THE DARK ELEMENT – Songs the Night Sings

Featuring the skilled Anette Olzon (ex-Nightwish) and Jani Liimatainen (ex-Sonata Arctica), The Dark Element dabbles in symphonic metal with sing-along choruses aplenty and subtle progressive undertones to it, and this 11-track LP has a rather modern and polished sheen to it. Many strong melodies and clever arrangements present themselves throughout and Olzon’s voice sounds good…

FEN – The Dead Light

Fen’s previous album, "Winter" (2017), made significant waves among the progressive black metal fans, because of its unique combination of delicate, dreamy shoegazing passages with brutal and uncompromising black metal, but the band still lacked clear compositional direction. On "The Dead Light", released this month, Fen provides that direction while not completely avoiding the pitfalls…

EDGE OF PARADISE – Universe

The symphonic metal outfit Edge of Paradise, which hails from Los Angeles, has steadily grown in stature and strength over these past few years thanks to some memorable live performances and solid releases, and this brand new 10-track offering of theirs entitled “Universe” shows a lot of musical growth and potential. I used the phrase…

PINK FLOYD – The Later Years 1987-2019

This single CD set by the legendary Pink Floyd, which is culled from the huge and expansive box set bearing the same title that was recently released, is an interesting collection of cuts and tracks by the Gilmour/Mason/Wright-led line-up (or the 1987-2019 era, if you will) and nicely illustrates the many positives of this period…

ONIRICOUS – La Maldición

This vile and nasty 6-track mini LP/CD by the Spanish death metal warmongers known as Oniricous turned out to be a really wicked surprise in that it offers well-written, memorable, and hugely atmospheric tunes that hearken back to the glory days of the aforementioned genre. With an emphasis on raw brutality and a truly sinister…

MYSTAGOS – Azoth

This is my first encounter with the one-man black metal entity known as Mystagos, and I must say that its raw and murky atmosphere is right up my alley. Deeply rooted in the occult and with a thorough grasp of how to evoke a truly sinister aura by means of strong (dissonant) riffs and unsettling…

MESHIAAK – Mask of All Misery

Meshiaak’s debut album, "Alliance Of Thieves", was a decent slab of thrash metal with strong progressive leanings, hinting at that direction for the follow up. Released about 3 years later, last month’s "Mask Of All Misery" presents a more mature band, with less thrash and more traditional metal/hard rock leanings, even blurring the line between…

HOLLYWOOD VAMPIRES – Rise

Hollywood Vampires is something quite special and unique, and these guys have been making waves in the rock community these past few years thanks to a string a marvelous live performances and a pretty damn wicked debut LP. As you can probably tell, I have been anxiously awaiting the arrival of their follow-up and I…

DØDHEIMSGARD/ETERNITY live at Blå –

  DØDHEIMSGARD/ETERNITY Anmeldt av Roger Hagerupsen  15/11 -2019  BLÅ  OSLO  ETERNITY Det er godt med plass i lokalet i minuttene før Oppvarmingsbandet ETERNITY går på , så jeg velger å plassere meg helt fremmerst ved scena. Men i det bandet går på scena ser jeg at det heldigvis fylles på med litt folk lenger bak…

TAAKE and ENDEZZMA live at John Dee, Oslo –

  ENDEZZMA live at John Dee Photo by Silje Storm Drabitius/Storm D -Live Photography   The last time I saw Endezzma was in the middle of nowhere in Sweden on a stage that had considerable sound problems and on daytime, but now under improved conditions in Oslo the show was much better. The kind of…

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