their influences are steeped in the world of heavy rock and they cite ...

Craneium’s latest album, The Narrow Line, bares several similarities to an ancient Grecian epic; both works contain the hallmarks of a fantastical journey. For one, they surprise: shifts in tone, dynamic, and elemental feeling take the ear and the mind’s eye alike on something of a grandiose adventure that entails diversions and sharp turns that are unexpected yet thrilling. In ...

There’s really no better feeling when you walk away from an album only to go rushing back to it. So, for an album that’s inherently nihilistically melancholy at its core as Soilwork’s Verkligheten to pull this off says quite a bit. Not that you’d expect anything less from one of the leading melodic death metal bands Sweden has to offer, but ...

Not content with his resurgence with the Graham Bonnet Band, Bonnet has put most of his original post Rainbow band together to repay the Japanese faithful with a few gigs and play the songs that brought them success in that rock and metal mad country. Well, when I say most, it is a mix of his current and past as ...

Plague Years’ latest album, Unholy Infestation, hits the ear like a sharp ax swiftly cutting through a thick pile of wood; its force totes the power to alter the state of matter, fracturing all that exists with its inimitable faculty. This is because each individual musical component exudes a raw sense of authority; if isolated, they would sound compelling as ...

Hot on the heels of the wildly successful series of “Britrock Must Be Destroyed” shows across the country in may this year the The band will celebrate ‘Earth vs The Wildhearts’ turning 25 by playing the album in its entirety, an album bursting at the seams with hit after hit it’s no wonder the London show was sold out. Tonight ...