RELEASE YEAR: 2025BAND URL: https://pymlicomusic.bandcamp.com/ Core is the fifth full-length album by Norwegian prog rockers Pymlico to have been released by Apollon Records (and the ensemble’s eighth overall as far as I recall), and it is easily the group’s most organic, accessible, and memorable output to date, which is saying something. The brilliant and intuitive interplay…
RELEASE YEAR: 2025BAND URL: https://www.kingkraken.co.uk/ The hard-hitting Welsh metal outfit known as King Kraken impressed me greatly with their pounding and groovy debut album titled MCLXXX back in 2023, and a few weeks ago they unleashed a brand-new maelstrom of heaviness named March of the Gods, which sees the quintet conjure up ten catchy and concise…
RELEASE YEAR: 2025BAND URL: https://depress1.bandcamp.com/album/harna-u-ie-yje There is no stopping the engaging Andrej Nebb and you cannot keep a true artist down, which is why I am now holding a copy of the latest De Press album between my filthy paws. The 70-year-old Nebb sounds as inspired and determined as ever, and his skilled bring his musical…
RELEASE YEAR: 2025 BAND URL: https://www.archenemy.net/en/ Whenever you consider the band’s name, Arch Enemy (AE) (pronounced “arkenemy” like in “archangel”?), you’re bound to have questions. Who is that arch enemy? Is he or she real, symbolic or both, or, perhaps, the Amott brothers purposely keep it ambiguous so that everyone interprets it how they please?…
RELEASE YEAR: 2025BAND URL: https://larsfredrikfroislie.bandcamp.com/album/gamle-mester The immensely talented Lars Fredrik Frøislie of Wobbler fame released one of the most delightful and perfectly evocative albums of 2023, namely the stunning Fire Fortellinger. The follow-up titled Gamle Mester landed on my desk a few days ago, and after multiple spins I can safely conclude and inform you that…
RELEASE YEAR: 2025BAND URL: https://www.facebook.com/wildnessofficial/ Wildness released a great and well-written album back in 2022 titled Resurrection, which blended melodic rock/AOR and hard rock to superb effect, and ever since then I have been looking forward to a follow-up to said piece of work. Their new record, Avenger, picks up the musical narrative where its predecessor…
RELEASE YEAR: 2025BAND URL: https://agusaband.bandcamp.com/ Agusa is a most engrossing and delightful addition to the already impressive prog rock roster of Karisma Records. Formed in Sweden back in 2013 and having released several noteworthy songs and gems since then, this musically adventurous ensemble takes us right back to the late 60s and early 70s by means…
RELEASE YEAR: 2025BAND URL: https://www.bonfire.de/ I recall reviewing Bonfire’s Pearls all the way back in 2016 and loving their take on huge-sounding hard rock and classic heavy metal with heaps of groove and class to it, and Higher Ground, which is their latest output, is a statement of intent and shows that there is still a…
RELEASE YEAR: 2025BAND URL: https://oakinoslo.bandcamp.com/album/the-third-sleep It seems like only yesterday that I had the great pleasure of reviewing the previous album by these talented prog rockers, namely the stately The Quiet Rebellion of Compromise (2022). With its deep-seated melancholy, genuine sense of yearning, and utterly captivating songs, said output was something to be admired and a…
RELEASE YEAR: 2025BAND URL: https://kryptograf.bandcamp.com/album/kryptonomicon One of Bergen’s finest and most prominent exponents of genuinely inspired stoner rock is back with a thrilling new album that is bound to please fans of the band both old and new. We are of course talking about the mighty Kryptograf, i.e. the dynamic and tight quartet who churn out…
Brazilian melodic hard rockers Landfall impressed me greatly with their spirited and energetic debut offering titled The Turning Point (2020) as it contained plenty of catchy tracks delivered with a sense of class and youthful vigor. The follow-up from 2022, Elevate, was a bit of letdown as it lacked those big, juicy hooks and memorable…
RELEASE YEAR: 2024BAND URL: https://goremageddon.be/ The Belgium-founded gore death metal quartet, Aborted, is one of those bands which are not amongst my favorites yet which I, nevertheless, have had a special relationship with for over 17 years, beginning with their 5th full length, Slaughter & Apparatus: A Methodical Overture²⁰⁰⁷, which I had obtained via the…
RELEASE YEAR: 2025BAND URL: https://theactualdarkness.bandcamp.com/album/dreams-on-toast Who could possibly resist the temptation of surrendering oneself wholeheartedly to a sparkling new album by the UK’s finest exponent of uplifting and raunchy rock ‘n’ roll, namely The Darkness? Not me, that is for damn sure! Dreams on Toast is basically the sound of the kick-ass outfit firing on all…
RELEASE YEAR: 2024 BAND URL: https://holycide.bandcamp.com/ If you miss the essential Megadeth from their first 4 (arguably 5) albums, equally essential Kreator from their first 5, Slayer from their first 6, some Sepultura from Beneath The Remains¹⁹⁸⁹ and don’t mind some D.R.I. thrown into the mix poured into a Sodomic basin, then the Spanish deathly…
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: 2024BAND URL: https://painband.bandcamp.com/ My head is empty and I need a break. I have to be hungry again to breathe and create – Pain “Coming Home” When Hypocrisy’s Swedish mainman, Peter Tägtgren sang the above words in the title track of Pain’s painfully mediocre Coming Home²⁰¹⁶, an album I panned in my review,…
RELEASE YEAR: 2024BAND URL: http://www.rage-official.com/ I tell you Jesus Christ was just an ordinary man, but he was wise, much wiser than the rest, the few to see wrote tales about him but time perverted it all – Rage “Echoes Of Evil” One of the bands which had had a very long history, tons of…
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: 2024 BAND URL: https://omnivide.ca/ When Opeth gave up (thankfully, temporarily) on the “death” part in their progressive death metal stylings after Watershed²⁰⁰⁸ (now we know why so called) there came what usually comes after a legendary metal force mellows down: an onslaught of would be successors, some whom had started while Opeth was…
RELEASE YEAR: 2024BAND URL: https://suicidalangels.net/ Once again, I must admit that I have never heard any of the Greek thrash metallers’ previous albums, but, if their 8th album, Profane Prayer²⁰²⁴, released on March 1st via the mighty Nuclear Blast Records, is any indication, to quote “Pretty Woman’s” Vivien Ward, big mistake, huge! Frankly, I have…
