Hamerex - IX (CD Review)

01.IX Circles
02.The Life Of Death
03.Inferno
04.Edge Of Madness
05.The Extremist
06.Mortuary
07.The Stranger
08.Descent Of Angels
09.The Night Of Samhain
10.Still The Wall Remains

Chris Moules (Vocals)
Steve Blower (Guitar/Vocals/Keyboards)
Andy Firth (Bass/Keyboards)
Darren Kelsall (Drums)

The Wakefield band formed in august 2004 have so far notched up 4 demos, 2 ep's and one album 'Rites Of Passage' which got a 9 out of 10 from me in september 2011 (though not actually released till feb 2012).

The new album is the bands most experimental release to date as well as their most diverse. "We are extremely proud of what we have acheived with the new album." comments guitarist Steve Blower. "There was a great feeling going in to the studio. We'd learnt a lot from 'Rites Of Passage' and we believe we've improved on every aspect of recording and had room to experiment a lot more."
Much thought and work has gone into the cd's packaging as well and will be released as a special 6 panel digipak featuring a large amount of artwork painted by James Mullet throughout the packaging.

The album opens with the instrumental 'IX Circles' with some nice keyboard and synth mixed in, this then leads straight into 'The Life Of Death' taking its inspiration from Clive Barkers short story from vol 6 of books of blood, telling the story of strange things in a church crypt.
This one has a great NWOBHM feel, sounding like one of those classic albums from 1980, a strong vocal performance as well as some maidenesque guitar work outs.

'Inferno' has a real "proto-doom' feel with a 'heaven & hell' styled bass line, sweeping doom laden chords and another superb vocal and a shout it out loud backing vocal.

Picking up the pace with some mid paced thrash, 'Edge Of Madness', about half way through the speed picks up for that "Mosh Pit" frenzy moment and ending with a riff heavy solo.

Echoes of early thrashers Virus throughout 'The Extremist' an almost crust-punk vocal gives this an interesting edge.

Now the next track 'Mortuary' has a really familiar riff in it's intro, kind of like Armoured Saints 'Can U Deliver', whatever lonely brain cell of memory it has nudged, the song is really catchy with a great chorus, the same with 'The Stranger' great, catchy, excellent guitar work and another half remembered riff from the past!

Full on Thrash assault with 'Descent Of Angels', punchy as hell with an agressive snarl from the vocalist.

And now an 11 minute epic...... 'The Night Of Samhain', starts with acoustic guitar, wind f/x and bells, when the band kicks in the sound returns to that early doom but with some great keyboards giving a darkened ambience.
The vocalist seemingly pushed to his limits pulls off a near perfect performance, though one thing its pronounced "souwain" not "Sam Hain".
Thrown in solid drumming, bass and guitar riffs in perfect harmony and this one lives up to the term "Epic".

Finally some nice orchestration on 'Still The Wall Remains', a semi-acoustic ballad, the backing vocals just seem slightly out of sync in places but all in all a great way to end a very diverse and well put together album.

This is a huge leap forward from their previous album, musically more advanced, definately more experimental, improved vocals and better production, this one is a must have for your collection.

Rating 10/10

For Fans Of : Amulet, Witchfinder General, Elimination, Viking Skull

FACEBOOK : https://www.facebook.com/hamerex

ReVamp - Wild Card (CD Review)

01.The Anatomy Of A Nervous Breakdown: On The Sideline
02.The Anatomy Of A Nervous Breakdown: The Limbic System
03.Wild Card
04.Precibus
05.Nothing
06.The Anatomy Of A Nervous Breakdown: Neurasthenia
07.Distorted Lullabies
08.Amendatory
09.I Can Become
10.Misery's No Crime
11.Wolf and Dog

Floor Jansen (Vocals)
Arjan Rijnen (Guitar)
Jord Otto (Guitar)
Henk Vonk (Bass)
Ruben Wijga (keyboards)
Matthias Landes (Drums)

Guest Musicians:
Devin Townsend (Vocal on 'Neurasthenia)
Mark Jansen (Guitar)
Marcela Bovio (Vocals)
Johan van Stratum (Bass)
Daniel de Jongh (Vocals)

Singer Floor Jansen needs no further introduction after 12 years of loyal service with After Forever, when member Sander Gommans suffered a burnout in the beginning of 2008. Jansen posted on her website that while the band was put on hold, she was going to use the opportunity to start writing music with Jørn Viggo Lofstad for a new musical project.
In February 2009, After Forever ultimately decided to call it quits, and on June 16, 2009, Floor announced through her MySpace site that she had started a new metal band, which put her musical project with Jørn Viggo on hold. On October 17, of 2009, Jansen announced that the name of the band was going to be ReVamp.

The word revamp literally means: to renovate, redo or revise. For Floor it got the symbolic meaning that this band puts new energy into her career as a singer, a next step but at the same time a continuation of her dream. The word 'vamp' indicates, with a wink, 'woman'.

In the few years of REVAMP’s young existence the band endured many challenges and unexpected circumstances. Heavy winter storms with long periods of suffocating frost! Followed by sudden summer rains with wild streams of water that’s taking everything with it into unknown territory. A survival of the fittest! REVAMP came out stronger, more mature and with darker and more brutal music that tells the tale of this wild ride!

Singer Floor: “Never before in my career I faced a situation like the one we were in with this album. It was a huge challenge because of several reasons. My sickness caused a major break between the first album and tours plus the writing of the first ideas for the second album and the actual finalization of those songs and the album. And right at the moment we started to pick everything back up after I was sick I joined Nightwish (As replacement for Anette Olzon). Like a winter and a summer storm, they bring unexpected things, some nasty ones and some amazingly wonderful!"

So many female fronted symphonic metal bands, a very few ever live up to expectations, so it is a a nice change to hear something that is actually better than expected!

A fast and heavy start with 'On The Sideline' with a powerful vocal, but plenty of melody giving it a commercial edge as well.
Floor can hit the high notes without making you shudder and there is some evil male vocal lurking in the background.
This pace remains for the next few songs and then we come to 'Neurasthenia' an outstanding piece of music with guest vocals from Devin himself, and it sounds like Floor was pushing her vocals all the way to match his power, and together they pull off a faultless performance.

This is followed by the beautiful and melancholic, 'Distorted Lullabies' with just vocal and piano, though the distorted part later kicks in with some serious riffs!

The heavy returns on 'Amendatory' and 'I Can Become' the latter with a really neat keyboard swirl running throughout.

Then (and i had to check twice that i hadnt loaded up a Dimmu Borgir track by mistake) we come to 'Misery's No Crime' with a full on Black Metal vocal, only when Floor's voice comes in do i realise it is Revamp afterall, awesome track!

'Wolf And Dog' is a bass heavy song with classic stop start riffs and drums.

Rating 10/10

For Fans Of : Devin Townsend Project, Tristania, Within Temptation

Ulver - Messe I.X-VI.X (CD Review)

01.As Syrians Pour In, Lebanon Grapples With Ghosts Of A Bloody Past
02.Shri Schneider
03.Glamour Box (Osbinati)
04.Son Of Man
05.Noche Oscura Del Alma
06.Mother Of Mercy

Kristoffer Garm Rygg (Programming/Vocals)
Jørn H. Sværen (Various)
Tore Ylwizaker (Keyboards/Programming)
Daniel O'Sullivan (Guitars/Keyboards/Vocals)
Tromso Chamber Orchestra
Artic Opera & Philharmonic Orchestra
Martin Romberg (Arrangements)

Ulver are a musical group from Norway formed in 1993. Since their first, folklore-influenced black metal release entitled 'Bergtatt – Et eeventyr i 5 capitler' in 1994, their musical style has been fluid and increasingly eclectic, blending genres such as rock, electronica, symphonic and chamber traditions, noise and experimental music into their oeuvre, but with a heavy reliance on electronic recording techniques.
Producing an epic 2 disc set in 1998 with 'Themes From William Blakes Marriage Of Heaven & Hell' which put them at odds with the Black Metal community but unleashed them onto a wider audience and a new fan base.

There is a danger with reviewing an album like this, having seen a few already they tend to over intellectualise like some university professor of high brow classical music, for fuck sake i really hate that, because whatever the style of music performed here we are still talking about "Rock & Roll" not writing a thesis on complexity of instrumentation!

So with that in mind (and me being me) here is my review :

Track one kicks off with a very low bass rumble with samples laid over, soon blends into some nice keyboard work and sombre classical music.

A more electronic feel for 'Shri Schneider' very reminiscent of early Tangerine Dream, this same vive continues into 'Glamour Box'.

'Son Of Man' has a great vocal delivery, again very downbeat and sombre, but such great harmony to such dark lyrics.

Darkend bass rumblings return for track five, a brooding horror soundtrack, very disturbing vocals and strange synth pulses.

Finally 'Mother Of Mercy' slightly less disturbing, but keeping that creepy ambient feel right to the very end.

Rating 10/10

For Fans Of : Coil, John Zorn, Tangerine Dream, Blut Aus Nord, Akira Yamaoka

FACEBOOK : https://www.facebook.com/pages/Ulver/31166220421?fref=ts

Skindred & Soil Announce UK Tour

Chicago based heavy rock band SOiL will hit the UK as direct support to reggae rockers Skindred starting January 22, 2014 at The UAE in Norwich, England. This tour will be the first UK tour in support of SOiL's sixth studio release "Whole", available now through Pavement Entertainment and AFM Records.  "Whole" is the first album to feature original vocalist Ryan McCombs since 2004's "Re.De.Fine". A Russia and European tour will follow the UK dates.

"We are both excited and scared to tour the UK with Skindred" states SOiL bassist Tim King. "Excited because Skindred are great friends of ours and it's been long overdue to tour together again. Scared because Skindred are great friends of ours and we will definitely be in danger of having too much fun and getting in too much trouble together!" Nobody gets out alive!!!!!"

Skindred's drummer Arya Goggin says "We always pride ourselves on having great guests on our tours and we are really excited to have SOiL as our main special guests on our Kill the Power UK Tour especially with Ryan back in the lineup. They are great friends and absolutely slay it live so we cant wait to party with them. We are also extremely excited to have LA band Viza also join the tour and to bring some of their unique energetic gypsy punk metal madness to the proceedings  which should make for a great evening."


Skindred release their new album Kill the Power Vinyl to coincide with the tour.

Windhand - Soma (Cd Review)

01.Orchard
02.Woodbine
03.Feral Bones
04.Evergreen
05.Cassock
06.Boleskin

Asechiah Bogdan (Guitar)
Parker Chandler (Bass)
Dorthia Cottrell (Vocals)
Garrett Morris (Guitar)
Ryan Wolfe (Drums)

First 3 tracks are fuzzed out doom/psych workouts, sweeping guitar riffs blend with solid drum and bass patterns and a very haunting vocal style.

Then we hit 'Evergreen' a beautiful acoustic song reminiscent of late 60's acid rolk band The Trees.

Next track returns to the doom and then, wow a 31 minute monster!

'Boleskin' starts with a gentle acoustic intro over some wind fx, then those huge epic doom guitar riffs and slow drum kicks in.

Lots of echo on the vocal drive this one along like a lsd induced trance into some multi coloured hell, though i suspect the Boleskin is about 'Boleskin House' hence all the wind and rain effects as it is in scotland.

Rating 10/10

For fans of : Cathedral, Witchsorrow, Blood Ceremony, Devils Blood

2 UK Dates have just been announced :

Nov 05 Manchester UK Star & Garter
Nov 06 London UK Our Black Heart

Wolvserpent - Perigaea Antahkarana (CD Review)

01.Threshold Gateway
02.Within The Light Of Fire
03.In Mirrors Of Water
04.A Breath In The Sahde Of Time
05.Concealed Among The Roots And Soil


Blake Green (Guitar/Vocals/keyboards)
Brittany McConnell (Drums/Violin/Viola)

Three years since the first LP 'Blood Seed' saw the cruel light of day, but the Boise, Idaho duo have been hard at work on its successor. They've just completed work on their 80 minute opus entitled 'Perigaea Antahkarana'.
The album was recorded with producer/engineer Mell Dettmer (SUNN 0))), BORIS) in Seattle and in Idaho at in their home studio.

After a two year writing period, WOLVSERPENT first recorded the 'Perigaea' 2012 demo (pronounced "pear-a-guy-a") between December 2011 and January 2012, and chose to keep it under wraps until the timing was right and their doomed hymns realized their full potential. After nine months and several rewrites had come to pass, the demo was unleashed. They're now offering it as a free stream on Bandcamp and as a download or tape cassette via their official site here, but be forewarned: the upcoming full-length version 'Perigaea Antahkarana' will be an entirely different two horned beast, a completely new manifestation of the ideas heard on the demo.

WOLVSERPENT's sprawling compositions gracefully wend their way through the valleys of death, drone, black metal, doom, and chamber music and arrive triumphantly on foreign shores. Borne of the duo's 20+ years of classical training and deep appreciation for the works of composers like Arvo Part, Gyorgy Ligeti, and Krzysztof Penderecki, WOLVSERPENT's vision combines stringed amplified instruments with a 21st century approach to composition to create works that are dark, emotional, menacing, cinematic, atmospheric, and heartbreakingly beautiful.

This is quite a piece of work, epic, ambient, symphonic doom, slow and dark great use of sound fx, blended with an evil vocal, beautiful violin playing.

Rating 9/10
For fans of : Sunn 0))), Boris, Wolves In The Throne Room, Sigh, Earth

Mark Lanegan - Imitations (CD Review)

01.Flatlands (Chelsea Wolfe)
02.She's Gone (Hall & Oates)
03.Deepest Shade (The Twilight Singers)
04.You Only Live Twice (Nancy Sinatra)
05.Pretty Colors (Frank Sinatra)
06.Brompton Oratory (Nick Cave & Bad Seeds)
07.Solitare (Andy Williams)
08.Mack the Knife (Kurt Weill & Bertolt Brecht)
09.I'm Not the Loving Kind (John Cale)
10.Lonely Street (Andy Williams)
11.Elégie Funèbre (Gérard Manset)
12.Autumn Leaves (Andy Williams)

Mark Lanegan (Vocals/Guitar)

Mark Lanegan is an American alternative rock musician and singer-songwriter. Born and raised in Ellensburg, Washington, Lanegan began his musical career in 1984, forming the grunge band Screaming Trees with Gary Lee Conner, Van Conner and Mark Pickerel. During his time in the band, Lanegan also started a low-key solo career and released his first solo studio album, The Winding Sheet, in 1990.

Since 1990, he has released a further six studio albums and has received critical recognition and moderate commercial success.
Lanegan has also collaborated with various artists and bands throughout his career, including with Kurt Cobain of Nirvana prior to the group's breakout success with their album, Nevermind, recording an unreleased album of songs by the blues singer, Lead Belly. Following the dissolution of The Screaming Trees in 2000, he became a member of Queens of the Stone Age and is featured on four of the band's albums—Rated R (2000), Songs for the Deaf (2002), Lullabies to Paralyze (2005) and ...Like Clockwork (2013).

Lanegan also formed The Gutter Twins with Greg Dulli in 2003, released three collaboration albums with former Belle and Sebastian singer Isobel Campbell, and contributed to releases by Melissa Auf der Maur, Martina Topley Bird, Creature with the Atom Brain, Bomb the Bass, Soulsavers and Mad Season.

His latest solo album was recorded earlier this year and follows his early 2012 release 'Blues Funeral' and 'Black Pudding', his critically-acclaimed recent collaboration with Duke Garwood.
Mark spoke Of the latest album :
“When I was a kid in the late sixties and early seventies, my parents and their friends would play the records of Andy Williams, Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra and Perry Como, music with string arrangements and men singing songs that sounded sad whether they were or not. At home my folks were also listening to country music - Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash, George Jones and Vern Gosdin were some of our favourites. For a long time I’ve wanted to make a record that gave me the same feeling those old records did, using some of the same tunes I loved as a kid and some that I’ve loved as I have gotten older. This record is it. Imitations.”

A somewhat ecletic mix to say the least, was surprised that there was no Johnny Cash or Woodie Guthrie or Jim Morrison.
I mean 3 Andy Williams songs? Sorry but as much as its "his" album (and a touch self indulgent to say the least) it is being sold to the public so you would expect something more.
Well okay so that said, its not a bad album, its downbeat and beautifully sung, he has the most amazing voice that was what drew me to the Screaming trees, he has one helluva voice, and the Winding Sheet still stands as nothing short of perfection for any solo album made.

So for me standout tracks are 'Solitaire' mainly cause i remember it first time round, the Nick Cave and John Cale songs work very well and 'Mack The Knife' is a great song no matter who does it.

Rating 7/10

For fans Of : Nick Cave, Tom Waits, Leonard Cohen, Jim Morrison, Captain Beefheart