RELEASE YEAR: 2025BAND URL: https://scourofficial.bandcamp.com/album/gold Following a string of impressive EPs titled Grey, Red, and Black respectively, the immensely talented quintet known as Scour recently graced us with a proper full-length assault on the senses intriguingly titled Gold. It is a rather fitting name for this LP in that there are plenty of meaty bits and evocative passages to whet your…
RELEASE YEAR: 2025BAND URL: https://rwake.bandcamp.com/album/the-return-of-magik It has been a long and occasionally torturous wait for a new album by the Arkansas mystics known as Rwake, but March this year will see the release of a vigorous new opus via Relapse Records titled The Return of Magik. More evocative and beautifully haunting than past exploits, these six…
RELEASE YEAR: 2025BAND URL: https://floodgatemoodsproductions.bandcamp.com/ To Leave One Living Thing, the latest 2-track EP by Danish/Norwegian post-rockers Picture Ann, is out now via all the usual digital shops and retailers including Bandcamp and Spotify. The two tracks that constitute this hypnotic gem explore the notion of legacy and what each one of us leaves behind, be…
Being a huge fan and admirer of Balls’ excellent biographical study of the sadly missed Shane McGowan titled A Furious Devotion, I was quite naturally very keen on reading this “remastered” version of his book on the legendary Ian Dury. It turned out to be as riveting and emotionally charged as one could have hoped…
RELEASE YEAR: 2025BAND URL: https://sykofantband.bandcamp.com/ The previous effort by the musically devious Norwegian prog rockers Sykofant, namely the self-titled album from last year, inhabited and exuded so many wonderful traits and positives that it became one of the highlights of 2024 to this scribe. The ferventness and vigor of said record also permeates this delightfully…
– VENUE: OVO Wembley Arena – DATE: 25.02.2025 – ORGANIZER: Live Nation Photo by C.N. The mighty roar of the thunderous Pantera celebration filled the sold-out OVO Wembley Arena last night to the joy and delight of fans both old and new. With a rapturous and highly energetic crowd spanning multiple generations, there was a…
Last year I had the great pleasure of witnessing the hard-hitting Norwegian metal quintet known as Tessia live on stage in Bergen when they were competing in the Wacken Metal Battle semi-finals, and it was a night to remember. Not only was it a hugely memorable performance with the band firing on all cylinders and…
RELEASE YEAR: 2024BAND URL: https://omnibuspress.com/products/mc5-an-oral-biography-of-rock-s-most-revolutionary-band In this day and age, it might be nigh on impossible to imagine or even fathom just how pivotal MC5 truly were. Inhabiting a musical landscape that laid somewhere between raw garage rock and fierce proto-punk, these Detroit-based rebels essentially spearheaded a new movement that challenged pretty much every norm and…
– VENUE: Grieghallen – DATE: 21.02.2025 – ORGANIZER: Stageway The legendary Norwegian hard rockers TNT embarked on their Out from Under the Black Cloud tour roughly a week ago, and last night we had the great pleasure of witnessing the majestic event at one of Bergen’s best-sounding venues, namely the renowned Grieghallen. With very few…
RELEASE YEAR: 2025 BAND URL: https://godzovwarproductions.bandcamp.com/album/what-lies-ahead A relatively young band in some respects, Frightful came into being in 2016 in Gdansk and have released a couple of demos and EPs since then, but the thing is that they churn out skull-rattling and tightly executed death metal as if they were veterans of the genre. Such is…
RELEASE YEAR: 2025BAND URL: https://open.spotify.com/track/4yfVuKGz6GMOvt2mU4sEap?si=5cc3fbcbf3104db1 The droning 28-minute composition titled This Wretched Shore by experimentalists Picture Ann is out now. The bleak and windswept suite is essentially an exploration of what can only be termed permanent loneliness in various guises, and it can be as simple or as complex as you want it to be,…
RELEASE YEAR: 2025BAND URL: https://www.sonicbondpublishing.co.uk/other-books/phil-lynott-renegade A few years ago, I had the great pleasure of reviewing a thoroughly engaging and superbly researched book on the mighty Thin Lizzy titled Are You Ready? Thin Lizzy: Album by Album by author Alan Byrne. Shortly after, I purchased Byrne’s biography on the vagabond of the Western world, i.e.…
RELEASE YEAR: 2025BAND URL: https://linktr.ee/officialshrike Shrike, who hail from the city of Preston in the UK, turned out to be a bit of a musical curve ball in the positive sense of the word. An intense listen in so many ways, this richly textured long-player of theirs defies any attempt at pigeonholing and can perhaps…
RELEASE YEAR: 2025BAND URL: https://thebreathingmethod.band/ From the windswept shores of glorious Scotland comes this grunge-flavored slice of hard and heavy rock courtesy of The Breathing Method. Entitled After Everything Else and containing eleven tracks that recall some of the darker and more sludgy material coming out of Seattle and New York City in the late…
RELEASE YEAR: 2024BAND URL: https://doublemute.bandcamp.com/album/corporate-culture I can honestly say that I have never come across anything that sounds quite like Double Mute does, and I am absolutely loving that! How to even explain or describe such a unique sound as that of this Norwegian-based entity whose sonic experiments take in noise rock, electronica, avantgarde music,…
RELEASE YEAR: 2025BAND URL: https://www.thinlizzyofficial.com Considering the evocative and heartfelt nature of the first three Thin Lizzy albums from the early seventies, the prospect of immersing oneself in acoustic renditions and re-workings of some of the very best compositions from those exciting days appeared highly intriguing and interesting to this scribe. So how does the…
RELEASE YEAR: 2024BAND URL: https://steinrogersordal.bandcamp.com/album/as-i-try-to-remember-all-i-try-to-forget Released in late November 2024 and compiling his brand-new second album and his debut offering – they are basically twin records, if you will – this sweetly melancholic gem by songwriter Stein Roger Sordal of Green Carnation fame is not only tailor-made for reflective moments in front of the fireplace…
RELEASE YEAR: 2024BAND URL: https://www.sonicbondpublishing.co.uk/other-books/phil-lynott-renegade It was with great joy that I received and opened a parcel in late December containing one of Sonicbond Publishing’s latest titles, namely this updated version of Alan Byrne’s Renegade, which is a study of (and a reflection on) the sadly missed Philip Lynott of Thin Lizzy fame. From his…
RELEASE YEAR: 2024BAND URL: https://open.spotify.com/album/77WTLOCAmi8iysa1VuxNuX?si=FU3Huoz3TfaFebp8TSdHwA Udenfor, the latest 2-track EP by Danish/Norwegain post-rockers Picture Ann, is out December 18. The title track came about one late afternoon when walking through a wintry cityscape, pondering the impact of Don DeLillo’s The Body Artist on yours truly and how that overlooked literary gem eloquently and elegantly thematizes…
RELEASE YEAR: 2024BAND URL: https://godzovwarproductions.bandcamp.com/album/malignancy Malignancy is quite possibly one of the most inhuman and raw-sounding musical documents that I have come all year, and I am perfectly okay with that, thank you very much. The guitar tone is akin to slime and immediately establishes an atmosphere that can only be described as utterly unpleasant.…
